Talk:WKIE/Archive 1

Cleanup

This article has way too much irrelevant information. I cleaned it up and got rid of the distracting information. However, to a true radio geek, this may be of some importance, so I will put the changed paragraphs below:

On January 12, 2001, Clear Channel Communications flipped it's full-signal Chicago station WUBT from rhythmic oldies to CHR as WKSC "Kiss 103.5". At that time, they issued a cease and desist order to Big City Radio insisting they stop using the "Kiss FM" moniker, which they claimed to hold the trademark to. "92 KISS-FM" ended its run on January 26 2001 at 4PM, when they played their last song, "Last Kiss" by Pearl Jam and the three signals became "Energy 92-7&5", with a format consisting entirely of dance music. The airstaff and voice guy Sean Caldwell reamined from the previous format.

In it's early days, Energy mixed dance-leaning pop hits from artists like The Backstreet Boys, NSYNC, Britney Spears and Crazy Town with various non-mainstream dance hits seldom heard on American radio. By 2002 the playlist was much more adventurous. Energy gained lots of notoriety and gained a relatively small yet devoted following in the Chicago area and worldwide via its webcast. Considering their niche format and signal limitations, Energy did reasonably well in the ratings and in revenues.

In late 2002, Big City Radio, which had overextended itself in obtaining radio stations, declared bankruptcy and began liquidating its properties. WKIE, WKIF and WDEK were sold to Spanish Broadcasting System and WXXY/WYXX (which had a Mexican music format) to the Hispanic Broadcasting Company.

Energy spent the weekend of January 3-5 bidding the station goodbye, as they took requests, emptied the prize closet, and aired farewells. Just before 11:50PM, Program Director Chris Shebel gave the final goodbye. A error with the cart machine in the studio caused a period of dead air after Chris' speech ended. This led to SBS to thinking this was the go ahead and launched the new format (Spanish Hot AC "Onda 92") ten minutes early. With that, Energy's final song wound up being the first song they played when they launched the format in 2001: "The Launch" by DJ Jean.

Onda 92 never really took off in the ratings, and SBS had their own financial problems, so in June 2004 the company sold WKIE, WKIF and WDEK to Newsweb Corporation. At 12AM on November 22, 2004, Onda ended with the song they launched with - "Suerte" by Shakira. After the song ended, the EAS system was tested twice (once for WDEK and again for WKIE).

After 30 minutes of dead air, "Revolution #9" by The Beatles, various movie/newsclips and a message to "Join us this morning at 9AM" filled the airwaves throughout the night. The next day, Newsweb flipped WDEK and WKIE to a simulcast of its adult hits station WRZA, aka "Nine FM", and WKIF was switched to a full simulcast of CNN Headline News.

So there you have it. I rewrote this part and pared it down to 'just the facts'. --Fightingirish 20:24, 17 August 2006 (UTC)