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| Broadcast area | Peoria metropolitan area |
| Frequency | 1470kHz |
| Branding | 1470 WMBD 100.3 |
| Programming | |
| Format | News/Talk |
| Network | Fox News Radio |
| Affiliations | |
| Ownership | |
| Owner |
|
| WIRL,WKZF,WPBG,WSWT,WXCL | |
| History | |
First air date | 1927; 99 years ago (1927) |
Call sign meaning | Call sign randomly assigned from sequential list[a] |
| Technical information[2] | |
Licensing authority | FCC |
| Facility ID | 42119 |
| Class | B |
| Power | 5,000watts |
Transmitter coordinates | 40°34′22″N89°32′00″W / 40.57278°N 89.53333°W /40.57278; -89.53333 |
| Translator | 100.3 W262BY (Peoria) |
| Repeater | 93.3 WPBG-HD4 (Peoria) |
| Links | |
Public license information | |
| Webcast | Listen live |
| Website | wmbdradio |
WMBD (1470kHz) is acommercialradio station, the oldest inPeoria, Illinois. It broadcasts anews/talkformat and is owned byMidwest Communications with the license held by Midwest Communications, Inc. Thestudios and offices are on Fulton Street in Peoria.[3] The WMBDtransmitter site is located on County Road 2100 East inGroveland Township, Illinois.[4] The station is powered at 5,000watts, with adirectional signal. By day, a two-tower array is used, switching to a four towers at night to avoid causing interference with other stations.
Programming is also heard on 250-wattFM translator W262BY at 100.3MHz.[5] WMBD is not licensed to broadcast inHD;[6] however, it is carried on an FMsister station's HDsubchannel, 93.3WPBG-HD4.
WMBD has local shows in morning and afternoondrive time. Weekdays begin withGreg & Dan (Greg Batton and Dan Diorio) withThe Phil Luciano Show in afternoons. The rest of the weekday schedule is made up ofnationally syndicated talk shows:Armstrong & Getty,The Ramsey Show withDave Ramsey, Markley, Van Camp & Robbins (based at WMBD),The Dana Loesch Show,Coast to Coast AM withGeorge Noory andThis Morning, America's First News with Gordon Deal.
Weekends include shows on home improvement, rural life, religion, technology and the law. Weekend syndicated programs includeThe Kim Komando Show,Bill Handel on the Law,Sunday Nights with Bill Cunningham,The Weekend with Michael Brown,The Jesus Christ Show with Neil Saavedra andSomewhere in Time with Art Bell. Most hours begin with an update fromFox News Radio. The station also carriesBradley Braves basketball games fromBradley University in Peoria.
WMBD began operations during a chaotic period when most government regulation had been suspended, with new stations free to be set up with few restrictions, including choosing their own transmitting frequencies. The station was first licensed on January 3, 1927, to Enos Kahler's Peoria Heights Radio Laboratory at 107 East Glen Avenue, operating on a self-assigned "split" frequency of 1075 kHz.[7] The call letters were randomly assigned from a sequential list of available call signs; when Kahler was notified of the call letters, his family worked to find a slogan to match the call sign; one person recalled then-PresidentTheodore Roosevelt once describingGrandview Drive, the location of the station's original studios, as "the world's most beautiful drive".[1]
Following the establishment of theFederal Radio Commission (FRC), stations were initially issued a series of temporary authorizations starting on May 3, 1927,[8] which reassigned WMBD to 1080 kHz. In addition, stations were informed that if they wanted to continue operating, they needed to file a formal license application by January 15, 1928, as the first step in determining whether they met the new "public interest, convenience, or necessity" standard.[9] On May 25, 1928, the FRC issuedGeneral Order 32, which notified 164 stations, including WMBD, that "From an examination of your application for future license it does not find that public interest, convenience, or necessity would be served by granting it."[10] However, the station successfully convinced the commission that it should remain licensed.
On November 11, 1928, the FRC implemented a major reallocation of station transmitting frequencies, as part of a reorganization resulting from its implementation ofGeneral Order 40. WMBD was assigned to 1440 kHz, sharing time withWTAD.[11] In 1935, WTAD moved to 900 kHz, which allowed WMBD to begin unlimited operation. On March 29, 1941, WMBD, along with most of the stations on 1440 kHz, moved 1470 kHz, its location ever since, as part of the implementation of theNorth American Regional Broadcasting Agreement.
WMBD was a long-timeCBS Radionetwork affiliate until 2001. Through the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s, WMBD aired the CBS line up of dramas, comedies, news, sports,soap operas,game shows andbig band broadcasts during the "Golden Age of Radio."[12]
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WMBD has for many decades broadcast afull service format, offering news, talk, weather, agricultural reports, sports and music. Past announcers included Bob Carlton, Farmer Bill, Milton Budd, andJohn Williams, who is now atWGN. The station always had strongagribusiness coverage to serve rural portions of its coverage area, and for many years had a noon farm show, which has now moved tosister stationWIRL.Colleen Callahan was the long-timeagriculture news director.
WMBD is theflagship station forCompass Media Networks'Markley, Van Camp and Robbins, which rolled out in syndication in 2019. Prior to the death ofRush Limbaugh, the trio had recorded their show while Limbaugh was broadcast live on WMBD. Markley, Van Camp and Robbins originally aired on WMBD on a three-hour delay.[14]
WMBD has broadcastBradley Braves basketball games for over 60 years. Current Bradley announcer isDave Snell who has been doing Bradley play-by-play since 1979. WMBD carriedSt. Louis Cardinals baseball games for many years until 2014, when those games moved to sister station WIRL.
WMBD is no longer co-owned withWMBD-TV channel 31; Midwest Television, which owned WMBD,WPBG, and WMBD-TV for decades, divested itself of all its stations outside ofSan Diego in the 1990s, selling WMBD-TV toNexstar Broadcasting and the radio stations to JMP Radio Group, a local division ofTriad Broadcasting. Triad has since boughtWIRL,WSWT,WXCL, and WDQX (nowWKZF). Effective May 1, 2013, Triad sold WMBD and 29 other stations to L&L Broadcasting for $21 million. L&L was later merged into parent companyAlpha Media in February 2014.
On February 4, 2019, Alpha Media announced that it would sell its Peoria cluster toMidwest Communications for $21.6 million.[15] The sale closed on April 30, 2019.