WXRT
Encyclopedia
WXRT, also known as WXRT 93.1, XRT, and 93-XRT is a AAA
radio station
in Chicago, Illinois. For many years their slogan has been "Chicago's Finest Rock". WXRT is a primary sponsor of the Chicago nonprofit Rock For Kids
.
). Lewis College sold WFJL-FM in 1958. The new owner of WFJL-FM, Louis Lee, renamed the call letters to WSBC-FM from 1959 to 1963. In 1964 Lee changed the call letters to WXRT-FM. Dan Lee, Louis Lee's son sold WXRT in 1995, it is now owned by CBS Radio.
The format as it exists today began in 1972 as a night-time-only freeform rock
experiment, sharing the 93.1 frequency with a variety of different ethnic and foreign language programming that aired during the daylight hours. The part-time progressive rock
format was gradually expanded until by 1976 it aired 24 hours a day. By the 1980s the station played primarily New Wave
and alternative
music of that time. As the 1990s approached the station opted to stay with its core audience and move to a AAA
format. The office of the radio station was located at 4949 W. Belmont Ave. on the northwest side of Chicago, until September 6, 2008, when it was relocated to the NBC Tower
in downtown Chicago. On March 16, 2010, it was again relocated to the Prudential Plaza
.
WXRT was locally owned until 1995. It was then purchased by Westinghouse
, which had acquired WMAQ 670 (which has since changed call letters to WSCR
) a few years before. WXRT became part of the CBS
conglomerate in 1996 when Westinghouse
and CBS merged. CBS later merged with Infinity Radio, keeping the Infinity name for its radio division. CBS and Viacom
would merge in 2000, making WXRT an Infinity Radio station whose parent companies were CBS and Viacom. In December 2005, Infinity Radio officially became CBS Radio
in anticipation of the CBS/Viacom split up.
There has been remarkably little disc jockey
turnover at XRT since it began in 1972. Terri Hemmert
is the DJ who has been with XRT the longest, since 1973. Norm Winer, who worked at pioneering progressive rock
radio stations WBCN in Boston
and KSAN in San Francisco, has been the XRT Program Director for over 25 years.
rock
dating from the mid-'50s to the present. The station's playlist includes over 5,000 songs which appear on a regular basis from a wide set of genres, including blues
, reggae
, folk-rock, pop
, and rock and roll
. The station is well known for its Saturday Morning Flashback
program, hosted by Wendy Rice (Norm's wife), and its Breakfast with the Beatles
(a show that originated at WCKG
in 1985) program on Sunday morning
s, hosted by Terri Hemmert. "Blues Breakers" emphasizes the blues
of Chicago
artists and has been hosted by Tom Marker since 1984. "Jazz Transfusion", hosted by Barry Winograd, features a wide range of jazz from different eras and genres. "Local Anesthetic," hosted by Richard Milne since 1991, features
the latest music from Chicago-area artists.
jokes over the years.
On April 1, 1998, WXRT stated during its morning show with Lin Brehmer that it was now called WXXXRT, and that it was now a subsidiary of Playboy Enterprises
. Brehmer, the normal morning show host, and his news anchor partner, Mary Dixon, very calmly and casually made the announcement several times throughout the show that day and made very little fuss about the change in ownership, trying to pawn it off as no big deal. The station's music format was now changed to include primarily 1980s dance music. Brehmer took extra care to mention the change in station call letters more than usual. Many of the conversations from angry listeners were recorded off-the-air that morning, and then edited together and played back the next day, April 2nd. Some of the conversations included Brehmer talking with people, letting them fume, and then asking the angry listener what day it was; this often resulted in the listener realizing they had been a victim of the hoax.
Also, during the 90's on April 1, WXRT announced its new studio, with a window to the street, at 380 N. Michigan Avenue. That address didn't exist, as it put the studio address in the middle of the Michigan Avenue bridge crossing the Chicago River.
