WILS (1320 AM) is a

commercial Commercial may refer to: * a dose of advertising conveyed through media (such as - for example - radio or television) ** Radio advertisement ** Television advertisement * (adjective for:) commerce, a system of voluntary exchange of products and s ...

news/talk Talk radio is a radio format containing discussion about topical issues and consisting entirely or almost entirely of original spoken word content rather than outside music. Most shows are regularly hosted by a single individual, and often featur ...

radio station Radio broadcasting is transmission of audio (sound), sometimes with related metadata, by radio waves to radio receivers belonging to a public audience. In terrestrial radio broadcasting the radio waves are broadcast by a land-based radio ...

Lansing, Michigan Lansing () is the capital of the U.S. state of Michigan. It is mostly in Ingham County, although portions of the city extend west into Eaton County and north into Clinton County. The 2020 census placed the city's population at 112,644, making ...

. WILS is owned by

MacDonald Broadcasting MacDonald Broadcasting is a privately held radio broadcasting company in Michigan owned by Kenneth MacDonald, Jr. The family-owned broadcasting group is headquartered in Saginaw and owns eight radio stations across Mid-Michigan, including stati ...

and features a local news department and a mixture of local and national talk personalities. WILS is powered at 25,000

watt The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantify the rate of energy transfer. The watt is named after James Wa ...

s by day. But to protect other stations on

AM 1320 The following radio stations broadcast on AM frequency 1320 kHz: The U.S. Federal Communications Commission and the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commis ...

, it reduces power to 1,900 watts at night. It uses a

directional antenna A directional antenna or beam antenna is an antenna which radiates or receives greater power in specific directions allowing increased performance and reduced interference from unwanted sources. Directional antennas provide increased performance ...

day and night. The

transmitter In electronics and telecommunications, a radio transmitter or just transmitter is an electronic device which produces radio waves with an antenna (radio), antenna. The transmitter itself generates a radio frequency alternating current, which i ...

is located off North Green Road in Dimondale.

Programming

WILS is home to the locally produced "Morning Wakeup with Dave Akerly." It is heard weekdays, focusing on local issues and personalities, including politics and business. Akerly is a former Lansing TV news host. Syndicated talk shows round out the rest of the weekday schedule:

Glenn Beck Glenn Lee Beck (born February 10, 1964) is an American conservative political commentator, radio host, entrepreneur, and television producer. He is the CEO, founder, and owner of Mercury Radio Arts, the parent company of his television and rad ...

Sean Hannity Sean Patrick Hannity (born December 30, 1961) is an American talk show host, conservative political commentator, and author. He is the host of ''The Sean Hannity Show'', a nationally syndicated talk radio show, and has also hosted a commentar ...

Jim Bohannon James Everett Bohannon (January 7, 1944 – November 12, 2022) was an American broadcaster who worked in both television and radio. He is best known for hosting the nationally syndicated late night radio talk show ''The Jim Bohannon Show'' orig ...

Lars Larson Lars Kristopher Larson (born March 6, 1959)"Lars Kristopher Larson". ''Who's Who in the West'', 26th ed. Accessed June 17, 2013 via LexisNexis. is an American conservative talk radio show host based in Portland, Oregon. Larson worked in televis ...

Dennis Prager Dennis Mark Prager (; born August 2, 1948) is an American conservative radio talk show host and writer. He is the host of the nationally syndicated radio talk show ''The Dennis Prager Show''. In 2009, he co-founded PragerU, which creates five-m ...

Coast to Coast AM ''Coast to Coast AM'' is an American late-night radio talk show that deals with a variety of topics. Most frequently the topics relate to either the paranormal or conspiracy theories. It was hosted by creator Art Bell from its inception in 19 ...

and First Light. Weekends include shows on money, health, real estate and technology. Syndicated shows from

Kim Komando Kimberly Ann Komando (born 1967) is the host of two daily radio shows and one weekend radio show about consumer technology. On her weekly call-in show, she provides advice about technology gadgets, websites, smartphone apps, and internet security. ...

