WAUK

WAUK (540 kHz) is a commercial AM radio station licensed to the Washington County community of Jackson, Wisconsin, and serving the Milwaukee metropolitan area. It is known on-air as 540 ESPN. Since June 2019, WAUK has mainly carried the national ESPN Radio schedule with some diversions for local content. The station's studios and offices are in the "Radio City" complex on East Capitol Drive in Milwaukee.

"WYLO" redirects here. For the community in the United States, see Wylo, West Virginia.
WAUK
CityJackson, Wisconsin
Broadcast areaMilwaukee metropolitan area
Frequency540 kHz
BrandingESPN Wisconsin
SloganAll you really wanna hear is sports!
Programming
FormatNational-based sports talk
AffiliationsESPN Radio
Ownership
OwnerGood Karma Brands
(Good Karma Brands Milwaukee, LLC)
WKTI, WGKB, WTMJ, WTLX, WMVP
History
First air date
May 1, 1964
Former call signs
WYLO (1964–1995)
WZER (1995–2001)
WYLO (2001)
WRRD (2001–2008)
Call sign meaning
WAUKesha (city of license for the 1510 frequency)
Technical information
Facility ID10824
ClassB
Power400 watts
Transmitter coordinates
43°20′00″N 88°09′10″W
Translator(s)W266DR 101.1 FM Waukesha
(Currently off air)
Links
WebcastListen Live
WebsiteESPNWisconsin.com

The station is owned by Beaver Dam-based Good Karma Brands[1] (formerly Good Karma Broadcasting, LLC), headed by Craig Karmazin, son of legendary radio executive Mel Karmazin. Sister station WKTI 94.5 FM carries mainly local sports talk and WTMJ 620 AM/103.3 FM airs a news/talk and sports format. WAUK is among the few independent network affiliates of ESPN Radio whose webstream is carried on the network's mobile apps, and whose website is hosted on ESPN.com.

History

The station signed on in 1964 with the call sign WYLO, which stood for "Way Low" (the station's position on the AM dial). WYLO ran a country music format for many years before switching to Christian programming. From 1995 to 2001, the WZER call sign was used, prior to briefly returning to WYLO and finally, WRRD.

Prior to the sale to current owner Good Karma Broadcasting, Salem Communications owned the property and programmed a Christian talk and teaching format. The station's now-former WRRD call letters come from Salem's branding of the station, "The Word".

GKB took over operation of the signal on February 7, 2008, moving the format of 1510 AM from that daytimer-limited signal to the full-time 24/7 signal of WRRD. Formerly, ESPN Radio was heard on WAUK during the day, and WMCS (1290) from 6pm-6am since January 1, 2005 under the branding Milwaukee's ESPN Radio - 1510 Days/1290 Nights. On February 12, 2008, WAUK's call letters were switched to the 540 frequency, with the WRRD calls moving to 1510.

The new "540 ESPN" simulcasts continued with 1510 AM[2] until May 5, 2008, when Good Karma converted the new WRRD to ESPN Deportes Radio, a Spanish language sports talk format.[3] WMCS's time brokering arrangement with WAUK ended on June 30, 2008, when the station reclaimed nighttime hours for the music and community talk format the station aired the rest of the day[4] until a March 2013 format change to standards as WZTI. On November 1, 2018, following Good Karma Brands' acquisition of WTMJ (620) and WKTI (94.5) from the E.W. Scripps Company, WKTI began simulcasting WAUK's programming as "94.5 ESPN FM".[5]

As of April 20, 2020, the station began to serve as a temporary over-the-air simulcast of SiriusXM's COVID-19 pandemic-specific discussion and news channel which is an extension of the service's Doctor Radio channel; SiriusXM has made the channel available to any interested broadcaster without charge, and offers it free and clear on both their streaming and satellite radio platforms without a required subscription.[6] It returned to regular ESPN Radio programming by mid-July 2020 as American professional sports began to resume. In late August 2020, the former WRRD (and its FM translator in Milwaukee) began to simulcast WAUK after its current owner (which Good Karma sold the station to in 2017) decided to wind down its operations as a progressive talk outlet and sell the station's studio and transmitter facility.

Programming

As of June 2019, Good Karma has chosen to split WAUK and WKTI into a common scheduling tactic where one station mainly carries the master ESPN Radio national schedule, as WAUK now does, while the other carries mainly local content, which WKTI does. The only diversion WAUK takes from the national ESPN schedule on a regularly scheduled day is the absence of The Will Cain Show for carriage of ESPN Milwaukee Podcenter, which compiles best-of content for the afternoon drive and is hosted by Doug Russell. ESPN Radio commercial breaks, where contractually possible, also carry this same best-of and additional sponsored content in order to limit listener tune-out.[7]

WAUK and WKTI are the flagships of the Marquette University Golden Eagles. The station also airs play-by-play coverage of Major League Baseball, the College Football Playoff and the NBA from ESPN Radio.

Until 2011, the station had also been the Milwaukee home of NASCAR radio coverage from all three NASCAR radio networks, as well as the LTN Hour radio show since its inception in 1985 and the Racing Roundup show. On the November 27 edition of the LTN Hour, it was announced that WAUK would be dropping all racing programming by the end of 2011, with racing play-by-play acquired days later by Clear Channel's classic country station, WOKY (920), which eventually would go to a mixed format in January 2013 of sports talk from WTSO and Fox Sports and NBC Sports Radio programming. Clear Channel, currently known as iHeartMedia, gained the rights to Wisconsin Badgers sports for the Milwaukee market in 2014 for WAUK and WRIT-FM, usurping WAUK's limited role of airing football and basketball games pre-empted by WTMJ (620) due to rights conflicts.

WAUK operates with only 400 watts, largely to protect CBK in Watrous, Saskatchewan, a clear-channel station also on 540 AM. Despite its modest power, WAUK's signal covers a relatively substantial area due to its low dial position and Wisconsin's flat land.

References
  1. "Home". Good Karma Brands. Retrieved 2019-06-28.
  2. JS Online: Pack prepares, just in case
  3. JS Online: Spanish-only on AM-1510
  4. JS Online: WMCS-AM radio ends ESPN feed, goes talk and music
  5. Kirchen, Rich (October 26, 2018). "Station buyer Craig Karmazin will flip "KTI Country" to ESPN affiliate". Milwaukee Business Journal. Retrieved November 2, 2018.
  6. Ellis, Jon (20 April 2020). "Milwaukee AM Station Temporarily Simulcasting SiriusXM Channel". Northpine. Retrieved 21 April 2020.
  7. "WKTI (94.5 ESPN)-WAUK/Milwaukee Unveil New Lineups". All Access Radio Group. 13 May 2019. Retrieved 7 June 2019.
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