In 2006, WXRT announced it would end its Saturday Morning Flashback
program on April 1 of that year. Many listeners did not realize the importance of the proposed end date for the program as a clue that the announcement was a hoax.
Adult album alternative
Adult album alternative is a radio format. A spinoff from the album-oriented rock format, its roots trace to the 1960s and 1970s from the earlier freeform and progressive formats....
radio station
Radio station
Radio broadcasting is a one-way wireless transmission over radio waves intended to reach a wide audience. Stations can be linked in radio networks to broadcast a common radio format, either in broadcast syndication or simulcast or both...
in Chicago, Illinois. For many years their slogan has been "Chicago's Finest Rock". WXRT is a primary sponsor of the Chicago nonprofit Rock For Kids
Rock For Kids
Rock For Kids is a nonprofit organization based in Chicago, Illinois. Honorary board members include Martin Atkins of Invisible Records, Andrew Bird, Jon Langford, Johnny Marr of Modest Mouse and the Smiths, Nan Warshaw co-owner of Bloodshot Records and Joe Shanahan owner of Metro...
.
History
WFJL-FM -- (W - FJL - Frank J. Lewis) (93.1 FM Chicago) went on the air in 1947 until 1959. WFJL operated as a non-commercial station by Lewis College of Science and Technology (previous name of Lewis College, now Lewis UniversityLewis University
Lewis University is a private Roman Catholic and Lasallian university located in Romeoville, Illinois, United States . The enrollment is currently around 6,800 students...
). Lewis College sold WFJL-FM in 1958. The new owner of WFJL-FM, Louis Lee, renamed the call letters to WSBC-FM from 1959 to 1963. In 1964 Lee changed the call letters to WXRT-FM. Dan Lee, Louis Lee's son sold WXRT in 1995, it is now owned by CBS Radio.
The format as it exists today began in 1972 as a night-time-only freeform rock
Freeform (radio format)
Freeform, or freeform radio, is a radio station programming format in which the disc jockey is given total control over what music to play, regardless of music genre or commercial interests. Freeform radio stands in contrast to most commercial radio stations, in which DJs have little or no...
experiment, sharing the 93.1 frequency with a variety of different ethnic and foreign language programming that aired during the daylight hours. The part-time progressive rock
Progressive rock (radio format)
Progressive rock is a radio station programming format that prospered in the late 1960s and 1970s, in which the disc jockeys are given wide latitude in what they may play, similar to the freeform format but with the proviso that some kind of rock music is almost always what is played...
format was gradually expanded until by 1976 it aired 24 hours a day. By the 1980s the station played primarily New Wave
New Wave music
New Wave is a subgenre of :rock music that emerged in the mid to late 1970s alongside punk rock. The term at first generally was synonymous with punk rock before being considered a genre in its own right that incorporated aspects of electronic and experimental music, mod subculture, disco and 1960s...
and alternative
Alternative rock
Alternative rock is a genre of rock music and a term used to describe a diverse musical movement that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1980s and became widely popular by the 1990s...
music of that time. As the 1990s approached the station opted to stay with its core audience and move to a AAA
Adult album alternative
Adult album alternative is a radio format. A spinoff from the album-oriented rock format, its roots trace to the 1960s and 1970s from the earlier freeform and progressive formats....
format. The office of the radio station was located at 4949 W. Belmont Ave. on the northwest side of Chicago, until September 6, 2008, when it was relocated to the NBC Tower
NBC Tower
The NBC Tower is an office tower on the Near north side of Chicago, Illinois, United States located at 454 North Columbus Drive in downtown Chicago's Magnificent Mile area. Completed in 1989, the 37-story building reaches a height of 627 feet...
in downtown Chicago. On March 16, 2010, it was again relocated to the Prudential Plaza
Two Prudential Plaza
Two Prudential Plaza is a super-tall skyscraper that was built in the Loop area of Chicago, Illinois, United States in 1990. At 995 feet tall, it is currently the sixth-tallest building in Chicago and the thirteenth tallest in the United States. The building was designed by the firm Loebl,...
