Early years
In the early years, Florian built the station, did all the engineering and also sold advertising. He was the Chief Engineer during the entire time of his ownership. WNIB began broadcasting on July 9, 1955, and had the slogan "Chicago's FM Voice of Variety." [2] It primarily broadcast jazz, show tunes, and easy listening music. [2] Bill Gershon was among the first announcers. [2] Gershon had the idea of playing classical music Sunday evenings and stated, "Classical music wasn't part of our programming at first, since most other FM stations aired lots of classical music, especially WFMT and WEFM. But I told Bill we should make use of the 12 records we had in the library. He said, 'All right. Just don't have any of that ivory-tower stuff here.'" [2] By early 1957 Gershon had left the station, but classical music's presence at the station was expanded, though Florian said that it was a tough sell. [2]
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, United States, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and developed from roots in blues and ragtime. Jazz is seen by many as "America's classical music". Since the 1920s Jazz Age, jazz has become recognized as a major form of musical expression. It then emerged in the form of independent traditional and popular musical styles, all linked by the common bonds of African-American and European-American musical parentage with a performance orientation. Jazz is characterized by swing and blue notes, call and response vocals, polyrhythms and improvisation. Jazz has roots in West African cultural and musical expression, and in African-American music traditions including blues and ragtime, as well as European military band music. Intellectuals around the world have hailed jazz as "one of America's original art forms".
Easy listening is a popular music genre and radio format that was most popular during the 1950s to 1970s. It is related to middle-of-the-road (MOR) music and encompasses instrumental recordings of standards, hit songs and popular non-rock vocals. It mostly concentrates on music that pre-dates the rock n' roll era, mostly concentrating on music from the 1940s and before. It was differentiated from the mostly instrumental beautiful music format by its variety of styles, including a percentage of vocals, arrangements and tempos to fit various day parts during the broadcast day.
WNIB's studios and transmitter were originally located at the Midwest Hotel, at Hamlin and Madison in West Garfield Park. [2] [6] Subsequent studio locations for WNIB included 108 N. State St., Riverside Plaza, 25 E. Chestnut St., 12 East Delaware Place, and finally 1140 W. Erie. [6] [7]
The Midwest Athletic Club is a historic athletic club building located at 6 N. Hamlin Ave. in the West Garfield Park community area of Chicago, Illinois. The club was built in 1926-28 under the direction of a committee of West Side business leaders. The thirteen-story building's design featured ornamental terra cotta, large arched windows on the third floor, and a mansard roof; it also provided views of Garfield Park, the north side of which was across the street. Its facilities included an Olympic-sized swimming pool, a gymnasium and exercise rooms, handball courts, billiard rooms, a library, dining rooms, and a ballroom. The club grew to include 2000 members in its first year, most of them businessmen and their families; however, the building entered receivership in 1930 and was converted into a hotel.
West Garfield Park on the West Side of Chicago, Illinois, is one of 77 officially designated Chicago community areas. It is directly west of Garfield Park.
The Riverside Plaza is an art deco skyscraper located in Chicago, Illinois, United States. The building was designed by Holabird & Roche/Holabird & Root and completed in 1929. The 26-story building is 302 feet (120.7 m) tall. It was known as the Chicago Daily News Building until the newspaper of the same name ceased publication in 1978.
In 1958, Sonia Atzeff, a graduate of Roosevelt University in Chicago, was hired and steered the programming toward a classical music format. [2] She and Florian were married in 1967, and she was the General Manager of the station until its sale in 2001. [3] [8]
Roosevelt University is a coeducational, private university with campuses in Chicago, Illinois and Schaumburg, Illinois. Founded in 1945, the university is named in honor of both former President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt.
