 | |
| |
|---|---|
| Broadcast area | Lansing-East Lansing metropolitan area |
| Frequency | 1320kHz |
| Branding | 1320 WILS |
| Programming | |
| Format | Talk radio |
| Network | Fox News Radio |
| Affiliations | |
| Ownership | |
| Owner | MacDonald Broadcasting |
| WHZZ,WQHH,WXLA | |
| History | |
First air date | February 19, 1947; 78 years ago (1947-02-19) |
Call sign meaning | Ingham County, Lansing |
| Technical information[1] | |
Licensing authority | FCC |
| Facility ID | 39537 |
| Class | B |
| Power |
|
Transmitter coordinates | 42°37′19″N84°38′38″W / 42.62194°N 84.64389°W /42.62194; -84.64389 |
| Links | |
Public license information | |
| Webcast | Listen live |
| Website | www |
WILS (1320AM) is acommercial radio station inLansing, Michigan. It is owned byMacDonald Broadcasting and airs atalk radioformat. It features a local news department and a mixture of local and national talk personalities. The studios and offices are on West Cavanaugh Street in Lansing.
WILS is powered at 25,000 watts by day. To protect other stations onAM 1320, it reduces power to 1,900 watts at night. It uses adirectional antenna day and night. Thetransmitter is located off North Green Road inDimondale.[2]
WILS is home to the locally produced "Morning Wakeup with Mike Austin". It is heard weekdays, focusing on local issues and politics. The program was formerly hosted by Dave Akerly.Syndicated talk shows round out the rest of the weekday schedule:Glenn Beck,Sean Hannity, Rick Valdes,Lars Larson,Dennis Prager,Coast to Coast AM andAmerica in the Morning. Weekends include shows on money, health, real estate and technology. Syndicated programs includeThe Kim Komando Show andRich DeMuro on Tech. Some weekend hours are paidbrokered programming. Most hours begin with world and national news fromFox News Radio.
WILS's talk radio rival isTownsquare Media'sWJIM (1240 AM), alsolicensed to Lansing. WJIM was WILS's main competitor when both wereTop 40 stations in the 1960s and 1970s. Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck aired on WJIM prior to 2013, with both shows now on the WILS schedule.
WILSsigned on the air on February 19, 1947. It was adaytimer at 1430 kHz with 500 watts of power, and required to go off the air at night.[3] The transmitter for the station was on East Mount Hope Avenue, with studios in downtown Lansing at Saginaw and North Washington.[4]
In March 1950, the station moved to1320 AM.[5] It increased power to 1,000 watts with a directional antenna array located at 600 W. Cavanaugh Road. In 1952, theFederal Communications Commission granted WILS another increase in its power, this time to 5,000 watts daytime and 1,000 watts nighttime, using separate directional arrays. In 1966, the studios were moved from downtown to the Cavanaugh Road site, where they remain today.[4]
The Lansing Broadcasting Company, original owners of WILS, made two attempts to enter the world of television. The first was an unsuccessful UHF station, WILS-TV, which began broadcasts in 1953. A year later, the company leased it to another group, under which it operated asWTOM-TV until its 1956 demise. By that time, WILS was chasing a VHF allotment toParma andOnondaga, proposing to share time with a station to be run byMichigan State University.
WILS's second and more successful station,WILX-TV channel 10, went on the air March 15, 1959. It was owned by Jackson Telecasters,[6] a company in which Lansing Broadcasting owned a 50 percent stake, along with WJCO radio (AM 1510, nowWJKN).
WILS was a popularTop 40 music station in Lansing during the 1960s and 1970s. One noted WILS personality during the 1960s Top 40 era wasJohn Records Landecker, who later went on to great success atWLS in Chicago,WPHR inCleveland andCFTR in Toronto. Timmy O' Toole, another popular Chicago radio personality, worked at WILS from 1969 to 1971 before he joinedWLUP in 1977.[7] He later was heard weekends onWLS-FM in Chicago.[8] WILS was a fully-staffed live radio station until January 17, 1984, when the station switched to mostlyautomated programming and was known asHometown Radio 1320.
