WNTY-FM

WNTY-FM (105.7 FM) is a commercial radio station in Chicago, Illinois. It is owned by Urban One and carries a mainstream urban format. WNTY-FM's studios are located at the 16th floor of 303 East Wacker Drive in the Chicago Loop, with transmitters being located atop the Willis Tower in the Loop.

As WGN-FM
On January 18, 1949, WGN-FM would sign on over the air. It is owned by the local Chicago Tribune newspaper, which also owned well-known radio station WGN (720 AM). Both stations were affiliates of the Mutual Broadcasting System and have carried the network's entire lineup. Before 1949, WGN owned another FM radio station known as WGNB (98.7 FM) which signed off once WGN-FM launched. The 98.7 frequency in Chicago is owned occupied by classical music station WFMT. It also served as a sister station to WGN-TV.

From 1955 to 1975, WGN-AM-FM-TV as well as the Chicago Tribune and the Tribune Broadcasting Company were owned by the McCormick-Patterson Trust after the Chicago Tribune's founder, Robert McCormick died due to pneumonia-related complications.

When MBS started to lose its prominence, WGN-AM-FM would switch to a middle of the road format and then an adult contemporary format in the 1970s.

Easy-listening and top 40
On October 17, 1976, Tribune Broadcasting would sell WGN-FM to EZ Communications, the owner of a bunch of easy-listening stations. Sure after EZ's purchase of WGN-FM, the station would change its call-letters to WCEZ-FM and changed the station's format to an easy-listening or beautiful music format, fitting in line with EZ's other stations.

However as the beautiful music format started to decline in popularity, EZ acted fast and switched the station to a top 40 format rivaling WBBM-FM. The new format launched on July 12, 1983, and was branded as "Z106". The Z106 format, however, wasn't a success in the long run as it couldn't compete with its growing competitor. In 1985, the station changed its call-letters to WNTY-FM and changed its branding to Y106.

Hot 105.7
On January 6, 1988, seeing the success of WWAL, EZ's wanted to replicate that success, this time in a major large market. On that day, WNTY-FM would drop its top 40 format and switched to a mainstream urban format, branding itself as "Hot 105.7". The first song to play on Hot 105.7 was "Partytime" by Too Short.

From 1990 to 2005, WNTY-FM was the flagship home of The Sara Carlton Show, hosted by local radio host Sara Carlton, daughter of Carlton & Carlton co-host Jim Carlton.

In 1996, American Radio Systems would purchase EZ Communications, the sale was made effective on April 4, 1997. Just a year later in 1998, ARS would merge with Infinity Radio. However during the merger, Infinity was over the limits and thus sold ARS' Chicago cluster including WNTY-FM, WYCU, WAPM, WCMX-FM, WPTX to the African-American controlled Radio One (later known as Urban One).