Among the other announcers in the early years were Bill Plante, [3] who went on to become a fixture at CBS News, Marty Robinson and Don Tait, [9] [3] both of whom later worked for WFMT, and Ken Alexander, who later worked for WAIT 820, but later returned to WNIB. [10]
Bill Plante (born January 14, 1938 is a veteran journalist and correspondent for CBS News, having joined the network in 1964. His most recent work was as the Senior White House Correspondent for CBS, reporting regularly for CBS This Morning as well as for the CBS Evening News. Plante covered the 1965 voting rights marches from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama as a national correspondent for CBS News. He also served several tours of duty in South Vietnam covering the Vietnam War, the first in 1964 and the last in 1975 during the Fall of Saigon at the end of the war. He anchored CBS Sunday Night News from 1988 to 1995. He retired in November 2016. He is the stepfather of syndicated radio talk show host Chris Plante.
Marty Robinson is a retired voice-over announcer for various stations, most notably at WTTW studios.
WFMT is an FM radio station in Chicago, Illinois, featuring a format of fine arts, classical music programming, and shows exploring such genres as folk and jazz. The station is managed by Window To The World Communications, Inc., owner of WTTW, one of Chicago's two Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) Public television stations. WFMT is also the primary station of the WFMT Radio Network, and the Beethoven and Jazz Networks. WFMT transmits from the Willis (Sears) Tower.
In 1968, the station's transmitter was moved to the Civic Opera Building. [6]
The Civic Opera Building is a 45-story office tower located at 20 North Wacker Drive in Chicago. The building opened November 4, 1929, and has an Art Deco interior. It contains a 3,563-seat opera house, the Civic Opera House, which is the second-largest opera auditorium in North America. Today, the opera house is the permanent home of the Lyric Opera of Chicago.
Ron Ray began as a part-time announcer on WNIB in 1968. [11] Working concurrently at 105.9 WXFM, Ray pre-recorded his announcements. [11] In 1977, Ray began working full-time at WNIB as program director. [11] Live classical hosts on WNIB over the years included Fred Heft, Jay Andres, Bruce Duffie, Carl Grapentine, and Obie Yadgar. [12] [7] [13] Miller Peters was the station's music director in its final years, and also served as a weekend host. [12] [7] [13]
While classical music was the station's primary focus, for a period, brokered ethnic and religious programming aired in some late night hours. [2] Florian, a jazz aficionado, also hired Dick Buckley as a DJ for the station's jazz programming. [2] [14] Neil Tesser also hosted a jazz program on WNIB from 1974 to 1976. [15] [16] Blues hosts included Mr. A. and Big Bill Collins. [17]
Those Were the Days, a four-hour old-time radio program hosed by Chuck Schaden, aired on WNIB Saturdays from September 6, 1975 until February 10, 2001. [9] Dick Lawrence hosted The Dick Lawrence Review, a weekly program on WNIB that featured nostalgic commentary and readings, along with vintage music. [18] [19]
In 1976, WNIB's antenna and transmitter were relocated to the top of the Standard Oil Building. [6]
When 99.5 WEFM was sold and abandoned its longtime classical music format in 1978, a portion of its classical music library was donated WNIB as part of the settlement to permit the station's sale. [20]
Stability and success
From about 1980 until the end of classical operations in 2001, a stable group of announcers brought the station to pre-eminence in Chicago.
In 1969, WNIB began publishing a monthly program guide which listed all the music being played each day on the station. [21] [22] The inclusion of the label and record number enabled listeners to purchase things they enjoyed hearing, and the subscription price helped keep the station going during the leaner times. The covers at first had details of well-known artworks, and later had original sketches and caricatures by Richard Kimmel and Robert Kameczura. [22]
Special programs made exclusively for WNIB included “Collector’s Showcase” which presented 78 rpm discs and featured a topic or performer and was created by Bill Holmes with Bob Wolf and Fred Heft also hosting segments; and “The French Lyrical Tradition” created and hosted by Dr. Morris Springer. “Baroque and Before” was also a long-running hour-length program, and “Zephyr” was the evening-drive show (from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m.) featuring shorter and lighter fare. It was the station policy, however, to only play complete works, not just movements of larger works. When the time called for 5 or 6 minutes, an overture or other short work was used. It was not until the 1980s that brief newscasts, weather forecasts and traffic reports were added to the mix.
