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Champaign/Danville

So what's going on around the radio world in Champaign and Danville? Don't ever hear much about what's up? (Jocks/Stations)
 
> So what's going on around the radio world in Champaign and
> Danville? Don't ever hear much about what's up?
> (Jocks/Stations)
>

Don't know much about the jocks, but here's a short synopsis:

88.7 - WPCD - Parkland College - Rock by day/Urban by night

89.3/101.1/102.5/103.9 - WGNJ - religious

90.1 - WEFT - variety

90.9 - WILL - classical

91.7 WBGL - same CCM, steady as always

92.5 WCFF - recently changed from oldies to The Chief - basically 70's/80's pop/rock and disco -- great station!

92.9 - Covington, IN - oldies KOOL 92.9

93.5/95.3 The Rock WEBX, WEVX - Rock/Active Rock

94.5 WLRW - Mix 94.5 is adult CHR/Hot AC

94.9 - K-Rock/Danville - Classic Rock

96.1 - WQQB - Q-96 - CHR/Top 40

97.5 - WHMS - Lite Rock/AC

98.3 - WWHP - Americana Country

98.5 - WACF/Paris - Country

99.1 - recently changed to WXTT - Extra 99-1 'The Rock of the 80's and more' - terrific station!

100.3 - WIXY - still the country powerhouse ratings leader

102.1 - WDNL - Danville's variety/Hot AC

103.1 - Kiss Country/Covington, IN

105.5 - WCZQ - Monticello/Decatur/C-U - Hip-Hop/R&B HOT 105.5

105.9 - WGKC - Classic Rock

106.3 - WGCY - Gibson City - B/EZ

107.1 - WPGU - classic alternative

That's the dial around here. THE CHIEF and EXTRA are the latest changes and the best ones IMO. PGU lost the Planet name last year and went classic alternative and THE ROCK toned down a bit from pure active rock. Most everything else has stayed steady that I'm aware of. I don't get most of the Covington/Danville stations to know differently. Hope this helps.
 
Z95/Z108

When I lived in Lafayette, IN about 10 years ago I used to get the 94.9 station as a Classic Rocker, always IDing as Z95/Z108. I'm thinking this was a trimulcast and just was curious what the other station or stations were.<P ID="signature">______________
..from the Ball Park Franks sponsored gr8oldies keyboard...</P>
 
Re: Z95/Z108

> When I lived in Lafayette, IN about 10 years ago I used to
> get the 94.9 station as a Classic Rocker, always IDing as
> Z95/Z108. I'm thinking this was a trimulcast and just was
> curious what the other station or stations were.
>

At one point it included 95.1 WZZP Kankakee, which was sold to Milner who flipped it to WVLI "The Valley."
 
Re: Z95/Z108

> When I lived in Lafayette, IN about 10 years ago I used to
> get the 94.9 station as a Classic Rocker, always IDing as
> Z95/Z108. I'm thinking this was a trimulcast and just was
> curious what the other station or stations were.
>
It was probably Arcola/Mattoon station WXET 107.9 the X. That's the closest station that makes sense out of Z-108. I don't think 107.7 Fairbury, was on the air then and there's nothing else close to 108 out there besides WXET. The other 95 was 95.3 in Urbana. A weak 1,100 watt station that simulcasted with 94.9. It all makes sense. 94.9 to cover Danville, 95.3 to cover northern Champaign county and 107.9 to cover anything south of Champaign county. I do remember 94.9 and 95.3 simulcasting as Z-95. That was also during the POWER 96 days, dance/rap!! Is this all correct? I'm getting old and can't remember details as well as I used to.
 
Re: Z95/Z108

> > When I lived in Lafayette, IN about 10 years ago I used to
>
> > get the 94.9 station as a Classic Rocker, always IDing as
> > Z95/Z108. I'm thinking this was a trimulcast and just was
> > curious what the other station or stations were.
> >
> It was probably Arcola/Mattoon station WXET 107.9 the X.
> That's the closest station that makes sense out of Z-108.

That's correct; I believe the callsign at the time was WZNX. The Rantoul/Champaign station was WZNF.
 
Re: Z95/Z108

> > When I lived in Lafayette, IN about 10 years ago I used to
>
> > get the 94.9 station as a Classic Rocker, always IDing as
> > Z95/Z108. I'm thinking this was a trimulcast and just was
> > curious what the other station or stations were.
> >
>
> At one point it included 95.1 WZZP Kankakee, which was sold
> to Milner who flipped it to WVLI "The Valley."
>

Z95/Z108 was 95.1 Kankakee...94.9 Danville...95.3 Rantoul and
107.9 Arcola. All run out of Urbana by Mark Rollings. They
had their own satellite uplink. They used Computer Concepts
DCS automation computers at the local stations to insert IDs
and local spots. It was a cool concept...they had their own
"syndication" going. Rollings also LMA'd 96.1 Rantoul and
owned 1460 Rantoul which was variously CNN headline news,
talk (as C-U's first home of Rush), then standards. He also
had 93.5 Tuscola that was country then took over the talk
format. I think Kankakee was the first to go...then he traded
107.9 for what is now 106.7 Sullivan so he could hit Decatur
down there. In 1995 he sold 95.3 to Liberty II. They also bought
96.1 from the guy who owned it (who, by the way, was the guy who
he swapped 107.9 to for what's now 106.7). He sold 1460 to a guy
who ran a vacuum cleaner store in Urbana who made it religious.
He sold 93.5 to Magnitude of Tuscola which made it into The Web.
Then he sold 94.9 to Neuhoff and 106.7 to Cromwell. Rollings was
out of the biz here by 1996.
 
When did 99.1 change ?? A VERY long time ago I used to do nights there when it was WIAI. What happened to some of the old-timers like Ron Colson?? What's on WITY and WDAN??
 
WIAI changed to classic hits under Key Broadcasting back in 2001, I believe. The station ran out of Danville but was aimed at the Champaign-Urbana market. It was said that Key's co-owned 98.5 WACF in Paris, despite the fact that the station was only 10 miles outside of Terre Haute, would gear it's programming toward the Danville market to fill the country void left by WIAI. The station was "blah" to say the least, but more than likely, wasn't the fault of the people who were programming things over there. Key may have stepped things up a bit over the years, but the company's Indiana and Illinois operations in 2001 and 2002 were lackluster to say the least and made horrible business decisions.

I think a year or two after the switch-over, they sold the station to Saga and moved the studio to Champaign. Shortly after the acquisition, they relaunched as "Extra 99-1" with classic hits. Not too long ago, Extra's playlist got tightened up a bit, and they began "The rock of the 80s and more" approach. The station is really sounding good these days, and it looks like it's finally starting to catch on with Champaign/Urbana listeners.

As for the other Danville stations you asked about, WITY is adult standards (with Westwood One's Adult Standards format) and WDAN is talk.

Other than that not much has changed in Danville besides the addition of two LP FMs. 105.7 runs and urban AC format and 107.5, I believe it's licensed to Bismarck, calls itself "Musicradio 107.5" and consists of 50-80s oldies during the week and 50s-70s oldies on the weekend.
 
What's up anyway with Champaign radio, what did the cheif do? anything???
 
I know what your talking about. It sounds very muddy and hard to listen to for a long period of time. This is going to cause listener fatigue...
 
Last time I was through there, I thought it sounded pretty good. Small market, its hard to make anything sound perfect in small market these days. But, it sounded good for the area. In my opinion.
 
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