WKIE
Encyclopedia : W : WK : WKI : WKIE
WKIE 92.7 FM is a radio station part of Nine FM "We Play Anything" serving the Arlington Heights, Illinois area, owned by Newsweb Corporation. The station transmits on a tower with WPPN and WVIV in nearby Buffalo Grove with 1,800kw.
History
92.7 has a long history of various formats including CHR (WEXI) in the late 60s and early 70s, as well as country. In the early 80s, the station's calls were changed to WSEX with an Adult Contemporary format. In the mid-late 80s the station had a "Top 10" or "Hot Hits" format with a very repetative playlist still under the calls WSEX. In the early 90s, the calls were changed to WCBR under the name "The Bear" or "Chicago's Bear" In the mid-late 90s the station became a mixture of brokered and AAA programming. One of the most known brokered programs was "Cyber Radio" which featured dance music over the weekends. In early 1998, Big City Radio Group took over WCBR and WBRO in Kankakee (also on 92.7) Many of the brokered programs that were on the station were moved to a then satellite AC station WJKL in Elgin. When Big City took the stations over, the station stunted with a simmulcast of their Los Angeles market sister "Y 107" which had a modern rock format. This lasted until Fall 1998 when the simmulcast was switched to their local sisters WXXY/WYXX (103.1) which at the time had a rhythmic oldies format.
In November 1998, WCBR and WBRO launched their official format, CHR as "92.7 KISS FM." with the first song being "Kiss" by Prince. This would be Chicago's first CHR station in many years and prooved to be quite successful, especially with the weak signals between the 2. In early 1999, the calls were changed to WKIE and WKIF. In summer 1999 Big City took over WDEK 92.5 in Dekalb, IL (which was locally programmed CHR at the time) and began simmulcasting it with WKIE and WKIF. Not long after, the slogan was adjusted to "92 KISS FM"
CHR lasted on WKIE, WKIF and WDEK through January 2001. On January 12th 2001, Clear Channel flipped it's full signal WUBT from rhythmic oldies to CHR as WKSC "Kiss 103.5" At that time, they issued a cease and decist order to Big City Radio insisting they stop using the "Kiss" moniker. They kept on as "92 KISS FM" with CHR until January 26th 2001, when they flipped the 3 to a pretty much un heard of format. Dance. The dance format launched at 4PM with "Last Kiss" by Pearl Jam being the last song of the CHR format. The new station was dubbed "Energy 92-7&5" The airstaff and voice guy Sean Caldwell reamined in tact.
In it's early days, Energy was very heavy on pop hits from artists like The Backstreet Boys, *NSYNC, Britney Spears and Crazytown. The rest of the music consisted of various non mainstream dance hits heard in very few other places on American radio. The pop side of things was eased out by 2002 with the playlist becoming for the most part full blown dance. Energy gained lots of attention and was well loved by many people.
In late 2002, early 2003, it was announced that Big City Radio was going out of business due to investment problems. WKIE, WKIF and WDEK were to be sold to Spanish Broadcasting System and WXXY only (which had a Spanish format programmed by Big City since January 2001) to HBC (now Univision)
Energy spent January 3rd (Friday) thru the end of January 5th (Sunday) doing a big blow out. Taking requests, cleaning out the prize closet, saying goodbye, etc. Just before 11:50PM, Program Director Chris Shebel gave the final goodbye. A error with the cart machine in the studio caused a period of dead air after Chris' speech ended. This led to SBS to thinking this was the go ahead and launched the new format (Spanish Hot AC "Onda 92") 10 minutes early. With that, Energy's final song wound up being the first song they played when they launched the format in 2001: "The Launch" by DJ Jean.
Onda 92 never really took off in the ratings, so in June of 2004 it was announced that SBS would sell WKIE, WKIF and WDEK to Newsweb Corporation, which owns various brokered AM stations in the market and a variety hits station WRZA better known as "Nine FM"
In November of 2004, it was announced that Newsweb would take WKIE and WDEK to a simmulcast of WRZA while switching WKIF to CNN Headline News (audio of the TV network) This would provide better coverage to the north and west sides that WRZA doesn't make.
At 12AM on November 22nd 2004, Onda ended with the song they launched with (very similar to the way Energy went out) "Suerte" by Shakira. After the song ended, the EAS system was tested twice (once for WDEK and again for WKIE) After 30 minutes of dead air, The Beatles - Revolution #9 along with various movie/newsclips and a message to "Join us this morning at 9AM" came on the air.
At 9AM, November 22nd 2004, WKIE and WDEK began simmulcasting with WRZA and remain so today.
External links
- http://www.weplayanything.com
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