URBANA - 2022 marks the 100-year anniversary of WILL-AM, the oldest component of Illinois Public Media. The University of Illinois launched the station at a time when the idea of using radio to reach a mass audience was new and cutting edge. There was no FM radio or TV, no internet or social media. The first trans-Atlantic telephone call was five years away.
Today, those in Central Illinois often look to WILL as a trusted source of local, state, and national news. But news wasn’t always a main focus of WILL. This began to change after WWII.
April 6, 2022, marked 100 years of WILL-AM, the oldest component of Illinois Public Media and one of the first radio stations in the country. We commemorated the occasion with a special ceremony at Campbell Hall.
Music served multiple functions during WILL’s first two decades on air. It was a way for the University to project a certain image of the institution—one that was cultured and high-minded—to those who tuned in across the country. It was also a way to draw listeners in so that they would be induced to listen to the educational content.
One hundred years ago, on the evening of Thursday, April 6, 1922, the University of Illinois’ radio station went on the air for its first broadcast at 833 kilohertz (the station moved to 1100 kHz in 1924). WRM, the service that would become WILL Radio, was cutting-edge technology in 1922. Americans were still figuring out what role radio broadcasting would play in their lives.
WILL went on the air for the first time on Thursday, April 6 at 8:30 pm. On that storied night, four men gathered around a 50-watt vacuum tube in the University of Illinois' Electrical Engineering laboratory and broadcast a thirty-minute program, which could apparently be heard within a 500-mile radius of the Urbana campus. Read more about "The Early Years" here.
This story looks back on a locally produced talk show that was a mainstay of the AM 580 schedule for more than thirty years. At a time when national daytime programming was scarce on public radio, WILL’s Focus 580 kept its listeners in touch with their community and with the world.
WILL-AM Radio turns 100-years-old in April 2022. Throughout the year, we’re bringing you stories about the history of this station. Much of that history can be found in the recordings it made and archived over the years. One recording dates back to March 1957, when Langston Hughes (1901-1967), one of the 20th century’s leading African-American writers, paid a visit to the University of Illinois.
For many at the time, Miss Heathman was synonymous with WILL’s original home economics programming, created in partnership with University of Illinois Extension. By 1949 she was the host of two daily radio shows on WILL, Jessie Heathman and Homemakers Quarter Hour, and by 1957, she was producing, writing, and starring in Your Home and Mine on WILL-TV.
