WJBC is an AM radio station based in Bloomington-Normal, Illinois. Part of a five-station cluster, WJBC is the only AM station of the group. It has two full-time news anchors and two part-time reporters. The station is now owned by Cumulus Media. The station calls itself "The Voice of Central Illinois". WJBC has been the longtime home to the Illinois State Redbirds, as well as local high school sports, the Chicago Bears and the St. Louis Cardinals. WJBC has also carried the Central Illinois Flying Aces and Bloomington Edge on occasion. WJBC has been known for many years as a station that broadcasts all-local talk programs. This fact has consistently made WJBC one of the top radio stations in the Bloomington area. WJBC carries The Dave Ramsey Show and The John Batchelor Show at night, in addition to its local shows.
History
The station began broadcasting from La Salle, Illinois in May 1925 with 1000 watts on 1280 kHz. Its call letters were apparently assigned arbitrarily during the AM radio expansion era of the 1920s. The station was initially music-oriented, and for a while it adopted the mnemonic slogan "Where Jazz Becomes Classic". The station was originally at the Hummer Furniture Store, then at the Kaskaskia Hotel. During the years in LaSalle, it moved to 1320 kHz, then 1200 kHz. The Great Depression eventually closed both the companies backing the station in LaSalle, and the owner of Hummer Furniture owner moved the station to Bloomington-Normal. Malcolm Magregor bought WJBC from Kaskaskia Broadcasting Company effective April 1, 1933. At that time, WJBC was a 100-watt station, sharing time with WJBL in Decatur, Illinois. On, WJBC began transmitting from its new facilities, making it the first radio station in Bloomington-Normal. The transmitter was in Normal and its main studio was at Illinois Wesleyan University in Bloomington; other studios were at Illinois State Normal School and the Illinois Farm Bureau. At first it was only on the air a few hours a day, with eight daily newscasts, weather twice a day, and the Western Union time announced at the top of each hour. On the morning of August 25, 1971, the station broadcast the last radio program of the Reverend R.J. Zehr, who died later that morning. Zehr's first broadcast on the station was on a Sunday in October 1934; shortly thereafter, he was given a daily slot, which he continued - without missing a day - until the mid-1960s. Almost all of Zehr's broadcasts were live, not prerecorded. In 1949, he began doing the program from his house, via telephone. His program's time slot varied over the years, but normally aired between 5:00 a.m. and 6:30 a.m., and lasted 15 to 30 minutes. On April 30, 2012, Townsquare Media announced that it was selling the station to Cumulus Media. The assignment of the station's license to Cumulus was consummated on July 31, 2012. In 2005, and again in 2009, the station won the Marconi Award from the National Association of Broadcasters for Best Small Market Radio Station in the United States. WJBC has won several Edward R. Murrow Awards for its local news coverage, as well as several Illinois Silver Dome Awards. The audio tape cartridge machine, which fundamentally changed the way radio stations played commercials and music on air, was developed at WJBC in 1959. Ted Bailey and staff engineer Jack Jenkins developed the ATC machine. A joint patent was granted to Bailey, Jenkins and Nolte as inventors.
