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Christian Radio Chicago During The 1980's

R

Retro

I remember over 20 years ago listening to a Christian Countdown show that talked about a CCM station in Chicago being the #1 Christian station in the country. I would like to read up and hear some history about that station.

What I do know is that sometime during '88-'89, the station flipped formats, and another station switched to CCM for a time. Can anyone tell me about these stations?

Thanks for your help!

Retro
 
There was WYLL for around that time period? Was that it?
 
AM 1000 which was Super CFL (WCFL) and a competitor with WLS in the 60's and 70's became a Christian station in the mid 80's after most of the mainstream music stations migrated to the FM band. They used to play a liner that boasted it was the biggest Christian station in the country because you could hear them all over the midwest (and into Canada) at night. Darrell Ankarlo a/k/a Kris Stevens was the main DJ along with Jim Chanell for a while. In the late 80's the station was bought by another company and they flipped it to a non-chrsitian format.

There was another 3000 watt station in the far west suburbs that played CCM in the 80's too. It was WCRM 103.9. Bob Sauer of Christian Countdown USA was there, Todd Chatman and a few others I can't recall right now. That was the first Christian station I ever heard but I loved to listen to it. It changed hands around 1988 or 89 I think.
 
Stephen Young said:
AM 1000 which was Super CFL (WCFL) and a competitor with WLS in the 60's and 70's became a Christian station in the mid 80's after most of the mainstream music stations migrated to the FM band. They used to play a liner that boasted it was the biggest Christian station in the country because you could hear them all over the Midwest (and into Canada) at night. Darrell Ankarlo a/k/a Kris Stevens was the main DJ along with Jim Chanell for a while. In the late 80's the station was bought by another company and they flipped it to a non-Christian format.

There was another 3000 watt station in the far west suburbs that played CCM in the 80's too. It was WCRM 103.9. Bob Sauer of Christian Countdown USA was there, Todd Chatman and a few others I can't recall right now. That was the first Christian station I ever heard but I loved to listen to it. It changed hands around 1988 or 89 I think.
Click to expand...

Yes, those must be them! Jim Chanell used to have a Countdown called "Christian Countdown America" and on the show was always promoting this new magazine which was gonna include a segment on a CCM radio station in Chicago, which he called the #1 Christian Station in America! I did not realize that it was only an AM station however, I always thought that it was on the FM instead.

Then CCM reported a format change back in '88/'89, and that an FM station had picked up the slack, but that they were lighter than the first CCM though.

In 1992 I visited Chicago, in part because I was hoping to hear some good CCM music on the air, but it did not come to fruition though. The only FM's at that point were WYLL and WMBI. One of those stations did play some CCM on a Saturday, but that was about it.

Thank you again for the information, it was a big help!

Blessings,

Retro
 
I could occasionally get WCFL where I lived in West TN, but at times there was static from a Mexican or Cuban station. They were like a lot of the other commercial AM CCM stations in that the music was great, but there was too much dependence on programs, some of which were pretty bad. At that time they were the only place I could get CCM radio, because the Memphis area didn't have anything between late 1986 and late 1988. I can remember hearing in what I thought was about 1987 when they changed formats. That left me with virtually no CCM radio except when I made trips to Nashville or IL.
 
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