WOKY
iHeartMedia, Inc. | |
WISN, WKKV-FM, WMIL-FM, WRIT-FM, WRNW | |
History | |
First air date | August 31, 1947 | (as WEXT at 1430)
Former call signs | WEXT (1947–1950) |
Former frequencies | 1430 kHz (1947–1950) |
Call sign meaning | Mil-WOKY, phonetically pronounced like Milwaukee |
Technical information | |
Facility ID | 63917 |
Class | B |
Power | 5,000 watts day 1,000 watts night |
Transmitter coordinates | 42°58′32″N 88°03′56″W / 42.97556°N 88.06556°W |
Links | |
Webcast | Listen Live |
Website | thebig920 |
WOKY (920
By day, WOKY is powered at 5,000 watts. But to protect other stations on 920 AM from interference, it reduces power at night to 1,000 watts. It uses a directional antenna with a four-tower array. The transmitter site is behind the studios in Greenfield.[1] WOKY broadcasts using HD Radio technology.[2]
History
WEXT
The history of WOKY can be traced back to WEXT, a 1,000-watt
In the wake of WEXT's success, the Bartell family applied for full-time broadcast operations, and the result was a move down the dial to AM 920 on September 1950 and a new
Top 40 WOKY
Over time, contemporary music became the primary component of WOKY's schedule, with
WOKY served as the city's premier Top 40 station during most of the 1960s and 1970s. It was known for much of that time as the "Mighty 92." Along with Chicago Top 40 giants WLS and WCFL, the Mighty 92 was also a favorite of teenagers in Western Michigan who picked up the signal from across Lake Michigan.
Popular disc jockeys on WOKY, during the Top 40 years, included Bob White, "Mad Man" Michaels, "Lucky" Logan, Mitch Michael, Sam Hale, Ron Riley (later with WLS Chicago), Bob Barry, Carl Como, Paul Christy, Michael Lee Scott, Jim Brown, Pat McKay, Jack McCoy, Ronnie Knight, Johnny Dark, Craig Roberts, Jack Lee, Robb Edwards, Gary Price, Gene Johnson, Jon "Rock 'n Roll" Anthony,
Adult Standards and Oldies
As FM stations became the choice for radio listeners looking for contemporary music, WOKY shifted to an adult standards format in early-1982. It became a full-time affiliate of Al Ham's Music of Your Life format, based in Connecticut.
To keep up with demographic trends, WOKY tweaked the format over the years, gradually shifting to a
WOKY was briefly the Milwaukee outlet for
Change in ownership
In 1997, WOKY and co-owned
Classic Country
On September 18, 2008, after playing "
On December 1, 2011, the station announced it would become the Milwaukee home of
All-Sports
On January 2, 2013, Clear Channel Milwaukee announced that WOKY would drop classic country and adopt a sports radio format on January 7.[9] (In reality the branding launched on January 5 during the station's broadcasts of Wild Card Weekend games from Dial Global.) Branded as "The Big 920," the new WOKY schedule became a near-simulcast of its Madison sister station, WTSO ("The Big 1070"), featuring Wisconsin-based local sports shows hosted by Brian Posick, Mike Heller, Matt Lepay and Mike Lucas. Also heard were national shows featuring Jay Mohr, The Dan Patrick Show, and NBC Sports Radio, along with live event broadcasts that have been airing previously on WOKY, notably football, NASCAR, and the Milwaukee Panthers.[10] The move made WOKY the third English-language all-sports station in the Milwaukee market, joining WAUK, WSSP, along with news/talk-formatted WTMJ's commitment to evening sports talk and play by play coverage of Milwaukee Brewers baseball and Green Bay Packers football.
On December 2, 2013, Learfield Sports and the University of Wisconsin–Madison announced that WOKY would become the Milwaukee station for Wisconsin Badgers broadcasts, replacing longtime affiliate WTMJ, effectively making the team exclusive to iHeartMedia in the two largest cities in Wisconsin, with iHeart's WIBA-AM-FM in Madison acting as the flagship stations of the Badgers. As part of the deal, WOKY will air all Badgers sports broadcasts. Football and men's basketball are simulcast with sister station WRIT-FM due to WOKY's weak nighttime signal.[11]
In 2018, Milwaukee got two FM sports stations. On November 1, WKTI 94.5 FM, owned by Good Karma Brands, became "ESPN 94.5 Milwaukee." In response, four weeks later, iHeart also changed one of its FM stations to sports. On November 27, 2018, WRNW flipped from Top 40 to sports radio as 97.3 The Game. All of WOKY's local programming was moved to 97.3 FM with 920 AM mostly carrying Fox Sports Radio's daily lineup.[12]
In 2018, WOKY and
See also
References
- ^ Radio-Locator.com/WOKY
- ^ http://hdradio.com/station_guides/widget.php?id=32 HD Radio Guide for Milwaukee
- ^ Broadcasting Yearbook 1947 page 256
- ^ Broadcasting Yearbook 1951 page 328
- ^ Bartell Broadcasting History
- ^ Broadcasting Yearbook 1999 page D-496
- ^ WOKY Goes Classic Country- September 17, 2008
- ^ Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel-WOKY drops oldies, switches to country today-September 18, 2008
- ^ "Format Changes". Your Midwest Media. 2 January 2013. Archived from the original on 17 March 2013. Retrieved 24 February 2013.
- ^ "WOKY-AM changes to all sports talk format," from Milwaukee Journal, 1/2/2013
- ^ Kirchen, Rich (December 2, 2013). "Wisconsin Badgers games move to AM 920, Oldies 95.7". The Business Journal. Retrieved December 2, 2013.
- ^ Venta, Lance (27 November 2018). "iHeartMedia Flips 97-3NOW to Sports". Radio Insight]. Retrieved 28 November 2018.
External links
- Official website
- FCC History Cards for WOKY
- WOKY in the FCC AM station database
- WOKY in Nielsen Audio's AM station database
- Bartell family biography with mentions of the radio stations the family owned, including WOKY
- Milwaukee radio: a retrospective
- Vintage WOKY Media