Broadcast area Peoria, Illinois First air date 1927 Facility ID 42119 City of license Peoria Area Peoria | Translator(s) 100.3 W262BY Class B Frequency 1470 kHz Owner Alpha Media Branding 1470 WMBD | |
Power 5,000 watts
2 towers day
4 towers night Format Talk radio, All-news radio Slogan Peoria's News and Talk Station | ||
WMBD is the oldest radio station in Peoria, Illinois. It broadcasts on 1470 kHz with 5,000 watts day and night, with a 2-tower pattern during the day and a 4-tower pattern at night.
The station started broadcasting in 1927. The call letters WMBD are associated with a local legend that President Theodore Roosevelt once described Grandview Drive, the location of the station's original studios, as "the World's Most Beautiful Drive."
Though marketed as a news-talk station now, WMBD has traditionally been a full service station, broadcasting a variety of programs. Past announcers included Bob Carlton, Farmer Bill, Milton Budd, and John Williams, who is now at WGN (AM). The station always had strong agribusiness coverage, and for many years had a noon farm show, which has now moved to sister station WIRL. Colleen Callahan was the long-time agriculture news director. The station was a long-time CBS radio affiliate until 2001.
The station carries The Rush Limbaugh Show and The Glenn Beck Radio Program and is a radio affiliate of Fox News Radio. WMBD has broadcast Bradley Braves basketball games for over 60 years. Current Bradley announcer is Dave Snell who has been doing Bradley play-by-play for over 25 years. WMBD carried St. Louis Cardinals baseball games for many years until 2014, when those games moved to sister station WIRL.
Ownership
WMBD (AM) is no longer co-owned with WMBD-TV channel 31; Midwest Television, who owned WMBD (AM), WPBG, and WMBD-TV for decades, divested itself of all its stations outside of San Diego in the 1990s, selling WMBD-TV to Nexstar Broadcasting and the radio stations to JMP Radio Group, a local division of Triad Broadcasting; Triad has since bought WIRL, WSWT, WXCL, and WDQX (now WNGY). Effective May 1, 2013, Triad sold WMBD and 29 other stations to L&L Broadcasting for $21 million. L&L was later merged into parent company Alpha Media in February 2014.