WISN (AM)

WISN (1130 kHz) is a commercial AM radio station in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It broadcasts a news/talk radio format and is owned by iHeartMedia, Inc. The studios are on Howard Avenue in the Milwaukee suburb of Greenfield.

By day, WISN runs the maximum power for commercial AM stations, 50,000 watts. To protect other stations on 1130 AM, a clear channel frequency, it reduces power at night to 10,000 watts and uses a directional antenna at all times. Its nine-tower array is located at 21423 Bennett Road in Dover, off U.S. Route 41. WISN is also heard on the HD 2 digital subchannel of sister station WRNW (97.3 FM).

WISN airs a mix of local hosts and syndicated conservative talk shows from Premiere Networks, a subsidiary of iHeartMedia. An hour of news, the Morning Briefing, starts off the weekday schedule, Jay Weber's local morning drive time show following it and leads into Benjamin Yount's mid-morning program. The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show is then carried live before leading into four hours of live afternoon local programming, with Vicki McKenna airing for one hour, followed by the Dan O' Donnel Show for three hours. Evenings feature The Sean Hannity Show, followed by The Mark Levin Show, both airing in tape delay, before Coast to Coast AM with George Noory is heard after midnight.

The weekend mainly features paid brokered programming, including local shows on money, health, the outdoors, real estate and home improvement. Syndicated weekend programs include The Kim Komando Show, At Home with Gary Sullivan, The Weekend with Michael Brown and Live on Sunday Night, It's Bill Cunningham. Most hours begin with an update from Fox News Radio.

On July 22, 1922, a broadcasting license was issued jointly to the Milwaukee School of Engineering and the daily evening newspaper, The Wisconsin News, which was owned by the Hearst Corporation. The call letters were assigned sequentially with no special meaning, WIAO. Since December 1, 1921, radio stations had been assigned two wavelengths: 360 meters (833 kHz) for "broadcasting news, concerts and such matter", and 485 meters (619 kHz) for "broadcasting crop reports and weather forecasts". As such, WIAO was licensed to broadcast on the frequency of 360 meters (833.3 kHz). Although its license called for "unlimited" time at a power of 500 watts, the fact that the three other Milwaukee stations: WAAK (Gimbel Brothers department store), WCAY (Kesselman O'Driscol Music Co.) and WHAD (Marquette University), were also licensed for the 360 meter band, meant that WIAO had to share time with them.

At 10:15 a.m. on October 23 of that year, WIAO signed on the air from the school's Marshall Street building. It was powered at 100 watts of power, using a student-built transmitter. That power level was formalized on January 9, 1923, when a new license was issued.

On July 23, 1923, another new license was issued — this time solely to the School of Engineering — specifying a power level of 200 watts. The power level was reduced to 100 watts on October 9.

In January 1924, The Wisconsin News began programming the station on a part-time basis. On May 31, 1924, the station was authorized to shift its frequency to 246 meters (1220 kHz). The station did so at 5:30 p.m. on Monday, June 9. On August 18 of that year, WIAO changed its call letters to WSOE (standing for School of Engineering). On December 31, the school announced that it had purchased all of the equipment of WCBD in Zion, Illinois (one of the first religious stations for the city's Christ Community Church, which also preached "flat Earth" information). The purchase included a new, more powerful (500-watt) transmitter and twin towers, which were mounted atop the school's Oneida (now Wells) Street building. The new WSOE was dedicated on July 8, 1925. At that time, The Wisconsin News took over programming the station full-time, while the School of Engineering took care of technical operations. Formal approval of the power increase was issued on July 15.