.
WXRT was locally owned until 1995. It was then purchased by Westinghouse
Westinghouse Electric Company
Westinghouse Electric Company LLC is a nuclear power company, offering a wide range of nuclear products and services to utilities throughout the world, including nuclear fuel, service and maintenance, instrumentation and control and advanced nuclear plant designs...
, which had acquired WMAQ 670 (which has since changed call letters to WSCR
WSCR
WSCR is a sports radio station in the Chicago, Illinois radio market. The station is owned by CBS Radio and transmits on 670 kHz on the AM dial. Its transmitter is located just off Army Trail Road in Bloomingdale, which is a western suburb of Chicago. It is known as "The Score," and has been on...
) a few years before. WXRT became part of the CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
conglomerate in 1996 when Westinghouse
Westinghouse Electric Company
Westinghouse Electric Company LLC is a nuclear power company, offering a wide range of nuclear products and services to utilities throughout the world, including nuclear fuel, service and maintenance, instrumentation and control and advanced nuclear plant designs...
and CBS merged. CBS later merged with Infinity Radio, keeping the Infinity name for its radio division. CBS and Viacom
Viacom
Viacom Inc. , short for "Video & Audio Communications", is an American media conglomerate with interests primarily in, but not limited to, cinema and cable television...
would merge in 2000, making WXRT an Infinity Radio station whose parent companies were CBS and Viacom. In December 2005, Infinity Radio officially became CBS Radio
CBS Radio
CBS Radio, Inc., formerly known as Infinity Broadcasting Corporation, is one of the largest owners and operators of radio stations in the United States, third behind main rival Clear Channel Communications and Cumulus Media. CBS Radio owns around 130 radio stations across the country...
in anticipation of the CBS/Viacom split up.
Personnel
Current Programming Personnel:- Norm Winer (Vice President Adult Rock Programming)
- John Farneda (Operations Manager/Music Director)
- Marty Lennartz (DJ/Creative Assistant to Programming/Host of the Big Beat/Going to the Show with A Regular Guy)
- Todd Manley (Production Director)
- Brian Hlavacek (Production Assistant)
- Lin Brehmer (Morning show host)
- Mary Dixon (News anchor)
- Marc Alghini (morning show producer/DJ)
- Terri Hemmert (DJ/Host of Breakfast with the Beatles)
- Frank E. Lee (DJ)
- Jason Thomas (DJ)
- Tom Marker (DJ/Host of Blues Breakers)
- Wendy Rice (DJ/Host of Saturday Morning Flashback)
- Richard Milne (DJ/Host of Local Anesthetic)
- Barry Winograd (Host of Jazz Transfusion)
- Leslie Witt (DJ)
- Johnny Mars (DJ)
- Ken Sumka (DJ)
- Doug Levy (DJ)
- Bill Artlip (DJ)
- Liz Rush (DJ)
There has been remarkably little disc jockey
Disc jockey
A disc jockey, also known as DJ, is a person who selects and plays recorded music for an audience. Originally, "disc" referred to phonograph records, not the later Compact Discs. Today, the term includes all forms of music playback, no matter the medium.There are several types of disc jockeys...
turnover at XRT since it began in 1972. Terri Hemmert
Terri Hemmert
Terri Hemmert is an American radio personality, musicologist, and instructor at Columbia College Chicago. She is a long-term presence at WXRT-FM in Chicago, Illinois where she became the first female drive time host for a rock music station in the Chicago radio market...
is the DJ who has been with XRT the longest, since 1973. Norm Winer, who worked at pioneering progressive rock
Progressive rock (radio format)
Progressive rock is a radio station programming format that prospered in the late 1960s and 1970s, in which the disc jockeys are given wide latitude in what they may play, similar to the freeform format but with the proviso that some kind of rock music is almost always what is played...
radio stations WBCN in Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
and KSAN in San Francisco, has been the XRT Program Director for over 25 years.
