| City of license | Aurora, Illinois |
|---|---|
| Broadcast area | West Suburban Chicago |
| Branding | 95.9 The River |
| Slogan | Rock 'n Roll Favorites for the Burbs |
| Frequency |
95.9-2 FM (WERV-2 - The Rapids!) |
| First air date | February 12, 1961 |
| Format | Classic hits |
| ERP | 3,000 watts |
| HAAT | 91 meters |
| Class | A |
| Facility ID | 73171 |
| Callsign meaning | W E RiVer |
| Owner | NextMedia |
| Webcast | Listen Live |
| Website | 959theriver.fm |
WERV-FM, also known as 95.9 The River, is a classic hits radio station, playing familiar rock and pop songs that span from the early 1970s through the mid 1990s. Its digital HD-2 channel "The Rapids!" plays hard rock/heavy metal from the '70s through the late 1990s. The Aurora/Naperville, Illinois station serves the suburban Chicago market and is owned by NextMedia Group, LLC.
This station was the radio dream of WLS Radio engineer Russ Salter, who put this station (then WKKD-FM); along with WKKD-AM on the air. WKKD-AM debuted on September 21, 1960 and WKKD-FM on February 12, 1961. Both stations broadcasted out of a very small building, on the east side, on Plain avenue. At the time, this was a remote part of the Aurora area. Studios, transmitters and the towers were all at this location.
For years the station served the Will, Kane, Kendall and DuPage County areas (hence the call letters W-K-K-D) with popular music along with local news and sports. For a decade the stations ran in unison…the FM extending the AM’s programming into the evening hours. By the early 1970s the stations had separated and the AM station changed its calls to WFVR (Fox Valley Radio) with an oldies format. Veteran Chicago weathercaster Tom Skilling began his career at WKKD, delivering weather forecasts while he attended High School in Aurora.
Over the next two decades WKKD-AM would jump around to various formats; always under the shadow of it’s more powerful and successful FM sister station. In 1990 the AM station changed its calls back to WKKD and at one time or another had a Spanish, all-news, oldies and big band format. WKKD-FM spent many years as a soft rock station, going by the handle “K-Lite 96 FM.” By the early 1990s, it too switched to oldies music, first as “Pure Gold 96,” then later changing their handle to “Kool 95.9.”
In 2000, the Salter family got out of broadcasting and sold WKKD-AM & FM (and several Rockford stations) to Radioworks and then the Aurora stations were spun off to NextMedia in 2001. On January 25, 2001 the new owners switched the FM to WERV “95.9 The River,” [1] with the AM holding onto the WKKD calls as a local and satellite delivered news/talk outlet. In early 2002, NextMedia sold the AM station to Kovas Communications who, for years simulcast their ethnic WONX-AM/Evanston signal on 1580 as an absentee owner, from the WERV Aurora facility. Kovas tried to have 1580 moved to Silvis, Illinois, in order to increase the power of 1590 WONX. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) still has this application pending. Frank Kovas died in early 2005, just as the station was embarking on a new format, the Radio Health Network.
WERV-FM serves the Aurora/Naperville area as well as much of DuPage, northern and eastern Cook and parts of Kane and Will counties. The River's air talent line up is Scott Mackay in Morning drive, Danielle Tufano in Middays, Mitch Michaels in Afternoon Drive and Leslie Harris each night until 12a. Mark Zander serves as Program Director.
In the spring of 2005, WERV-FM became the first suburban Chicago station to broadcast a digital HD Radio signal. By 2006, the station debuted it HD-2 secondary signal. It's a hard rock gold format reminiscent of 103.5 The Blaze, called “The Rapids!”
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