Complete operas were featured regularly on the station at various times. There were recordings on a weekday afternoon, Saturday afternoon and Sunday afternoon or evening during this period. For many years, a weekly opera from RAI, the Italian Radio was featured. WNIB spent one entire Saturday playing Wagner’s “Ring” cycle, starting at about 9 a.m. and running until after midnight.
Syndicated programs included Adventures in Good Music with Karl Haas, which aired Mon–Fri at 7 p.m., [13] and various live-on-tape concerts and operas from Europe which were also featured sporadically. Orchestral concerts by the Utah Symphony, the Detroit Symphony and other orchestras had weekly series over the years. “The Vocal Scene” with George Jellinek and “First Hearing” with Lloyd Moss ran each week for many years, and “Pipe Dreams,” an organ showcase, also aired on the station for a short while. During the final few years, WNIB played “Performance Today” from 11 p.m. to 1 a.m. Mostly, however, the station played recordings of commercial LPs and CDs, and did no direct recording of live concerts.
Beginning in 1979, Bruce Duffie [23] gathered interviews which were broadcast either to promote upcoming concerts or to celebrate the birthdays of composers and performers. “Who’s in Town” and “Chicago Music Dateline,” which he created and produced, also acted as a calendar of upcoming events. His interviews also were featured on “The Sunday Evening Opera,” and in various composer-programs in the late-night/early-morning hours on the weekends. For these series, Duffie and WNIB won the ASCAP/Deems Taylor Award in 1991. [24] Some of these interviews were transcribed and published in various magazines and journals, and now some are being posted on his website. [25] [26]
Especially in the final 10–15 years, WNIB was quite successful as a Classical Music station. It beat WFMT in the local ratings, and turned a good monetary profit because the owners kept the staff small. Besides the announcers, who covered the day-parts in 6- to 8-hour shifts, there were only a couple of sales people, a couple of office-staff, and a woman who cleaned the physical layout twice a week.
Following the closing of WEFM, WNIB bought WKZN, a station in Zion, Illinois, which occupied the first-adjacent position on the dial at 96.9-FM. Florian had made adjustments to the signal pattern of WNIB over the years so as not to interfere with WKZN, but eventually he simply bought the station to use as a repeater. The call letters were changed to WNIZ, and the signal quality was improved for the classical station along the North Shore region of Chicago and suburbs.
WNIB was also famous for having dogs and cats in residence. [12] [2] [3] They were profiled in the newspaper and on local TV stations, and listeners seemed to enjoy knowing that they were there. The dogs were even audible at times, since the doors to the on-air studios were simple and not air-lock (soundproof) types. During newscasts and live commercials, the barking of the dogs could be plainly heard and response was enthusiastic. Indeed, at the end, many people called wanting to adopt them since they thought they were losing their home. As a matter of fact, it was the Florians who picked up these stray animals and gave them a good place to live, and were simply going to keep them the way they were. In 2001, the new owners got the license to use the dial-position, but not the physical plant or anything else, so the animals were never bothered by any of the after-classical change. The Florians also gave a bit of money and some free advertising to a couple of animal shelters in the area.
The sale price of WNIB and WNIZ in 2001 was $165,000,000. [27] After the completion of a final program on February 11, the station was turned off. About 20 minutes later the new owners took the air with a different format. [28]
Much of the purchase price of the station went to establish the NIB Foundation, which gives grants to various local performing arts organizations. The offices were in the Erie Street location (where the front door still contained a placque with the WNIB callsign). The day-to-day operations are being handled by Richard Covello and Wendy Rozenberg.
Bill Florian died on December 7, 2016, of lung cancer at the age of 84. [29] [3] The following October, the building was sold.