Current format and programming
WXRT plays a very broad library of mostly adult-orientedAlbum-oriented rock
Album-oriented rock is an American FM radio format focusing on album tracks by rock artists.-Music played:Most radio formats are based on a select, tight rotation of hit singles...
rock
Rock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...
dating from the mid-'50s to the present. The station's playlist includes over 5,000 songs which appear on a regular basis from a wide set of genres, including blues
Blues
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...
, reggae
Reggae
Reggae is a music genre first developed in Jamaica in the late 1960s. While sometimes used in a broader sense to refer to most types of Jamaican music, the term reggae more properly denotes a particular music style that originated following on the development of ska and rocksteady.Reggae is based...
, folk-rock, pop
Pop music
Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...
, and rock and roll
Rock and roll
Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...
. The station is well known for its Saturday Morning Flashback
Saturday Morning Flashback
Saturday Morning Flashback is a program airing from 8 AM until 12 noon Saturday mornings on Chicago radio station WXRT. It has aired continually in this time slot since 1985...
program, hosted by Wendy Rice (Norm's wife), and its Breakfast with the Beatles
Breakfast with the Beatles
Breakfast with the Beatles is a popular programming segment format on FM radio in cities in the USA. The segment format typically features one or more hours of programing consisting exclusively of music by or related to The Beatles...
(a show that originated at WCKG
WCKG
WCFS-FM , known on-air as "WBBM Newsradio 780 & 105.9", is a radio station licensed to Elmwood Park, Illinois and serving the Chicago, Illinois market...
in 1985) program on Sunday morning
Morning
The word morning originally referred to the sunrise. Morning precedes midday, afternoon, and night in the sequence of a day.Morning is the part of the day usually reckoned from dawn to noon...
s, hosted by Terri Hemmert. "Blues Breakers" emphasizes the blues
Blues
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...
of Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
artists and has been hosted by Tom Marker since 1984. "Jazz Transfusion", hosted by Barry Winograd, features a wide range of jazz from different eras and genres. "Local Anesthetic," hosted by Richard Milne since 1991, features
the latest music from Chicago-area artists.
April Fools' jokes
WXRT has performed numerous April Fools' DayApril Fools' Day
April Fools' Day is celebrated in different countries around the world on April 1 every year. Sometimes referred to as All Fools' Day, April 1 is not a national holiday, but is widely recognized and celebrated as a day when many people play all kinds of jokes and foolishness...
jokes over the years.
On April 1, 1998, WXRT stated during its morning show with Lin Brehmer that it was now called WXXXRT, and that it was now a subsidiary of Playboy Enterprises
Playboy Enterprises
Playboy Enterprises, Inc. is a privately held global media and lifestyle company founded by Hugh Marston Hefner to manage the Playboy magazine empire. Its programming and content are available worldwide on television networks, Websites, mobile platforms and radio...
. Brehmer, the normal morning show host, and his news anchor partner, Mary Dixon, very calmly and casually made the announcement several times throughout the show that day and made very little fuss about the change in ownership, trying to pawn it off as no big deal. The station's music format was now changed to include primarily 1980s dance music. Brehmer took extra care to mention the change in station call letters more than usual. Many of the conversations from angry listeners were recorded off-the-air that morning, and then edited together and played back the next day, April 2nd. Some of the conversations included Brehmer talking with people, letting them fume, and then asking the angry listener what day it was; this often resulted in the listener realizing they had been a victim of the hoax.
Also, during the 90's on April 1, WXRT announced its new studio, with a window to the street, at 380 N. Michigan Avenue. That address didn't exist, as it put the studio address in the middle of the Michigan Avenue bridge crossing the Chicago River.
In 2006, WXRT announced it would end its Saturday Morning Flashback
Saturday Morning Flashback
Saturday Morning Flashback is a program airing from 8 AM until 12 noon Saturday mornings on Chicago radio station WXRT. It has aired continually in this time slot since 1985...
program on April 1 of that year. Many listeners did not realize the importance of the proposed end date for the program as a clue that the announcement was a hoax.