Radio The Bet Chicago (WCFS)

WCFS-FM (105.9 FM), also known as "Fresh 105.9", is a radio station licensed to Elmwood Park, Illinois. It serves the Chicago, Illinois, market. It is owned by CBS Radio and is consulted by Greg Dunkin, who also holds the nationally registered Fresh FM and related trademarks. This station, even though considered as adult contemporary by CBS Radio and others, primiarily plays hot adult contemporary/adult top 40 hits, but is still reported on Mediabase & Nielsen BDS on the adult contemporary panel. It was the softest of the Fresh stations owned by CBS Radio until KEZK-FM St. Louis, Missouri became that title on December 27, 2010.This section needs additional citations for verification.Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (November 2007)According to the "Broadcasting Yearbook", the station's original call letters were WLEY; the LEY stood for Leyden Township where the station was located. Original programming was in English and Polish.In a discussion at his store (Metro Golden Memories), it was noted that an early English-language announcer at the station was Chuck Schaden as a visitor, then employee in the early 1960s. At the time, WLEY was located in a non-air-conditioned three-room shack behind an awning store near Grand and Harlem in Elmwood Park, Illinois. The broadcast tower still stands on the west side of Harlem Ave, but the WCKG transmitter relocated to the Sears Tower, one of the first to use its broadcast facility.The Broadcasting Yearbook notes that WXFM was originally a local station for Elmwood Park. It was broadcast on 107.1 in the early 1950s, moving to 105.9 by 1960. When the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) shut down Chicago FM WCLM (because it broadcast horse race results on its sub-carrier), WXFM moved to the WCLM studio in the 333 N. Michigan Building, downtown.The FCC website references that the station was sold by its original owner, Zeb Zarnecki, to Evelyn Schoenfield, a school teacher. Schoenfield hired Robert Victor to run the station. Victor was the son-in-law of Sol Polk, owner of Polk Brothers appliance stores. Polk Brothers sponsored several fine arts programs on the station. In the early 1960s, Victor took financial control of WXFM, without FCC approval. That move caught up with him as the FCC revoked the station license and put the frequency up for bid. Bidders included a Blue Island, Illinois station owner who had run WRBI-FM there, and Victor himself. Because of his radio programming experience, Robert Victor was awarded the new license, now called WXFM Incorporated.Announcers in the 1960s included Stu Olsen (now in California), Al Von Maisch (the overnight host), Tod Branson (later a Milwaukee sportscaster), George Miller (night host) and Tom Jurek (sportscaster).WXFM played a mix of classical music, folk music, and broadway showtunes. Sponsors included Polk Brothers (for the overnight show). The station also featured jazz and was the original home of TRIAD—an "underground rock show". It was affiliated with the "Market One Network", a sales representative who also sold for WQXR in New York City. In its last days before being sold to Cox Communications, WXFM featured a brokered jazz format on weekdays and a gospel music format on weekends, which included broadcasts of the Sunday services of several African-American Churches. Weekday jazz disc jockeys included Dick Buckley and Daddy-O Holmes Daley.In 1984 the station was sold to Cox Communications, and it became Top-40 as WAGO "G-106," featuring John Records Landecker in mornings, who had made a name for himself on WLS. The format was changed to AOR in February 1985 and the call letters became WCKG. Initially the station played rock from 1964 through the then-present day, focusing on 1970s rock, but still playing a lot of current product. WCKG hired several former on-air staff from the formerly AOR WMET, which had evolved to AC.By the late 1980s the station began to lean toward classic rock, and by 1990, WCKG was a classic rock station. The station was sold to CBS Radio in May 1996. The station evolved into a talk format in July 1996 with the addition of Chicago radio legend Steve Dahl in the afternoons and The Howard Stern Show in mornings, remaining classic rock in the other dayparts. By 1998, WCKG had evolved to a talk format outside of overnights and weekends; the remaining music would be phased out by 1999. During this time, the station continually flipped monikers, from "Chicago's Super CKG" to "105.9 The PaCKaGe" to "105.9 WCKG" to "Chicago's Fun House". The return of rock to overnights and weekends in 2002 resulted in the station's re-positioning as "Talk That Rocks"; the playlist initially focused on active rock which slowly evolved to mainstream rock before being removed again by 2004. On