WILV

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WILV-FM (100.3 FM - Love FM) is a rhythmic-based AC station out of Chicago, owned by Bonneville International.

[edit] History

The station began operation in 1947 as WFMF, owned by Marshall Field. It was used for over the air background music in the stores. By the 1970 the station, changed call letters to WLOO "W-100," later simply known as "FM-100," played an easy listening "beautiful music" format — mostly instrumental renditions of pop songs along with some soft vocalists. The station was sold to Century Broadcasting in the early 1970's, which also owned AM 820 (then WAIT, later WCZE "Cozy" and WXEZ).

Through the 1980s the station continued the Easy Listening format with more vocalists including more AC artists and less standards artists. In 1988 the call letters changed to WXEZ-FM (eXtra EZ). The instrumentals were eliminated. The station evolved to a soft AC format.

In 1990 the call letters were changed to WPNT-FM, known as "The Point" and the station evolved to more straight-ahead AC, playing the Top 40 hits of the '60s and '70s and the AC/soft rock hits of the '80s, '90s and beyond. WPNT-AM simulcast the FM for awhile, but was quickly spun off because the land the transmitters sat on in suburban Elmhurst, Illinois became more valuable than the daytime-only station itself. On the Point-FM, Steve Cochran hosted morning drive, later to be replaced by Chicago radio legend Fred Winston. In 1997 WPNT was sold to Evergreen Media and evolved into a Hot AC format playing the Top 40 hits of the '80s and uptempo AC hits of the '90s and beyond.

Chancellor and Evergreen merged in 1997. At that point Chancellor had 95.5 WNUA smooth jazz (from Chancellor), Rock 103.5 WRCX (from Evergreen), 97.9 WLUP (from Evergreen), 93.9 WLIT (from Viacom), 102.7 WVAZ Urban AC (from Evergreen/Broadcast Partners), 107.5 WGCI-FM urban contemporary (from Gannett), hip hop WEJM 106.3 (from Broadcast Partners/Evergreen)and WPNT.

The newly formed Chancellor had too many FM stations and had to sell 3. So, in the Summer of 1997, 106.3 WEJM was sold to Crawford Broadcasting Company and it flipped to Gospel (and Urban AC years later). Bonneville, had already owned pop/alternative station 101.9 WTMX, bought WLUP "The Loop" and WPNT. Later in 2000 they bought classical station WNIB (now WDRV) for $147 million.

Since The Loop had become musically close to WTMX they were flipped to a classic rock format. WPNT was also musically close to WTMX so they were flipped back to a straight AC format. Calls were changed to WNND "Windy 100."

In the late 1990s WNND actually surpassed WLIT in the ratings a couple of times and nearly tied them much of the other times. The staff consisted of morning team Kevin & Susan, Chicago broadcaster Scott Childers in middays and market newcomer Haynes Johns afternoons. Nights were devoted to the popular "Love Notes," hosted by John Symons. "Love Notes" routinely beat competitor "Delilah" on WLIT. But by 2002 WNND had suffered in the ratings after a disastrous dip into Soft AC. On December 10, 2002 they changed to a '80s-'90s Hot AC format simply as "100.3 WNND" The ratings really never took off for this format so on November 5, 2004 at 7 a.m. they adapted the current rhythmic-leaning AC format as "100.3 Love FM".