Clark Howard Clark Brian Howard (born June 20, 1955) is a popular consumer expert and podcast host of ''The Clark Howard Show''. Life and career Howard grew up in Atlanta, Georgia. His parents, Bernard and Joy Garson Howard, were prominent members of Atl ...

and

Leo Laporte Leo Laporte (; born November 29, 1956) is the host of ''The Tech Guy'' weekly radio show and a host on TWiT.tv, an Internet podcast network focusing on technology. He is also a former TechTV technology host (1998–2008) and a technology author. O ...

are heard. Some weekend hours are paid

brokered programming Brokered programming (also known as time-buy and blocktime) is a form of broadcast content in which the show's producer pays a radio or television station for air time, rather than exchanging programming for pay or the opportunity to play spot comm ...

. Most hours begin with world and national news from

Fox News Radio Fox News Radio is an American radio network owned by Fox News. It is syndicated to over 500 AM and FM radio stations across the United States. It also supplies programming for three channels on Sirius XM Satellite Radio. History In 2003, ...

. WILS's talk radio rival is

Townsquare Media Townsquare Media, Inc. (formerly Regent Communications until 2010) is an American radio network and media company based in Purchase, New York. The company started in radio and expanded into digital media toward the end of the 2000s, starting wi ...

's (formerly

Cumulus Media Cumulus Media, Inc. is an American broadcasting company and is the third largest owner and operator of AM and FM radio stations in the United States behind Audacy and iHeartMedia. As of June 2019, Cumulus lists ownership of 428 stations in 87 ...

) WJIM

AM 1240 AM or Am may refer to: Arts and entertainment Music * A minor, a minor scale in music * ''A.M.'' (Chris Young album) * ''A.M.'' (Wilco album) * ''AM'' (Abraham Mateo album) * ''AM'' (Arctic Monkeys album) * AM (musician), American musician ...

, also

licensed A license (or licence) is an official permission or permit to do, use, or own something (as well as the document of that permission or permit). A license is granted by a party (licensor) to another party (licensee) as an element of an agreeme ...

to Lansing. WJIM was WILS's main competitor when both were

Top 40 In the music industry, the Top 40 is the current, 40 most-popular songs in a particular genre. It is the best-selling or most frequently broadcast popular music. Record charts have traditionally consisted of a total of 40 songs. "Top 40" or " con ...

stations in the 1960s and 70s. In 2013, WJIM dropped

and

, with both shows now on the WILS schedule.

History

WILS

signed on Signing may refer to: * Using sign language * Signature A signature (; from la, signare, "to sign") is a handwritten (and often stylized) depiction of someone's name, nickname, or even a simple "X" or other mark that a person writes on do ...

February 19, 1947, as a

daytimer A clear-channel station is an AM radio station in North America that has the highest protection from interference from other stations, particularly concerning night-time skywave propagation. The system exists to ensure the viability of cross-coun ...

at 1430 kHz with 500 watts of power, and required to go off the air at night. The transmitter for the station was located on East Mount Hope avenue, with studios located in downtown Lansing at Saginaw and North Washington. In March 1950, the station moved to 1320 kHz and increased power to 1,000 watts with a directional antenna array located at 600 W. Cavanaugh Road. In 1952, the

Federal Communications Commission The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains jurisdiction ...

granted WILS to up its power once again to 5,000 daytime and 1,000 watts nighttime using separate directional arrays. In 1966, the studios were moved from downtown to the Cavanaugh Road site, where they remain today. The Lansing Broadcasting Company, original owners of WILS, made two attempts to enter the world of television. The first was an unsuccessful UHF station, WILS-TV, which began broadcasts in 1953; a year later, the company leased it to another group, under which it operated as WTOM-TV until its 1956 demise. By that time, WILS was chasing a VHF allotment to

Parma Parma (; egl, Pärma, ) is a city in the northern Italian region of Emilia-Romagna known for its architecture, Giuseppe Verdi, music, art, prosciutto (ham), Parmigiano-Reggiano, cheese and surrounding countryside. With a population of 198,292 ...

and

Onondaga Onondaga may refer to: Native American/First Nations * Onondaga people, a Native American/First Nations people and one of the five founding nations of the Iroquois League * Onondaga (village), Onondaga settlement and traditional Iroquois capita ...

