WMAY-FM

For the radio station in Springfield, Illinois at 970 AM, see WMAY (AM).

WMAY-FM (97.7 MHz) is a commercial radio station licensed to Petersburg, Illinois, and serving the Springfield metropolitan area. WMAY-FM and WMAY 970 AM simulcast a news-talk radio format and are owned by Neuhoff Corporation. The radio studios and offices are on North Third Street in Riverton, Illinois.

WMAY-FM

Petersburg, Illinois
Broadcast area	Springfield metropolitan area
Frequency	97.7 MHz
Branding	News Talk 97.7 WMAY
Programming
Format	News/Talk
Network	ABC News Radio
Affiliations	Fox News Radio Compass Media Networks Premiere Networks Radio America Westwood One WICS Springfield Lucky Horseshoes
Ownership
Owner	Neuhoff Corp. (Neuhoff Media Springfield, LLC)
Sister stations	WCVS-FM, WFMB, WFMB-FM, WQLZ, WMAY, WNNS
History
First air date	March 17, 1987 (as WLUJ)[1]
Former call signs	WLUJ (1986–2001) WLGM (2001–2002) WYVR (2002–2007) WLCE (2007–2015) WQLZ (2015–2025)
Technical information[2]
Licensing authority	FCC
Facility ID	38346
Class	B1
ERP	11,500 watts
HAAT	147 meters (482 ft)
Transmitter coordinates	39°38′38″N 89°30′51″W
Repeater(s)	970 WMAY Springfield
Links
Public license information	Public file LMS
Webcast	Listen Live
Website	WMAY.com

WMAY-FM has an effective radiated power (ERP) of 11,500 watts. The transmitter is on Ginder Road in New City, Illinois, near the Sangchris Lake State Recreation Area.^[3]

Programming

Weekdays on WMAY-AM-FM begin with Springfield's Morning News with Patrick Finkston. The rest of the weekday schedule is nationally syndicated talk programs: The Brian Kilmeade Show, The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show, The Dana Loesch Show, The Erick Erickson Show, The Ramsey Show with Dave Ramsey, Our American Stories with Lee Habeeb, Coast to Coast AM with George Noory and America in the Morning.

Weekends feature specialty programs on money, health, law, real estate, farming, guns and technology. Some are paid brokered programming. Weekend syndicated shows include At Home with Gary Sullivan, Rich DeMuro on Tech, The Kim Komando Show, The Jeanne Pirro Show, Eye on Travel with Peter Greenberg and The Jesus Christ Show with Neil Saavedra. Most hours begin with an update from ABC News Radio. WICS ABC Channel 20 supplies weather forecasts.

History

The station signed on the air in December 1968; 56 years ago (1968-12).^[4] It was 3,000-watt WTIM-FM, playing beautiful music and featuring local high school sports events. It was the FM counterpart to WTIM (AM 1410, now WIHM) which was a daytimer. From 1975 to 1983, the FM station was WEEE (known as "Triple E" and later "W-3-E") with a variety of contemporary music formats, starting as adult contemporary then changing to "Rock 'n' Gold" (an AC/oldies hybrid) and then to album oriented rock. As an AOR station, the station first began to attract an audience in the Springfield market and was drawing much of its advertising revenue from there.

WEEE was sold in 1984 and the new owners changed the format to country music as WTJY. The station was sold again two years later and the format became satellite-fed AC. In 1990, WTJY took on a dayparted format with AAA/Rock mix during the day and a hard-rock/Heavy Metal mix at night. The station also featured the "Todd & Joe morning show" with Todd Ellis and Joe Swank, both of whom went on to work at WKCM/WLME in Hawesville, KY/Tell City, Indiana after the station sale in 1993. The station also featured Rick Elliott music director and afternoon host, later left to become Operations Manager of WJVO/WJIL in Jacksonville, IL, and Shawn Balint, who went by the handle of "Doc Rock".

Ownership of WTIM and WTJY became separate in 1993 (thanks to deregulation making it possible for Springfield "clusters" to add a station), with WTJY going to Mid-West Family Broadcast Group to become part of the company's Springfield station cluster as WQLZ. The station also was granted a power increase to 11,500 watts and a tower relocation into Sangamon County to get city-grade coverage of Springfield without relinquishing city-grade coverage of Taylorville. Ellis was on the new WQLZ for a time and Balint remained with WTIM. Meanwhile, WTIM later gained a new FM sister to serve Taylorville in 94.3 WMKR, and moved to its current frequency of 97.3 in 1996 while a Catholic religious broadcaster took over the AM 1410 signal.

During the 1990s, WQLZ was the only radio station in the Central Illinois area with live DJs 24 hours a day, featuring "Ray Lytle's Morning Disaster" hosted by Ray Lytle with his brother Bodine, as well as Jim the Photographer, Mikey, Shawn Balint (who returned to the frequency sometime in the decade), Rocky, Mychelle the Weather Babe, Brando and Rich, Marvin, Larz, and others. In 2006, Balint went on to the St. Louis market, Mikey left radio, and in November 2007, Jim the Photographer died in his home.^[5]

On August 24, 2015, WQLZ began temporarily simulcasting on WLCE, which became the new home for WQLZ on September 4. On that day, 92.7 began stunting with TV theme songs as "TV 93" and changed its call sign to WUSW-FM. On the 8th, 92.7 flipped to country as "92.7 US Country". The call sign WUSW was briefly moved to 1670 AM in Madison, WI, until WUSW-FM assumed the call sign on the 22nd.^[6]

On August 28, 2020, Midwest Family announced that WUSW would drop its country format and begin simulcasting WMAY on September 1. The addition of 92.7 expanded WMAY’s FM coverage to areas to the south and east of Springfield.^[7] The station changed its call letters to WMAY-FM, effective February 10, 2021.

On June 2nd, 2025, WQLZ announced on their social media accounts the station will be returning to the 92.7 FM frequency on July 1, 2025. A callsign swap form was filed with the FCC with the WMAY-FM call letters moving to 97.7 FM.

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