Radio
 
From the Stevens Point Journal May 19, 1992

For decades, area radio stations have filled the airwaves with news and entertainment.

The first station to broadcast from Portage County was WLBL, named for Land of Beautiful Lakes, back in the late 1930s, according to Jim Schuh, president of WIZD Communications. The station, which was originally located on what is today property of the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, has since moved to Auburndale.
 

Clarification on WLBL
by Bob Wundrock
Regarding Jim Schuh's article about WLBL. WLBL has been on the air since 1923. It has been on a couple of different frequencies and locations. In the 1930's the studios were above the Lyric Theatre in Stevens Point.  My uncle, Ray Dehlinger of Point, was announcing there at the time. He got fired for asking all available bodies to help fight a forest fire.

It was licensed to the Wisconsin Dept. of Agriculture until the State Radio Council took it over in 1947, the same year the transmitter site moved to its present site in Auburndale. It is currently licensed to the Wisconsin Educational Communications Board, and broadcasts "The Ideas Network" of Wisconsin Public radio.

Yes, WHA-AM is touted as "the oldest station in the nation," tracing its roots to station 9XM in 1917.  I work for the Wisconsin Educational Communications Board, parent organization of Wisconsin Public TV & Radio. 

WSPT AM was the second station to be licensed in the county, in 1948. Originally the station was called WTWT, but changed its call letters to incorporate a local theme, Schuh said. As listeners began to tune in to FM stations outside the county, WSPT took to the FM airwaves in 1961.

That station, originally owned by Ralph and Rosa (Bartell) Evans, was sold in the 1960s to a corporation of investors including former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Warren E. Burger and current Justice Harry A. Blackman, said Schuh. “Now that’s a little piece of history that not too many people know,” he said. The station has switched hands several times since, briefly under the ownership of Sentry Insurance, and ultimately purchased by Americus, the current owners.

WYTE and WMGU entered the broadcasting race several years later. WMGU has since gone off the air.

The campus station, WWSP, went on the air as WSUS for Wisconsin State University Stevens Point.“They must have begun in the late ‘60s or early ‘70s as a little low-power radio station, primarily to teach students about broadcasting,” said Schuh. “But they’ve come along, and become a good force for the community. “They’re claim to fame is, of course, the trivia contest.”

While today’s broadcasts give updates on current events, Schuh said early programming didn’t cover news. “If we look at (local radio stations) as news media, that didn’t begin until 1965 with any significance,” he said. “Weather and entertainment happened earlier. “Radio was more of an entertainment medium in those days.”
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