, proposing to share time with a station to be run by

Michigan State University Michigan State University (Michigan State, MSU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in East Lansing, Michigan. It was founded in 1855 as the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan, the fi ...

. WILS's second and more successful station,

WILX-TV WILX-TV (channel 10) is a television station licensed to Onondaga, Michigan, United States, serving as the NBC affiliate for the Lansing area. Owned by Gray Television, the station maintains studios on American Road (near I-96) in Lansing, and i ...

channel 10, went on the air March 15, 1959; it was owned by Jackson Telecasters, a company in which Lansing Broadcasting owned a 50 percent stake, along with WJCO radio (AM 1510, now WJKN). WILS was a popular

music station in Lansing during the 1960s and 1970s. One popular WILS personality during the '60s Top 40 era was

John Records Landecker John Records Landecker (born March 28, 1947) is an American Top40/oldies disc jockey best known for his trademark saying "Records truly is my middle name" and creating ''Boogie Check'', ''Americana Panorama'', and satirical songs and bits based o ...

, who later went on to great popularity at WLS in Chicago, WPHR in Cleveland, and

CFTR Cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) is a membrane protein and anion channel in vertebrates that is encoded by the ''CFTR'' gene. Geneticist Lap-Chee Tsui and his team identified the CFTR gene in 1989 as the gene linked wit ...

in Toronto. Timmy O' Toole, another popular Chicago radio personality worked at WILS from 1969 to 1971 before he joins WLUP in 1977. He currently does Weekends on True Oldies 94.7 in Chicago.WLS FM
/ref> WILS was a fully staffed live radio station until January 17, 1984, when the station switched to mostly automation (the original automated format was Drake-Chenault's "Hitparade", a Big Band/Nostalgia format) and was known as ''Hometown Radio 1320''. The WILS call sign was also shared with a

sister station In broadcasting, sister stations or sister channels are radio or television stations operated by the same company, either by direct ownership or through a management agreement. Radio sister stations will often have different formats, and somet ...

at 101.7 FM (now

WHZZ WHZZ (101.7 FM, "Mike FM") is a radio station licensed to Lansing, Michigan with a variety hits format. History The station has gone through many different formats over the years. After beginning as a simulcast of WILS 1320 AM as WILS-FM in 19 ...

). From 1967 to 1972, the WILS-AM-FM

simulcast Simulcast (a portmanteau of simultaneous broadcast) is the broadcasting of programmes/programs or events across more than one resolution, bitrate or medium, or more than one service on the same medium, at exactly the same time (that is, simultane ...

the top-40 format. In 1972, WILS-FM launched a

country music Country (also called country and western) is a genre of popular music that originated in the Southern and Southwestern United States in the early 1920s. It primarily derives from blues, church music such as Southern gospel and spirituals, ...

format. However Jerry Marshall's morning show which originated on WILS-AM continued to be heard on the FM as well. Then three years later in 1975, WILS-FM returned to a twelve hour simulcast of the AM station in the daytime, followed by 6 hours of

progressive rock Progressive rock (shortened as prog rock or simply prog; sometimes conflated with art rock) is a broad genre of rock music that developed in the United Kingdom and United States through the mid- to late 1960s, peaking in the early 1970s. Init ...

in the evenings and

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...

overnight. The rock format was so popular that WILS-FM completely broke away from the AM station in 1978. The station was dubbed ''Rockradio WILS 101 FM''. An ownership change in 1983 would bring the end of WILS 101 FM, with the FM flipping to adult contemporary as ''The New WILS FM 102''. (See

for further history on the former WILS-FM 101.7.) WILS was purchased by

, owner of several other stations in the Saginaw and Traverse City markets. The station switched briefly to a

format (simulcast with WILS-FM) in 1992, and then flipped to Adult Standards in 1993. It was known as ''Unforgettable 1320'' and was an affiliate of ABC Radio's satellite-delivered adult standards/

