WDWS is a News-Talk radio station in Champaign, Illinois

Champaign, Illinois

Champaign is a city in Champaign County, Illinois, in the United States. The city is located south of Chicago, west of Indianapolis, Indiana, and 178 miles northeast of St. Louis, Missouri. Though surrounded by farm communities, Champaign is notable for sharing the campus of the University of...

. The station operates at 1 kW of power, and is owned by the News-Gazette, the primary newspaper in the Champaign-Urbana Metropolitan Area

Champaign-Urbana Metropolitan Area

The Champaign-Urbana metropolitan area, also known as Champaign-Urbana, is a metropolitan area in east-central Illinois. It is the 191st largest metropolitan area in the U.S. It is composed of three counties, Champaign, Ford, and Piatt...

. The station provides news and information for the city, and agricultural information for surrounding farmland. The station broadcasts Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Dave Ramsey, Clark Howard, Kim Komando and Bill Cunningham.

History

The station signed on for the first time on January 24, 1937 as the area's first commercial radio station. David W. Stevick, publisher of the News-Gazette, had applied for a license in 1935, and his wife Helen and daughter Marajen continued the project. They named the station WDWS in his honor. WDWS was the east central Illinois affiliate for St. Louis Cardinals

St. Louis Cardinals

The St. Louis Cardinals are a professional baseball team based in St. Louis, Missouri. They are members of the Central Division in the National League of Major League Baseball. The Cardinals have won eleven World Series championships, the most of any National League team, and second overall only to...

 baseball

Baseball

Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each. The aim is to score runs by hitting a thrown ball with a bat and touching a series of four bases arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot diamond...

 since it signed on until 2010. Although the station broadcasts at only 1,000 watts, the signal is easily received throughout much of east-central Illinois . In Fall 2002, WDWS was the top-ranked station in the Champaign-Urbana radio market.

WHMS-FM, which also broadcasts from Champaign, is the sister station to WDWS, and was known as WDWS-FM for many years. The two stations are the flagships for Illinois Fighting Illini

Illinois Fighting Illini

The Fighting Illini are the intercollegiate athletic teams of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The University offers 10 men's and 11 women's varsity sports....

 football and basketball games; a role that WDWS has held throughout its history. WDWS has been broadcasting the Chicago Cubs

Chicago Cubs

The Chicago Cubs are a professional baseball team located in Chicago, Illinois. They are members of the Central Division of Major League Baseball's National League. They are one of two Major League clubs based in Chicago . The Cubs are also one of the two remaining charter members of the National...

, beginning with the 2011 season.

WDWS is currently an affiliate of the CBS Radio Network, and CBS was WDWS's national news source from 1937 until 2001. From 2001 until 2009, WDWS was affiliated with ABC News Radio

ABC News Radio

ABC News Radio is the radio service of ABC News, a division of the ABC Television Network. Formerly known as ABC Radio News, ABC News Radio feeds, through Cumulus Media Networks, newscasts on the hour to its more than 2,000 affiliates...

.

Programming Schedule

5-9 a.m. WDWS Morning Show (Dave Gentry, Elizabeth Hess, Brian Barnhart, Dave Loane and Carol Vorel)

9-11 a.m. Penny for Your Thoughts (Jim Turpin)

11 a.m.-2 p.m. Rush Limbaugh

2-4 p.m. Sean Hannity

4-5 p.m. WDWS Newshour (Brian Moline)

5-6 p.m. Sportstalk (Steve Kelly)

6-9 p.m. Dave Ramsey

9-11 p.m. Clark Howard