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WIND

City	Chicago, Illinois
Broadcast area	Chicago metropolitan area
Branding	AM 560 The Answer
Slogan	News. Opinion. Insight.
Frequency	560 kHz
First air date	August 16, 1927[1]
Format	News/Talk
Power	5,000 watts
Class	B (Regional)
Facility ID	67068
Transmitter coordinates	41°33′54″N 87°25′11″W / 41.56500°N 87.41972°W / 41.56500; -87.41972Coordinates: 41°33′54″N 87°25′11″W / 41.56500°N 87.41972°W / 41.56500; -87.41972
Callsign meaning	W - INDiana (originally licensed to Gary, Indiana), WINDy City
Former callsigns	WJKS (1927-1933)[2]
Affiliations	Salem Radio Network Fox News Radio Premiere Networks Northern Illinois Huskies (NCAA)
Owner	Salem Media Group (Salem Media of Illinois, LLC)
Sister stations	WYLL
Webcast	Listen Live
Website	www.560theanswer.com

WIND (AM 560) is a radio station based in Chicago, Illinois, broadcasting its talk radio format on 560 kHz. Studios are located in suburban Elk Grove Village, while it transmits from a four-tower array in Griffith, Indiana.

WIND is owned by Salem Media, a company specializing primarily in Christian radio.

Due to its location near the bottom of the AM dial, transmitter power, and the surrounding region's flat land, WIND's daytime signal provides at least secondary coverage to a large slice of Illinois, as well as most of southeastern Wisconsin and much of Indiana. At night, it switches to a directional pattern in order to protect other stations on the frequency. This concentrates WIND's signal in the Chicago and Milwaukee areas.

Programming

WIND is similar to many of Salem's other secular talk stations, airing hosts Michael Medved, Dennis Prager, Hugh Hewitt and Mike Gallagher. WIND also carries syndicated conservative talk host Sean Hannity and family finances adviser Dave Ramsey. WIND currently airs two local shows on the weekdays, Chicago's Morning Answer with Amy Jacobsen and Dan Proft (5–9 a.m.) and Joe Walsh (5–7 p.m.).

On weekends, WIND airs shows dealing with money, real estate, aging and gardening. Part of the weekend schedule is brokered programming. WIND is the flagship station for Carl Amari's nationally syndicated nostalgia & showbiz program "Hollywood 360" which airs Saturday evenings from 8 pm till Midnight. National news headlines from Fox News Radio are aired hourly.

History

The station began broadcasting on August 16, 1927, holding the call sign WJKS, and was originally licensed to Gary, Indiana.^[2][3][1] It initially operated at 1290 kHz, and shared time with WSBC.^[2][3] Its studio and transmitter were located in the Gay Mill Ballroom, in Gary's Miller Beach neighborhood.^[1][2] The station was owned by the ballroom's owners, Thomas Johnson and Frances Kennedy.^[1]
In 1928, its frequency was changed to 1360 kHz, where it shared time with WGES.^[2] Ralph Atlass purchased a 50% stake in the station in 1931.^[4][1] In 1932, WJKS's studios were moved to the Gary State Bank Building.^[2]

The station moved to its present 560 kHz frequency in 1933, after Chicago stations WIBO and WPCC, which had been operating at 560 kHz, were shut down.^[2][5] The station began full-time operations, and ran 1,000 watts.^[2] Its call sign was changed to WIND the same year.^[2] In 1934, the station's daytime power was increased to 2,500 watts and in 1935 its daytime power was increased to 5,000 watts.^[2] Its nighttime power was increased to 5,000 watts in 1941.^[2]

In 1944, WIND's studios were moved to Chicago's Carbide & Carbon Building, and in 1947 its studios were moved to the South tower of the Wrigley Building.^[2]

In 1946, Ralph Atlass sold his stake in WIND to newspaper publisher John S. Knight for $800,000.^[6] Atlass remained station manager of WIND.^[6]

Eddie Hubbard began hosting a popular music program called the ABC Club in 1945.^[7][8] By the late 1940s, much of the station's schedule was devoted to contemporary music.^[8][9][10] WIND was Chicago's leading hit music station in the 1950s.^[11][10] From 1945 to 1957, WIND held the exclusive local rights to broadcast Chicago Cubs baseball.^[12]

Howard Miller was WIND's program director from 1945 to 1949.^[1][13][14] In 1950, Miller started a longtime run as Chicago's top rated morning DJ.^[13][14][15] Miller would remain Chicago's top rated radio personality until leaving the station in 1968.^[13][14]

Over the years, other WIND personalities included Bernie Allen, Lee Rogers, Dick Williamson, Perry Marshall, Kassidy, Joel Sebastian (1986),^[16]Milo Hamilton, Robert W. Morgan, Doug Dalghren, Chuck Benson and Kurt Russell, Clark Weber, Jerry G. Bishop, Ron Riley,^[17] Ron Britain,^[18]Steve King, Bill Jurek, and Connie Szerszen.^[19] Overnight programing began with "Night Watch" featuring Bruce Lee, who was then followed by several other hosts, including Larry "The Legend" Johnson and Eddie Schwartz (who was also music director for a time).

