AT40 In Chicago

[Biondi4Mayor]

I have a sort of random question regarding American Top 40---

What stations carried it in Chicago and when did they start? I know the current incarnation runs on Kiss,
and re-runs of classics can be heard on WLS, but I'd like to now more about the program the first
time around. When was it first aired in Chicago and on what station?

Thanks in advance

 

[radioman148]

In the 70s & 80s I remember hearing it on WCFL, WMET, WBBM-FM, WLS-AM (in the 80s).
These are the ones I can remember. I'm sure there's more.

 

[uncamark]

In the 70s & 80s I remember hearing it on WCFL, WMET, WBBM-FM, WLS-AM (in the 80s).
These are the ones I can remember. I'm sure there's more.

Nope. That's all there was, except for Z95 when WLS went talk (or before then, during that strange attempt to do MOR after Lujack left). When Z95 flipped back to WLS-FM, I don't think it was picked up by another station (we're talking the Shadoe Stevens era and the show might've gone off in the U.S. by then) and when Casey bought the rights to the title and revived it for Chancellor, no one carried it initially (although WLIT carried the AC version "American Top 20"). "Casey's Top 40" was on B96.

 

[dave73]

If I'm not mistaken, WBUS Kankakee also carried the program, until Milner sold the station to Entravision in 1996, & went Spanish. Though WBUS was aimed more at Kankakee, they were heard in south Chicagoland.

 

[Northwest Bobby]

If I'm not mistaken, WBUS Kankakee also carried the program, until Milner sold the station to Entravision in 1996, & went Spanish. Though WBUS was aimed more at Kankakee, they were heard in south Chicagoland.

I was working overnights on Saturdays on WBUS and remember AT-40 ran ran as I was walking out the door at 6am! (circa 1988)

 

[klutch00]

By 1979 when I started listening to AT40, WBBM-FM had it. About the early spring of 1982, WLS picked it up and kept it until about 1987 when Z-95 took it over. After that I can't tell ya.

 

[CMNTMXR57]

I was gonna say, I remember B96 having AT40, and then the Bus (I could pick it up in the Western Suburbs).

Then the other countdowns were on Z95 (was it the Scott Shannon one?)

 

[Ultimajock]

...did WCFL run American Top 40 at any other time than 1:00 AM Sundays (right after Wolfman Jack's syndicated show)? And weren't there a couple of college stations, one in Illinois and one in Indiana, that picked the show up between the WCFL and WMET runs? I know Watermark offered the show to college stations for $10 per week in markets where they didn't have any commercial stations buying it...