Reviewed by Peter Berk, President and Chief Media Strategist, Berk Marketing · Last updated 19 September 2026
Chicago
The third largest market in the country and the one where heritage AM radio still holds its ground. Berk Marketing buys Chicago for advertisers and represents no station in it.
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Short answer. Chicago has a flat top: no station holds more than six percent of listening, so no single signal can carry a campaign the way one can in New York or Houston. What it has instead is depth in the formats that respond to direct offers. Newsradio 780 and 105.9 is a top two station, 720 WGN and 890 WLS are heritage talk signals with loyal, older audiences, and two sports stations split the Cubs, White Sox, Bears and Bulls between them. The practical entry point is about five thousand dollars a week, and the right Chicago schedule is usually one news or talk station bought properly rather than three music stations bought thinly.
Station by station
These pages cover what each one costs to buy, who is actually listening, and how the schedule should be built for that format.
The market in numbers
The Mix leads at six percent, Newsradio 780 is right behind, and nothing separates the next six stations by more than a point. Chicago is bought for the audience, not for a dominant signal.
| Station | Dial | Branding | Format | Owner | Share |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| WTMX-FM | 101.9 FM | The Mix | Hot AC | Hubbard | 6.0 |
| WBBM-AM | 780 AM and 105.9 FM | Newsradio | News | Audacy | 5.8 |
| WVAZ-FM | 103.1 FM | V103 | Adult R&B | iHeartMedia | 5.5 |
| WXRT-FM | 93.1 FM | 93XRT | AAA | Audacy | 5.4 |
| WLIT-FM | 93.9 FM | Lite FM | Soft AC | iHeartMedia | 4.9 |
| WUSN-FM | 99.5 FM | US99 | Country | Audacy | 4.9 |
| WDRV-FM | 97.1 FM | The Drive | Classic Rock | Hubbard | 4.5 |
| WKSC-FM | 103.5 FM | Kiss FM | CHR | iHeartMedia | 3.4 |
| WRME-LD | 87.7 FM | MeTV FM | Soft Oldies | Weigel | 3.2 |
| WGN-AM | 720 AM | 720 WGN | News and Talk | Nexstar | 3.0 |
Top ten commercial stations by share. The Mix leads the market at 6.0. The news, talk and sports signals (Newsradio, 720 WGN, The Score, ESPN Chicago) combine to 12.7, and the Spanish-language stations to 8.5. Source: Nielsen PPM as published on our radio stations by market page, which is updated with each book.
How Chicago listens
No station dominates, so the format choice does the work. With the top eight stations within three share points of each other, picking the market leader buys you very little. What separates a Chicago schedule that works from one that does not is whether the format matches the customer: news for a considered purchase, talk for an older established audience, sports for men in season, and a music station bought for frequency when the offer is broad.
Heritage AM still matters here. WGN and WLS are two of the oldest call letters in American radio, and their audiences are among the most loyal in the medium. They skew older, homeowning and established, which is exactly the audience for home services, financial, healthcare, legal and insurance offers. The share numbers undersell how well those audiences respond.
Sports is a two-station market with the teams split between them. The Score and ESPN 1000 divide the play by play rights, so a sports schedule is chosen by which team season is running and where its games air, not by which station has the higher share on the year.
The listener is following a story or a conversation, so fewer commercials a day do the job and a spot written to match that delivery carries more information. In Chicago that means Newsradio 780 first, WGN or WLS for an older audience, and The Score or ESPN 1000 in season.
The listener is half attending, so the message needs repeating, which means weight on one station rather than money spread across four. The Mix, V103, US99 and The Drive each reach a large habitual audience that is bought for frequency on one station.
Why format decides frequency, in full, is on the local radio advertising page.
Money
Chicago is unusually spread across owners: Hubbard has The Mix and The Drive, Audacy has Newsradio 780, 93XRT, US99 and The Score, iHeart has V103, Lite FM and Kiss FM, and Nexstar and Cumulus hold the heritage talk AMs. That spread is good for an advertiser, because no single group can dictate the schedule and each can be negotiated against the others. It is bad for an advertiser who takes the first package offered.
The practical entry point for a terrestrial campaign here is about five thousand dollars a week, the same floor as every market we buy, and it needs to run long enough to build frequency rather than a week or two to see what happens. What sets the rate, what moves it and how remnant inventory changes the arithmetic is covered on the radio advertising costs page.
Berk Marketing represents advertisers and holds no Chicago inventory. We go to the stations and the groups for availability and price, negotiate each against the others, write and produce the commercial in house, place the schedule and track what it returns by station. Where a station has unsold airtime, we buy it as remnant, typically 40 to 60% below the published rate card, and you are refunded or credited for any spot that does not run.
Fit
Worth knowing first
We work with advertisers who have not already been in contact with a radio station’s sales rep. We are not in the business of taking clients away from stations, and once an advertiser has been quoted directly, our ability to bring remnant pricing on that station is compromised.
The consequence lands on you rather than on us. If Chicago is on your list and you have not spoken to anyone yet, that is exactly when this is worth a call.
We will run a competitive monitoring report at no charge and with no obligation. It shows which Chicago stations your competitors are on, at what times of day, how many spots, and it includes the actual audio of their commercials.
In many cases nothing shows up at all, and that is worth knowing too.
Get the ReportQuestions
For a considered purchase, Newsradio 780. For an older established audience, WGN or WLS. For men in season, The Score or ESPN 1000 depending on which team is playing. For a broad consumer offer, one of the big music stations bought for frequency. Chicago has no dominant signal, so the format choice matters more than the station name.
The practical minimum for a terrestrial campaign is about five thousand dollars a week, here as elsewhere. Beyond that, the rate depends on the station, the daypart, how long you commit and whether the airtime is bought at rate card or as remnant inventory. How the rate is set and negotiated is covered on the radio advertising costs page.
Not on the major signals, which cover the whole metro. Some stations skew north, west or south, and a schedule can lean on them, but the honest answer is that you buy the market and use the creative and the dayparts to speak to your part of it.
Yes, for the right offer. WGN and WLS reach an older, homeowning, loyal audience that responds to direct offers in home services, financial, healthcare, legal and insurance out of proportion to its share. For a young consumer offer, no.
No. We represent advertisers only and hold no station inventory, so there is no Chicago signal we are obliged to recommend.
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