City Chicago, Illinois Frequency 1240 kHz Power 1,000 watts unlimited | Broadcast area Chicago market Format Brokered programming | |
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Branding Access Radio Chicago 1240 | ||
WSBC (1240 AM) is a radio station broadcasting a Brokered format. Licensed to Chicago, Illinois, United States, the station serves the Chicago area. The station is owned by Newsweb Corporation.
The station features broadcasts in a variety of languages, principally Russian on weekdays, 7-10 a.m. and noon-6 p.m. Weekends also have broadcasts in Spanish, Greek, Ukrainian and Romanian.
WSBC hired the nation's first full-time African-American radio announcer, Jack Cooper, in 1929.
The call letters acronym referenced its first owner, the World Storage Battery Company.
In 1933, Gene Dyer purchased WSBC from C.J. Gordon, who had operated it since August 1932. At the time, Dyer also owned WGES in Chicago.
For many years, WSBC shared time on its frequency with stations WCRW and WEDC. By 1998, WSBC's owners had bought out the latter two stations and established WSBC as a full-time operation.
The Sousa Archives and Center for American Music holds the Frank Scheibenreif Slovak, Czech, and Romi Sound Recording Collection, ca. 1930-1950. This collection includes 1,001 recordings, including 753 78-R.P.M., 140 45-R.P.M., and 108 LPs; and one book documenting Eastern Europe music prior to World War II, principally from Czechoslovakia and used by Scheibenreif for the WSBC show, "Slovak American Radio Review."