Neha Patil (Editor)

WIBC (FM)

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First air date
  
December 5, 1960

HAAT
  
302 meters (991 ft)

City of license
  
Indianapolis

Area
  
Indianapolis

Sister stations
  
WFNI

ERP
  
13,500 watts

Frequency
  
93.1 MHz

Owner
  
Emmis Communications

Branding
  
93 WIBC

WIBC (FM) httpsuploadwikimediaorgwikipediaenaa3Wib

Broadcast area
  
Indianapolis metropolitan area

Slogan
  
Indy's News Center (on logo) Live. Local. First. (on website)

Translator(s)
  
107.5 W298BB (Indianapolis, relays HD2)

Format
  
Talk radio, All-news radio

WIBC (93.1 MHz) is a commercial FM radio station in Indianapolis, Indiana. It is owned by Emmis Communications and broadcasts a talk radio format. The studios are located at 40 Monument Circle in downtown Indianapolis. The transmitter and antenna are located near South Post Road and Burk Road on the far east side of Indianapolis. The station airs mostly local conservative talk shows on weekdays, with several nationally syndicated programs, including Dana Loesch, Chad Benson, Coast to Coast AM with George Noory and on weekends Kim Komando and Bill Cunningham. Weekends also feature shows on money, health, gardening, computers and guns. Some weekend hours are paid brokered programming. Some hours begin with world and national news from Fox News Radio.

Contents

For nearly seven decades, WIBC broadcast on the AM radio frequency of 1070 kHz. On December 26, 2007, WIBC's call letters and talk programming moved to the FM dial at co-owned 93.1 MHz. Also on that date, the 1070 kHz frequency took the call sign WFNI and began an all-sports format as "1070 The Fan".

WIBC broadcasts in HD, using its HD-2 signal for WFNI's local sports format, also heard on translator 107.5 W298BB. WIBC's HD-3 signal carries the national ESPN Radio Network.

Early Years

1070 AM WIBC went on the air on October 30, 1938. Its call sign stood for Indiana Broadcasting Company. WIBC began as a 1,000-watt daytime-only station. The other heritage stations in Indianapolis were WFBM (now WNDE), WIRE (now WXNT), and WISH/WIFE (now WTLC). In its early days, WIBC was the Indianapolis network affiliate of the Mutual Broadcasting System. It carried dramas, comedies, news, sports, game shows and soap operas during the Golden Age of Radio. In the 1950s, WIBC's owner, Fairbanks Broadcasting, petitioned the Federal Communications Commission to put a TV station on the air on Channel 13. But the Crosley Broadcasting Corporation was awarded the license. Fairbanks sued, saying as an Indiana-based company, it should get the license over Crosley, based in Cincinnati, Ohio. But the lawsuit was unsuccessful. In 1960, WIBC added an FM station at 93.1, WIBC-FM.

As TV took over most network programming in the 1950s and 60s, WIBC switched to local news, talk and music. The station was considered among the great full service middle of the road (MOR) radio stations in America, placing an emphasis on its colorful air personalities. During the 1970s and into the early 1980s there was: Gary Todd (mornings) brought in from KOL Seattle, Jerry Baker (9-11am) who was also the voice of Indiana Hoosier basketball, Paul Page, the voice of the Indianapolis 500 on television and who served as an award-winning newsman at WIBC in the early 1970s, flying the first Indy traffic helicopter until a serious crash nearly killed him in 1977. Orly Knutson (Noon-2pm, brought in from Minneapolis), Chuck Riley (from WKYC Cleveland) afternoons before becoming a very successful voice-over talent in L.A. Others personalities who were on the air at WIBC were Big John Gillis (traffic from the Helicopter 1070), Pete Sullivan (from WHAS Louisville), Bob Simpson (WSNY Columbus) and Jeff Pigeon (KSTP Minneapolis) who went on to do mornings after Gary Todd retired. There were 3 major production voices responsible for most of the station's promos at one time or another during the 1970s & 1980s: Billy Moore from WHAS Louisville, Kentucky; John E. Douglas (brought in from WNOX Knoxville); and Reb Porter, long time Indy personality from WIFE. A longtime fixture was former News Director Fred Heckman, who began with WIBC in 1957, abruptly resigning in 1993 under a dispute with its then-owners.

Switch to Talk

Over the 1980s, more talk programming was added and music was reduced as listeners increasingly turned to FM for music. WIBC became a full-time talk radio station in 1993, eliminating all music shows. Fred Hickmam returned in 1994 after the station was purchased by Emmis, and remained until his 2000 retirement. His daily "My Town Indy" radio essays, which ran for thirty years, were among the station's most enduring favorites.

Early Years

The Indianapolis station at 93.1 FM first signed on as WIBC-FM on December 5, 1960. It aired a classical music format. On July 1, 1968, WIBC-FM was re-launched as WNAP. It was the first FM station in the Indianapolis market to broadcast a mix of Album Oriented Rock and Top 40 hits, better known as "Rock 40," and was in direct competition with Top 40 leader 1310 WIFE. Later, in the 1970s and early 1980s, the station was nicknamed "Stereo 93 FM WNAP The Buzzard".

