Newsweb Corporation

Newsweb Corporation is a printer of ethnic and alternative newspapers in the United States, based in Chicago, Illinois. The company also owns several radio stations in the Chicago area. Newsweb was founded in 1971 by Chicago entrepreneur, political activist, and philanthropist Fred Eychaner to continue his printing business.[1][2]

Radio

In early 2004, the company purchased 99.9 FM WRZA from Entravision and in late 2004, the company purchased three suburban Chicago radio stations from Spanish Broadcasting System: 92.5 FM WDEK, 92.7 FM WKIE and 92.7 FM WKIF. The trimulcast was formerly the home to Energy 92.7&5. WKIF was broken away from the trimulcast and WRZA took its place. WKIF became a CNN Radio affiliate. The new trimulcast became a variety hits format as Nine FM, and the station later became a split-format station with Nine FM during the day and Dance Hits format Dance Factory at night. Dance Factory is operated by TKC Entertainment, which leases the air time from Newsweb. Nine FM was discontinued as of October 19, 2008 in favor of Progressive Talk simulcast with sister station WCPT.

WCPT-FM 92.7, WCPQ 99.9, and WCPY 92.5 was a trimulcast which simulcast WCPT between 5 AM and 9 PM, and operates Dance Hits format Dance Factory at night.

Newsweb Corporation owns WCPT which is an Air America and CNN Radio affiliate, and also includes locally hosted Progressive Talk programming. WCPT operates on 820 AM in the Chicago area.

Newsweb purchased AM 850 WAIT in 2004. Newsweb also owns WSBC 1240 AM and WNDZ 750 AM, and formerly owned WCFJ 1470 AM, until surrendering the station's license to the Federal Communications Commission on November 9, 2015.

In May 2018, Newsweb sold WCPQ to Bible Broadcasting Network for $5,099,000.[3] WCPT-FM was sold to Educational Media Foundation for $1.6 million in autumn of 2018.[4][5]

In August 2019, Newsweb sold WAIT's transmitter site to McHenry County College, and the station was taken off the air.[6][7] Newsweb surrendered WAIT's license on July 15, 2020, and the FCC cancelled the license on July 21.[8]

Television

Newsweb had formerly owned the Gary, Indiana-licensed UPN affiliate for Chicago, WPWR, until 2003, when they sold the station to Fox Television Stations Group, becoming a duopoly with WFLD, the Fox owned and operated station.

In 2006, they also sold Denver UPN affiliate KTVD to the Gannett Company,[9] who made it part of a duopoly with Gannett's local NBC affiliate, KUSA-TV. Newsweb retained KTVD's former satellite station in Sterling, Colorado, KUPN (now KCDO-TV), which was operated as independent station from 2010 to 2020. The company later sold KCDO-TV (now a Grit owned-and-operated station) to E. W. Scripps Company in November 2020.[10]

Coincidentally, both WPWR and KTVD are affiliates of MyNetworkTV.

References
  1. McCormik, John (2005-06-07). "Fred Eychaner". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 2011-12-14.
  2. Armstrong, David (2002-09-30). "A Long Strange Trip". Forbes.
  3. Venta, Lance. "Bible Broadcasting Acquires WCPQ Park Forest IL", RadioInsight. March 20, 2018. Retrieved December 2, 2018.
  4. Finlon, Katie. "DeKalb station WCPT-FM bought out by Educational Media Foundation", Daily Chronicle. September 28, 2018. Retrieved December 2, 2018.
  5. Venta, Lance. "EMF Acquires WCPT-FM", RadioInsight. September 26, 2018. Retrieved December 2, 2018.
  6. Feder, Robert. "Feder: WAIT to go dark as Newsweb sells land to McHenry County College", Daily Herald. August 20, 2019. Retrieved August 29, 2019.
  7. Feder, Robert. "WAIT to go dark as Newsweb sells land to McHenry County College", RobertFeder.com. August 20, 2019. Retrieved August 29, 2019.
  8. "Surrender of License", fcc.gov. July 15, 2020. Retrieved July 20, 2020.
  9. Feder, Robert (2006-01-20). "Top anchor, reporter lose Telemundo jobs". Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved 2008-09-25.
  10. KCDO-TV STERLING, CO RabbitEars.info (Print page for Technical Data). Retrieved 29 November 2020


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