MOR Mor or MOR may refer to: Names and titles * Mór (given name), a list of people named Mór or Mor * Mor (surname), a list of people named Mor or Mór * Mor (honorific), or Mar, in Syriac Radio and television * Middle of the road (music) genre * ...

music package known as "

Timeless Classics Timeless was a 24-hour satellite music service of Citadel Media (through Citadel Broadcasting). It has distributed a mix of soft oldies and adult standards to radio stations around the United States. It was a combination of two former formats: go ...

" (formerly "Stardust"). The station had had this format since the early 1990s and was quite successful in the ratings with it. The Timeless Favorites format moved to sister

WXLA WXLA (1180 kHz) is a commercial AM radio station licensed to Dimondale, a suburb of Lansing, Michigan. It is owned by MacDonald Broadcasting and airs a soft adult contemporary radio format. It uses the branding "Easy 93.3". The dial positi ...

1180 AM after that station was purchased by MacDonald Broadcasting; WILS and WXLA essentially simulcast each other with separate IDs and imaging until 2006. 1320 WILS changed its format to news and talk radio, with the slogan ''More Stimulating Talk Radio'' airing personalities such as

Laura Ingram Laura Anne Ingraham (born June 19, 1963) is an American conservative television host. Gale Biography In Context. She has been the host of ''The Ingraham Angle'' on Fox News Channel since October 2017, and is the editor-in-chief of LifeZette. ...

Dennis Miller Dennis Michael Miller (born November 3, 1953) is an American talk show host, political commentator, sports commentator, actor, and comedian. He was a cast member of ''Saturday Night Live'' from 1985 to 1991, and he subsequently hosted a stri ...

, and

Michael Savage Michael Alan Weiner (born March 31, 1942), known by his professional name Michael Savage, is a far-right author, conspiracy theorist, political commentator, activist, and former radio host. Savage is best known as the host of '' The Savage Na ...

. Local personalities included then morning show host Walt Sorg, followed by Chris Holman, Tony Conley and since 2015 former WLNS-TV primary news anchor Dave Akerly with his Morning Wake Up, weekdays 6-9 a.m. Sports talk show host Jack Ebling was an afternoon fixture on WILS before moving to

WQTX WQTX (92.1 FM, "Stacks 92.1) is a radio station broadcasting a Rhythmic Adult Contemporary format to the Lansing, Michigan radio market. Licensed to St. Johns, Michigan, it first began broadcasting in 1972, and has been through a number of diff ...

. In 2010, the station changed its slogan to the current ''More Compelling Talk Radio'' moniker. On January 25, 2008, WILS turned on their new Windsor Township transmitter and became the most powerful AM station in Lansing. The new 25 kW daytime signal covers much of

Mid-Michigan Central Michigan, also called Mid Michigan, is a region in the Lower Peninsula of the U.S. state of Michigan. As its name implies, it is the middle area of the Lower Peninsula. Lower Michigan is said to resemble a mitten, and Mid Michigan corre ...

, and be easily received as far away as Grand Rapids, Kalamazoo, Mt. Pleasant, and Jackson. The station can even be heard in portions of northern Ohio and Indiana. The directional pattern of WILS is limited to the east to avoid adjacent channel interference with

WTRX WTRX (1330 AM, "Sports XTRA 1330") is an American radio station broadcasting a sports format in Flint, Michigan. It is the Flint affiliate for Michigan Wolverines football and men's basketball, and CBS Sports Radio. Its studios are located in ...

1330 in Flint. The new 1.9 kW four tower nighttime array provides better coverage to the immediate Lansing, Charlotte, Grand Ledge, and DeWitt areas.

References

External links

Michiguide.com - WILS History1320-WILS-AM - More Compelling Talk Radio - Live and LansingFCC History Cards for WILS
{{News/Talk Radio Stations in Michigan ILS Radio stations established in 1947 1947 establishments in Michigan