WNIB (defunct)

WNIB, 97.1 FM (also known as Classical 97), was a classical music radio station that was begun in Chicago, Illinois on July 9, 1955. The frequency was assigned to William C. Florian who began operations and retained ownership until its sale in 2001. The call letters stood for Northern Illinois Broadcasting (Company). WNIB was the last original Chicago FM license to be assigned by the FCC. Despite many overtures throughout the years to purchase the license, Florian held onto it until February 11, 2001, when it was sold to Bonneville Broadcasting. See WDRV for details of broadcasting on the frequency after that date.

In the early years, Florian built the station, did all the engineering and also sold advertising. He was the Chief Engineer during the entire time of his ownership.

Florian took on a partner, another licensed engineer [whom Florian later bought out], and together they built a makeshift studio in the unheated attic above the ballroom of the Midwest Hotel, at Hamlin and Madison. On July 9, 1955, the station came on the air, billing itself as "Chicago's FM Voice of Variety." It broadcast mostly jazz, show tunes, and easy listening from five to midnight seven days a week. WNIB's frequency, 97.1 Megahertz, had been abandoned in 1953 by WBBM-FM, which moved over to 96.3 MHz, a frequency formerly occupied by WBIK, a background music station owned by the Balaban & Katz movie theater chain. (WBIK was forced off the air when the United Paramount Theaters, which owned Balaban and Katz, merged with the ABC Network and the new company ABC-Paramount found itself owning two FM radio stations in the same city: WBIK and WENR-FM. Owning more than one radio station in the same spectrum was at the time against FCC station ownership rules.)

Among the first announcers was Bill Gershon, then an undergraduate at Roosevelt University who was curious about radio stations. "It was very much a neighborhood station with a low-power 3,000-watt transmitter," he remembers, "and the antenna was bolted to the hotel's flagpole." Florian, a jazz aficionado, also hired Dick Buckley (who was later a DJ at WBEZ) to take care of the jazz portion of the musical menu.

In 1958, Sonia Atzeff, a graduate of Roosevelt University in Chicago, was hired and steered the programming toward a classical music format. She did programming and engineering, but no announcing. She and Florian were married some years later, and she was the General Manager of the station until its sale in 2001. The station was on the air for various hours, gradually expanding until it reached 9 a.m. to 11 p.m. most days.

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Wikipedia