WEBG

WEBG (95.5 MHz) is a country music radio station located in Chicago, Illinois, owned and operated by iHeartMedia, Inc. (formerly Clear Channel Communications until September 2014) and branded as "Big 95.5". WEBG has studios located at the Illinois Center complex on Michigan Avenue in Downtown Chicago, and it broadcasts from an 8.3kw transmitter based atop John Hancock Center.

WEBG broadcasts two channels in the HD Radio format.

History

The station began operation in 1959 as WDHF, owned by Hi-Fi systems and record store owner James Dehaan. The station operated out of Dehaan's store in the Evergreen Plaza in Evergreen Park, Illinois. Its transmitter and tower was in Oak Lawn at 97th and Central. WDHF and Dehaan's record store moved to 102nd and Western Avenue in Chicago, in 1961. In the mid 1960s comedian Bob Newhart purchased the station and moved its studios downtown to 108 N. State St. In the late 1960s, WDHF was sold again to the National Science Network. In the early 1970s, the station's transmitter was moved to the John Hancock Building on the near north side of Chicago. Under Dehaan's, Newhart's and the National Science Network's ownership, WDHF aired a big band music format. Metromedia would buy the station by the early 1970s and flipped the format to a full service station playing middle-of-the-road popular music. Within a few years, WDHF adopted a top 40 format. On December 1, 1976, WDHF's call letters were changed to WMET, while keeping a top 40 format. Several months after the format flip of WEFM from Classical to Top 40 "WE"-FM in 1978, Metromedia flipped WMET to an AOR format. Ratings were good into the early 1980s.