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WLS (890 kHz, "Chicago's Talk Leader") is a commercial AM radio station licensed to serve Chicago, Illinois, USA. Owned by Cumulus Media along with WLS-FM (94.7 MHz), the station broadcasts as a Class A station on a clear-channel frequency with 50 kilowatts (or 50,000 watts) of power. WLS maintains its studios in The Loop section of Chicago, and its transmitting tower is located on the south edge of Tinley Park, Illinois.〔http://www.radioworld.com/default.aspx?tabid=75&entryid=971〕 WLS is currently a talk radio station, with its programming consisting of about half local talk shows and the rest syndicated programming such as Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, ''Red Eye Radio'', Wall Street Journal This Morning, Kim Komando and others. WLS has carried Notre Dame Fighting Irish football and basketball games since the 2006 season.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Notre Dame Basketball )〕〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Notre Dame Football )〕 WLS had been wholly owned and operated by the radio division of the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) since the purchase of its parent company in 1959. Five years earlier WLS was merged with WENR, a station with which WLS had shared its frequency since the 1920s. ABC-owned radio stations not affiliated with ESPN Radio or Radio Disney, including WLS, were sold to Citadel Broadcasting on June 12, 2007 with Citadel licensing the name ABC Radio for 2 years after the sale.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Disney-February 6, 2006-ABC Radio To Merge With Citadel Broadcasting )〕〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Disney June 12, 2007-Disney and Citadel Announce Completion of ABC Radio Merger )〕 Citadel was bought by Cumulus Media on September 16, 2011. Despite different owners, WLS and ABC-owned WLS-TV (channel 7) maintain a strong partnership. According to Alexa, WLS' website's rank in the United States is 68,675. WLS (890 AM) is broadcast in HD on WLS-FM 94.7 HD 2.〔http://www.hdradio.com/station_guides/widget.php?id=25〕 ==History== In the 1920s, Sears, Roebuck and Company was a major mail order company. To target farmers, Sears bought time on radio stations, and then decided to form their own station.〔Buescher, John. ("''Tips to Trappers''" ), (Teachinghistory.org ). Retrieved August 18, 2011.〕 Just before the permanent station was ready, Sears began broadcasts on March 21, 1924 as WBBX with noon programs using the WMAQ studios. WLS was one of the original 50,000 watt Class I-A clear-channel stations which did not share its frequency (of 890 AM) with any other station during nighttime (sunset to sunrise) hours. Sears broadcast test transmissions from its own permanent studios on April 9, 10 and 11, 1924, using the callsign WES (for "World's Economy Store"). On April 12, 1924, the station commenced officially, using the callsign WLS (for "World's Largest Store"); and on April 19, aired its first ''National Barn Dance''.〔 Sears originally operated its station at its Chicago headquarters on Chicago's West Side where the company's mail order business was located. Sears then moved the WLS studios into the Sherman House hotel in downtown Chicago.〔 Sears opened the station in 1924 as a service to farmers and subsequently sold it to the ''Prairie Farmer'' magazine in 1928. The station moved to the Prairie Farmer Building on West Washington in Chicago, where it remained for 32 years. For a few months after ABC's 1960 purchase of it and the format change, the "bright new sound" that began in May 1960 was broadcast from the Prairie Farmer Building. WLS didn't make the move to downtown Michigan Avenue's Stone Container Building, located at 360 North Michigan Avenue, until October of that year. Thirty years later, it would move once more, to its present location at 190 North State in downtown Chicago.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=WLS move to 190 North State-1990 )〕 It was the scene of the ''National Barn Dance'', which featured Gene Autry, Pat Buttram, and George Gobel, and which was second only to the ''Grand Ole Opry'' (in itself a local ''National Barn Dance'' spinoff) in presenting country music and humor. The station also experimented successfully in many forms of news broadcasting, including weather and crop reports. Its most famous news broadcast was the eyewitness report of the Hindenburg disaster by Herbert Morrison.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=audio file of Herbert Morrison's account of the Hindenburg Disaster for WLS )〕 Morrison and engineer Charles Nehlsen had been sent to New Jersey by WLS to cover the arrival of the Hindenburg for delayed broadcast. Their recordings aired the next day on May 7, 1937, the first time that recordings of a news event were ever broadcast. Starting in the 1930s, WLS had been an affiliate of the Blue Network of the National Broadcasting Company (NBC), and as such aired the popular ''Fibber McGee and Molly'' and ''Lum and Abner'' comedy programs (both produced at the studios of Chicago's NBC-owned stations, WENR and WMAQ) during their early years. When the Federal Communications Commission forced NBC to sell the Blue Network, WLS maintained its affiliation with the network under its new identity, the American Broadcasting Company (ABC). Under this affiliation, some programs from the network that were not commercially sponsored or which were scheduled to cross the time that WLS and WENR shifted its use of the same frequency (such as baseball or football games) were transferred to air on a third Blue Network/ABC affiliate in Chicago, WCFL. Blue/ABC network broadcasts of addresses by labor leaders were also shifted away from WLS and WENR to WCFL, which was owned at the time by the Chicago Federation of Labor. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「WLS (AM)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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