On March 4, 1986, the format changed to a rock-driven hot adult contemporary sound, and the call letters became WEAG using the name "Eagle 93." The format changed to classic hits with the call letters WKLR on August 14, 1987. On April 1, 1988 (April Fools' Day), WKLR changed from classic hits to oldies. Among WKLR's disc jockeys was current WIBC newsman Steve Simpson.

WNAP returned at 5 p.m. on September 9, 1994, when WKLR changed back to a classic hits station with a strong focus on the "greatest hits of the 70s." WNAP later moved in a more classic rock direction playing "classic rock that really rocks" with the syndicated Howard Stern Show carried in the morning. Despite on-air boasts that WNAP was going to "kick Q-95's ass," the classic rock format was a failure.

Radio Now 93.1

After weeks of stunting, WNAP changed to contemporary hits on March 28, 2000, at 6 AM, with the call letters WNOU and the name "Radio Now." Radio Now's first song was "The Rockafeller Skank" by Fatboy Slim. The station received some national notice in November 2004, when its morning show conducted the first interview with Indiana Pacers player Ron Artest following the Pacers–Pistons brawl.

Orbital 93.1

In 2006, WNOU launched an HD-2 subchannel, dubbed "Orbital 93.1," which offered a rhythmic contemporary format with emphasis on current and classic dance music. Orbital was discontinued with the switch to WIBC talk programming.

WIBC-FM

On October 8, 2007, at Noon, after playing "When You're Gone" by Avril Lavigne, 93.1 began stunting with Christmas music under new temporary call sign WEXM, being promoted as "The 93 Days of Christmas." The Christmas format was a place holder as part of the transition to moving the talk programming from 1070 AM to 93.1 FM. Initially planned to last 93 days, from October 8th to January 8th, the change-over was moved up to December 26th. The switch came after Emmis acquired local radio rights to the Indianapolis Colts football team. To prevent frequent preemption of programming and tedious shufflings of games on its stations, it was decided to move WIBC to the FM frequency immediately after Christmas, and make 1070 AM a sports station as "AM 1070 The Fan".

Upon the demise of "Radio Now", Radio One purchased the intellectual property of the station from Emmis Communications. Two days later, on October 10, the "Radio Now" branding, format and logo were installed on the new 100.9 WNOU (formerly WYJZ). Local Radio One management claimed that they will offer the displaced staffers of WNOU the first chance of joining the station's lineup, and will use the same imaging as the former WNOU. Emmis also claimed that they would release displaced RadioNow staffers from their "non-compete" contracts.

The WNAP call letters are now used at a gospel-formatted AM station licensed in Norristown, Pennsylvania serving the Philadelphia market.

Local News and Talk

As of 2013, WIBC broadcasts four daily local programs: The Morning News with Tony Katz. The show features Terri Stacey and former Indianapolis Colts player Joe Staysniak; Garrison, hosted by local lawyer Greg Garrison; "Chicks on the Right" in afternoons and "Abdul at Large" in the evenings.

Staysniak had moved to the morning show in October 2008. He replaced Jake Query, who in turn replaced longtime WIBC fixture Jeff Pigeon (referred to as "Pidge" by the staff and listeners), who left the station October 1, 2007. Pigeon had been WIBC's morning host since taking over for Gary Todd in 1988, and prior to that had hosted the 7:00 p.m.-midnight shift when WIBC was still a full-service/music station. (Pigeon later resurfaced at oldies station WKLU.)

Staysniak previously co-hosted in the afternoon with Dave "the King" Wilson, whose show launched in the mid-1990s but ended in March 2009 due to budgetary cutbacks. At that time, Simpson's show moved from 6–8 PM to 3–7 PM.

Local Sports

WIBC was the AM flagship station of the NFL's Indianapolis Colts, simulcasting the games with sister station WLHK. In addition, WIBC was the flagship for the NBA's Indiana Pacers and the WNBA's Indiana Fever, and for the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Radio Network, carrying the Indianapolis 500 since the network's creation in 1952, and the NASCAR Brickyard 400 since that race's 1994 debut. WIBC also aired Indiana University football.

Most of WIBC (AM)'s sports properties remained at 1070 WFNI when WIBC moved to FM (with WLHK remaining the FM outlet for the Colts and for IndyCar). However, on June 22, 2010, the Pacers announced an extension of their broadcast agreement with Emmis Communications which included their games moving to FM and back to WIBC, beginning in the 2010–11 season.

Beginning with the 2011–12 basketball season, WIBC replaced WLHK as the Indianapolis broadcast home of Indiana University basketball. In case of a conflict, Pacers games move to WFNI for the night.

Additionally, WIBC airs Butler University basketball, IndyCar races and high school championship events that are bumped from WFNI due to conflicts.

Syndicated Talk

On April 13, 2015, WIBC announced the station was dropping Rush Limbaugh. Charlie Morgan, an executive for Emmis, indicated that the decision to drop Limbaugh was about the "long-term direction of the station," but also acknowledged that there was a "business element to the decision." Limbaugh's weekday show moved to 1260 WNDE, which is owned by iHeartMedia, the parent company of Limbaugh's syndicator Premiere Networks. WIBC continues to carry syndicated talk shows from Dana Loesch, Chad Benson, George Noory (Coast to Coast AM), Kim Komando and Bill Cunningham. Loesch does her national show from the WIBC studios.

References

WIBC (FM) Wikipedia