WCFS-FM
  Logos for WCFS-FM's primary and secondary channels |
|
| City | Elmwood Park, Illinois |
|---|---|
| Broadcast area | Chicago, Illinois |
| Branding |
Newsradio 780 and 105.9 FM (HD1) Fresh 105.9 HD2 (HD2) |
| Frequency |
FM 105.9 MHz (also on HD Radio) |
| First air date | 1940s |
| Format |
HD1: All-News (simulcast of WBBM 780) HD2: Hot Adult Contemporary music |
| ERP | 4,100 watts |
| HAAT | 482 meters (1,581 ft) |
| Class | B |
| Facility ID | 71283 |
| Callsign meaning | We're Chicago's Fresh Station (HD2 branding and former primary branding) |
| Former callsigns | WOAK, WFMT, WLEY (1948–1959) WXFM (1959–1984) WAGO (1984–1985) WCKG (1985–2007) |
| Owner |
CBS Radio (CBS Radio Holdings Corporation of Orlando) |
| Sister stations |
Radio: WBBM, WBBM-FM, WJMK-FM, WSCR, WUSN, WXRT TV: WBBM-TV |
| Webcast |
WBBM 780 and 105.9 Webstream Fresh 105.9 HD2 Webstream |
| Website |
chicago fresh1059 |
WCFS-FM (105.9 FM), known on-air as "WBBM Newsradio 780 & 105.9", is a radio station licensed to Elmwood Park, Illinois and serving the Chicago, Illinois market. It is owned and operated by CBS Radio. WCFS-FM broadcasts from a 4.1kW transmitter atop Willis Tower, and its studios are located at Two Prudential Plaza in the Loop.
WCFS has simulcast the all-news format of sister station WBBM (AM) since August 1, 2011.
The first radio station on 105.9 was WOAK, owned by Bernard Jacobs, future owner of WFMT. The station aired classical, popular music and jazz. Call letters were changed to WFMT when the format changed to classical music. WFMT moved to 98.7 FM when WGNB abandoned that frequency in the early 1950s. WLEY, formerly at 107.1 MHz, then moved to 105.9 MHz. The "LEY" in the station's call letters stood for Leyden Township, which contains the city of license of Elmwood Park. The station broadcast in English and Polish. WLEY broadcast the Polish Barn Dance nightly.
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 Avenue, but the WCKG transmitter relocated to the Sears Tower in 1974, 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 WCLM (because it broadcast horse race results on its sub-carrier), WXFM moved to the WCLM studio in the 333 N. Michigan Building in 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.
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Wikipedia