History
For many years this station played Adult Standards as WAIT. It was originally owned by Gene Dyer and was known as WCBD prior to 1942. In the early 1990s, this station, on 820 AM, was WSCR The Score, an all-sports station. In 1997 the station changed its call letters to WYPA and adopted a Spanish language format as an affiliate of Radio Unica. In 2001 the station changed its call letters to WCSN, and again aired an all sports format, as an affiliate of Sporting News Radio.
In February 2005, a column by Robert Feder in the Chicago Sun-Times sparked speculation that a progressive talk format could end up on a station in Chicago. The article said that the station was rumored to change formats by March 31, the one year anniversary of Air America's original launch in Chicago on their original affiliate, WNTD. Air America's affiliation with WNTD was interrupted after only a few weeks, due to conflicts with the station's owner.
Many thought that WRLL 1690-AM would switch to the format, as its owner, Clear Channel Communications, had rolled out progressive talk on quite a few of their struggling radio stations across the country. However, WRLL decided to continue with their oldies format, and on May 5, 2005, AM 850 launched progressive talk with the new call letters WCPT. The WAIT call letters were moved to 820 AM.
In November 2005, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) denied an application by Newsweb to move the station to Addison, Illinois.
On November 26, 2007, WCPT moved its format from 850 AM to 820 AM, doubling its power and providing coverage to all of Chicago. The WCPT call letters moved along with the format to 820 AM, and the WAIT call letters returned to 850 AM.
Newsweb's owner, Fred Eychaner, is a significant donor to Democratic Party causes.
As of October 17, 2007, WCPT did not appear among Arbitron's top 30 Chicago stations and was beaten out by other competing high-profile Chicago talk radio stations, WGN, WLS, WIND, and WCKG. WCPT ratings have gone from 0.4 share in Fall 2007 to a 0.8 share in Winter 2008 to a 0.2 share for March 2009, according to Arbitron. It was the 46th most popular commercial station in Chicago. In November 2009 it had a 0.3 share and had climbed to be tied for the 42nd most popular commercial station in Chicago.
Read more about this topic: WCPT (AM)
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