Branding Access Radio Chicago First air date May 15, 1963 (as WMPP) | Frequency 1470 kHz Last air date November 7, 2015 | |
City Chicago Heights, Illinois Broadcast area Chicago's south suburbs and South Side | ||
WCFJ (1470 AM) was a radio station licensed to Chicago Heights, Illinois, United States. It served Chicago's south suburbs and South Side. The station's original call sign was WMPP.
History
WMPP began broadcasting on May 15, 1963, originally airing a format consisting of Jazz and R&B. The first African-American owned and operated radio station in the Midwest, it was owned by Seaway Broadcasting Company. The company was run by Chicago businessmen William Martin and Charles Pickard. The call letters stood for Working (for) More People's Progress. The station continued to air an R&B format into the 1980s when the station began to sell an increasing amount of brokered airtime. The station was sold to JANA Broadcasting in 1984. In early 1989 the station was sold to Liberty Temple Full Gospel Church, and the station aired a Gospel music/Religious format. On September 18, 1989, the station's callsign was changed to WCFJ. The station was sold to Newsweb Corporation in 1998, and changed its format to brokered programming.
On November 7, 2015, Newsweb pulled the plug on WCFJ, citing that the station was no longer profitable. The license was surrendered to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on November 9, 2015; the FCC cancelled the license and deleted the WCFJ call sign the same day.