WGRB

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WGRB
City of license Chicago, Illinois
Broadcast area Chicagoland
Branding Inspiration 1390
Frequency 1390 kHz (Also on HD Radio)
First air date 1923
Format Gospel
Power 5,000 Watts
Class B
Owner Clear Channel Communications
Webcast Listen Live
Website gospel1390.com

WGRB, 1390 AM, is a radio station in Chicago owned by Clear Channel Communications. It airs a gospel music format targeted to Chicago's African-American religious community. On Sundays it broadcasts the services of several African-American churches in the area.

The station began in 1923 as WTAY in Oak Park, Illinois. It was owned by a community newspaper called Oak Leaves. In 1925 Coyne Electrical School purchased the station and moved it to their campus on Chicago's north side. They changed its call letters to WGES, standing for Coyne's slogan, "World's Greatest Electrical School."

In the late 1920s, the station was purchased by Dr. Gene Dyer who moved it to the Guyan Hotel on the West Side of Chicago. The station aired big band music from the nearby Guyan's Paradise Ballroom. It also broadcast several hours a day of programming in Italian, French, German, Spanish and Polish. It added African American programming to its daily schedule in the mid 1940s with a program conducted by Al Benson, a former minister whose church was broadcast on WGES. By the 1950s more hours of African-American programming were added, with the addition of disc jockeys Richard Stanz, Ric Recardo, Sam Evans and Sid McCoy, while WGES's foreign language programming aired only four hours a day. (McCoy would later go on to be the voice of Soul Train.)

Had he kept the station, Dr. Dyer said WGES would have become Chicago's first all black radio station, but instead he sold it to Gordon McLendon in 1962. McLendon fired all of its foreign language announcers and black disc jockeys and hired black disk jockeys from radio stations in other cities. WGES became WYNR or "Winner," programming top 40 music with black disc jockeys.

The station switched to rhythm and blues in 1963, then abruptly changed to all news with the new call letters WNUS. McLendon bought WFMQ (107.5 FM), changed its call sign to WNUS-FM and began to simulcast the all news format on the FM frequency. In 1969, McLendon changed the stations' format to beautiful music as more powerful WBBM (AM) switched to all news. In 1975, Globetrotter Communications, owners of soul music station WVON, purchased WNUS-AM-FM from McLendon and moved WVON from its 1000-watt allocation on 1450 kHz to the 5000-watt transmitter on 1390 kHz that had been occupied by WNUS. WNUS-FM was also changed to a soul music format, with a change of call letters to WGCI(FM). A few years later, Globetrotter was purchased by the Gannett media conglomerate.

As music listeners switched from AM to FM in large numbers in the late 1970s and early 1980s, 1390 tried several formats including all talk, urban oldies and simulcasting WGCI(FM). The call sign was changed to WGCI(AM) in 1984. The format changed to gospel music in the early 2000s under Clear Channel ownership. Its call letters were changed to WGRB(AM) (Gospel Radio Blessings for Chicago) in 2003 to differentiate it from its sister FM station.

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Corporate officers

Lowry Mays • Mark Mays • Randall Mays • Tom Hicks
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Alan Feld • Perry Lewis • Lowry Mays • B.J. McCombs • Phyllis Riggins • Theodore Strauss • J. C. Watts • John H. Williams
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