The WILScall sign was also shared with asister station at 101.7 FM, WILS-FM (nowWHZZ). From 1967 to 1972, WILS-AM-FMsimulcast a popular Top 40 format. In 1972, WILS-FM flipped tocountry music. However Jerry Marshall's morning show, which originated on WILS, continued to be heard on WILS-FM as well. Three years later, in 1975, WILS-FM returned to a twelve hour simulcast of the AM station in the daytime, followed by six hours ofprogressive rock in the evenings andjazz overnight. The rock format was so popular that WILS-FM completely broke away from the AM station in 1978. The station was dubbedRockradio WILS 101 FM.
WILS and WILS-FM were purchased by Sentry Broadcasting, a subsidiary of theSentry Insurance Company, in August 1983, signaling format changes for both stations. WILS abandoned its live full-serviceadult contemporary format in favor ofDrake-Chenault's "Hitparade" soft hits format in January 1984. (TheLarry King Show continued to air overnight). WILS-FM dropped itsalbum rock format as101-ILS in April 1984, switching to asoft adult contemporary format branded asLove Songs LS-102. The Hitparade format on WILS was dropped in the fall of 1984 with the switch to Drake Chenault's "Lite Hits" automated format, closely matching the sound of WILS-FM. Morning drive and weekend dayparts were simulcast with live personalities on the FM side.
Sentry Insurance made the decision to divest their radio properties in 1986, leading to the sale of WILS and WILS-FM to Lansing-based Northstar Broadcasting in the fall of that year. WILS switched to anurban contemporary format in September 1987, once again utilizing a Drake-Chenault format called "Urban One", with the station branded as1320 Jams. Morning drive was hosted by local air personality Michael McFadden, who also served as the station's program director.
WILS became the first 24-hour urban contemporary station in the Lansing market as then-competitorWXLA was limited to daytime-only operation. The urban format proved to be a success and continued until 1992, shortly after WXLA launched a sister FM station,WQHH, with a competing urban contemporary format. WQHH proved to be a significant competitor with its FM stereo signal, leading to the eventual end of the urban format on WILS. (WXLA and WQHH would later become sister stations of WILS.)
WILS was purchased byMacDonald Broadcasting, owner of several other stations in the Saginaw and Traverse City markets. The station switched briefly to acountry music format (simulcast with WILS-FM) in 1992, and then flipped toadult standards in 1993. It was known asUnforgettable 1320 and was an affiliate ofABC Radio's satellite-delivered adult standards/MOR music package known as "Timeless Classics" (formerly "Stardust").
The station had had this format since the early 1990s and was quite successful in the ratings with it. The Timeless Favorites format moved to sister WXLA after that station was purchased by MacDonald Broadcasting. WILS and WXLA essentially simulcast their programming with separate IDs and imaging until 2006. WILS changed its format toall-talk. It used the sloganMore Stimulating Talk Radio airing personalities such asLaura Ingraham,Clark Howard,Dennis Miller, andMichael Savage. Local personalities included then morning show host Walt Sorg, followed by Chris Holman, Tony Conley and formerWLNS-TV news anchor Dave Akerly, heard inmorning drive. Sports talk show host Jack Ebling was an afternoon fixture on WILS before moving toWQTX. In 2010, the station changed its slogan to the currentMore Compelling Talk Radio moniker.
On January 25, 2008, WILS turned on a new Windsor Township transmitter and became the most powerful AM station in Lansing. The 25,000-watt daytime signal covers much ofMid-Michigan, and be easily received as far away as Grand Rapids, Kalamazoo, Mt. Pleasant, and Jackson. The directional pattern of WILS is limited to the east to avoid adjacent channel interference withWTRX (1330 AM) in Flint. The station switches to a 1,900-watt signal at night.