From the 1940s until the demise of the music format, following the 2 am newscast, WIND played "The Whiffenpoof Song." The station had a library of over 100 versions of this song.

In 1956, the station was sold to Westinghouse Broadcasting for $5.3 million, which at the time was a record amount for a radio station.^[2][20][21] Westinghouse expanded the news department, adding such names as Walt Hamilton, Dick Brazie, Dick Elliott and Bernard Shaw (later of CNN). WIND pioneered 5 minute newscasts at the top and bottom of every hour, and a "meteorologist" (for many years, Earl Finckle) doing the weather forecast, hourly.

By the 1960s, though WIND, along with other Westinghouse stations, employed a "gentle top 40" (an early version of what is now called Hot Adult Contemporary). By 1971, WIND evolved into an oldies-heavy adult contemporary format.

The station was managed from 1968 to 1977 by Phil Nolan, who held the titles of Vice President and General Manager. In 1973, WIND won the George Foster Peabody Award for their series "From 18th Street: Destination Peking."^[22]

By 1977, WIND played music during the day along with local news until 10 p.m., when they would switch to call-in talk programming featuring Dave Baum (called "Contact"). Similar formats were on Westinghouse sister stations like WBZ in Boston, WOWO in Fort Wayne and KDKA in Pittsburgh. During these years, WIND and WGN had similar formats except that the latter played less music. By 1978, WIND switched to a mostly satellite-delivered news/talk format and opted to add local talk shows in the morning. When WIND evolved into talk, their tape cartridges, which held the 2000+ song music library, were sent to WOWO.

In 1981, WIND added all-news blocks between 6:00-9:00 a.m. and 3:00-7:00 p.m. By this time, however, the station's ratings were in decline, as well as having lower than expected advertising revenues.

In September 1985, Westinghouse announced that they would sell WIND to Tichenor Radio for $6.85 million. The radio station then moved to the 625 N. Michigan building.^[23][24] Westinghouse would only have a two-year break from owning a Chicago station, with their purchase of WMAQ from NBC in 1987.

On December 12, 1985, at 1:03 p.m., on the same day of the closing of the sale to Tichenor, WIND officially signed off the air by playing "The Whiffenpoof Song" and "The Star-Spangled Banner".^[25][26][27] About two weeks later, WIND signed back on the air and flipped to a Spanish adult contemporary music station, including Spanish-language news and talk shows. WIND evolved into Spanish news and talk by 1990 (along with some Spanish language play-by-play of professional sports), but eventually brought back music. In 1998, Tichenor merged with Heftel Broadcasting (which Clear Channel Communications had acquired controlling interest in 1996) to form Hispanic Broadcasting, in which Clear Channel retained a minority stake. Five years later, when Hispanic Broadcasting merged with Univision, Clear Channel relinquished its minority stake in the company, which was renamed Univision Radio.

In 2004, Univision Radio announced that they would swap stations with Salem Communications. Univision Radio wanted to move their music format to an FM station, while Salem wanted a major AM station as an outlet for its syndicated talk radio programming. This resulted in Salem acquiring WIND, while Univision Radio received WPPN. On October 25, 2004, WIND once again became an English-language talk station.^[28]

On January 21, 2013, WIND rebranded as AM 560 The Answer, to follow suit with other Salem Communications-owned stations.^[29]

Sportscasts

Effective July 1, 2005, WIND entered into a three-year agreement with the University of Illinois to carry Fighting Illini football and men's basketball games, as well as the coaches shows, through the Illini Sports Radio Network. Those broadcasts continued through the 2013 football season, with the Illini moving back to their longtime Chicago affiliate, WSCR.

WIND was formerly the alternate station of the Chicago Blackhawks and the Northwestern Wildcats in the case of scheduling conflicts at their flagship, WGN. Conflicting games were moved to WGWG-LP, the Tribune Company's new sports talk station, after its start-up in February 2014.

References

External links

• 
  WIND official radio station website


• Query the FCC's AM station database for WIND


• Radio-Locator Information on WIND


• Query Nielsen Audio's AM station database for WIND