Its call letters standing for “World's Greatest Newspaper,” WGN, a clear-channel radio (and then TV) station, was not actually started by its longtime owner, the Tribune Company, but was purchased by the newspaper giant soon after it went on the air in June 1924. In 1934 WGN talent and executives helped create the Mutual Radio Network; recently it has attracted thousands of listeners with a middle-of-the-road music/talk format. WGN-TV signed on in April 1948. After short-term affiliations with both CBS and DuMont, channel 9 programmed as an independent, non-network station. It took this strategy national as a “superstation” in November 1978.

Douglas Gomery