WLEY

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WLEY is a Mexican Spanish Music station focusing on Ranchero Music. They serve the Chicago market and are owned by Spanish Broadcasting Systems. They are licensed to Aurora, Illinois.

[edit] History

The station was locally owned since its 1965 sign on. They played adult contemporary music over the years of some sort. They did go through various formats over the many years. The station was known as WAUR by 1970. In 1986 WAUR was sold to Beasley Broadcasting. They continued as an adult contemporary station serving the Aurora area at that time. By the late 1980's, the call letters were changed to WYSY-FM "Y-108 - Doin' It In The 'Burbs!" The AM sister station at 1280, became WYSY-AM, simulcasting Y-108, and later WBIG. For awhile in 1993, the station played Adult Top 40 days and hard rock/metal at night.

In late 1993 WYSY was sold to Cox Communications. The station switched to an all '70s format in 1994. Initially they played all types of '70s music such as easy listening, soft rock, pop, disco, hard rock, classic rock, soul, novelty, and others. They only played music from the '70s initially.

By 1995 the station was mixing in big '60s hits and big '80s hits. The music narrowed to a blend of pop rock, pop, disco, soft rock, and soul. In 1996, when the FCC allowed companies to own up to 5 AM and 5 FM stations per market but totaling no more than 8 in all, CBS bought this station, along with its sister station WCKG, on May 16. At the time CBS already owned WBBM (AM) and WBBM-FM. They also acquired WMAQ and WXRT from Westinghouse. This gave CBS 4 FM stations and 2 AM stations.

In 1997 with the merger of Infinity, CBS now owned news 780 WBBM, talk/sports WJJD 1160, news 670 WMAQ, AAA 93.1 WXRT, rhythmic/CHR WBBM FM 96.3, country 99.5 WUSN, 104.3 oldies WJMK, talk WCKG 105.9, and 107.9 WYSY playing '60s/'70s/'80s hits. This gave CBS 9 stations and one station too many on the FM Band and one station too many with both bands combined.

So CBS/Infinity opted to sell the station with the lowest ratings which was WYSY 107.9. They sold the station to Spanish Broadcasting Systems. Upon the sale in the Spring of 1997 WYSY became WLEY and took on a Spanish Adult Contemporary format leaning on Mexican Music. Eventually WLEY evolved into a Regional Mexican Music format focusing on Ranchero.

[edit] External links

• La Ley