October 25, 2005, with the re-branding of Infinity-owned FM talk stations to the "Free FM" brand, WCKG became known as "105.9 WCKG, Chicago's Free FM".With Stern's departure from terrestrial radio on December 16, 2005, Infinity announced that effective January 3, 2006, WCKG would become the flagship radio station of Rover's Morning Glory. Following months of poor ratings, Rover's Morning Glory was dropped on August 1, 2006, and was replaced by the New York-based The Opie and Anthony Show. Steve Dahl continued to anchor the radio station with his afternoon drive-time show featuring newsman Buzz Kilman.In early 2007, WCKG placed more emphasis on local announcers, with new programs featuring Matt Dahl and Garry Meier, and dropped the "Free FM" name to become "Chicago's FM Talk Station". On July 23, 2007 at 2:00 p.m., the station began calling itself "The Package" once again, at the urging of Steve Dahl. These moves, however, were not enough to save the station's ratings, which despite an upward turn thanks to Meier, had still not recovered from loss of Stern.October 29, 2007 was the last day of the talk format on WCKG, as hosts and station staff said their goodbyes on-air. Lance (2007-11-05). "WCKG Becomes Fresh 105.9". FormatChange.com. http://www.formatchange.com/wckg-becomes-fresh-1059/. Retrieved December 17, 2007.  At 5:00 p.m. that day, Steve Dahl announced that his show would continue to air through November 2 on WCKG, with best-of clips airing for the rest of the day, and his entire show moving to sister station WJMK on November 5.From October 29 until November 4, 2007, WCKG played clips of the Steve Dahl Show around the clock. On November 2 CBS Radio planted stories with the media writers at the Chicago Sun-Times and Chicago Tribune that the station would switch to an all-Christmas format that afternoon before an after-Christmas unveiling of its actual new format. However this was a ruse, designed to throw future competitor and long-time ratings leader WLIT-FM off from its plans to start playing all-Christmas beginning November 8. WLIT ended up switching to all-Christmas music the morning on the 2nd; CBS Radio "backed off" its all-Christmas plan (which was actually designed to give the future WCFS a two-month head start on WTMX), and continued to play the best of Dahl all weekend.Dahl's show moved to WJMK and became its new morning show on Monday, November 5. That day, WCKG simulcast several of Chicago's other CBS Radio affiliates. From 5:30 to 10 am, it simulcast Dahl's first show on WJMK. From 10 am until 2 pm, it simulcast WSCR. From 2 to 4 pm, it simulcast WXRT, and from 4 to 5 pm, it simulcast WBBM-AM. At 5 pm local time, after the CBS Radio News bell for the top of the hour newscast, WCKG became Fresh 105.9 with an adult contemporary format. The first song played was "Beautiful Day" by U2. The station shares its branding with sister station WWFS in the New York City area.WCKG was the flagship station of the NBA's Chicago Bulls from 2006 until 2007. With the demise of WCKG's talk format, the Bulls returned to WMVP.The station adopted the new WCFS calls on November 26, 2007, after FCC approval. A religious station owned by the Christian Fellowship Church in Du Quoin, Illinois also uses the same calls, but is a low power FM station, and thus identifies as WCFS-LP and will be able to keep those calls.On Monday, April 13, Program Director Mike Peterson named Rick Hall as afternoon host. Previously, Hall worked double duty as weekend/fill-in host at sister station WUSN/US*99.5 and music director–midday host at Milwaukee's WFZH Contemporary Christian "105.3 The Fish."On Monday, September 28, 2009, Roxanne Steele, former B96/Chicago radio DJ, announced she would be returning to CBS Radio for afternoon host duties at Fresh 105.9. Rick Hall moves to mornings on a temporary basis as morning man Mike LeBaron exits.On November 30th, Steve Fisher debuted as the new morning man on FRESH. Upon Fisher's arrival, Rick Hall was moved to middays. However less than a year later, new program director Jim Ryan told reporters that Hall had been released in favor of FRESH weekender Brook Hunter .In February 2010, it was reported that WCFS may soon be replaced by a simulcast of sports radio station WSCR, but no official announcement has been made. This is more likely to go to WJMK instead, ending the adult hits format at the station due to the adult hits format also heard on Bonneville International's WILV 100.3, and merging Jack FM's classic hits playlist with the Fresh 105.9 AC playlist.On March 30, 2010, it was announced that Program Director Bill Gamble left CBS in Chicago. Besides WCFS, Gamble programmed for CBS country music WUSN ("US99.5").WCFS-FM is the only station in Chicago sharing a similar format to WLIT-FM since the flip of WILV to adult hits in 2010.