CHICAGO _ Legacy Chicago rock station WLUP-FM 97.9, "The Loop," will be sold to broadcaster Educational Media Foundation for $21.5 million and will switch formats Saturday to Christian music.
The purchase agreement, struck last month and filed Monday with the Federal Communications Commission, moves the radio station, long a rock music fixture in Chicago, to a broadcaster whose K-LOVE adult contemporary Christian music format is heard on more than 600 stations nationwide.
"We're really excited about being able to get into the Chicagoland area," Mike Novak, president and CEO of California-based Educational Media Foundation, said Tuesday. "We're hopeful that we have some sort of impact on the people of Chicago and that we can provide a positive and encouraging atmosphere in these days of uncertainty."
The foundation is taking over WLUP's programming through an affiliation agreement prior to receiving FCC approval and closing on the station purchase, Novak said.
Chicago rock music fans will be in for a shock.
WLUP was launched in 1977, and the station quickly became the nexus of rock music and irreverent radio in Chicago.
A part of the culture in a city' where young listeners in black Loop T-shirts became an army of rockers, the station launched the career of Chicago radio icon Steve Dahl.
"If you grew up in Chicago in the late '70s, '80s or '90s, The Loop was your radio station," Dahl said Tuesday. "We were all in our 20s back when we started it ... and the music and the community helped an entire generation of Chicagoans define who they are today."
The station caused a near riot in July 1979, when Dahl, then WLUP-FM's morning man, hosted Disco Demolition Night at Comiskey Park and invited fans to bring records for him to blow up between games, forcing the White Sox to forfeit the second game of a doubleheader with the Detroit Tigers.
WLUP is owned by Merlin Media, which has been shopping the station since bankrupt Cumulus Media opted out of a deal last month to buy The Loop and WKQX-FM 101.1 for $50 million.
Randy Michaels, the former Tribune Co. CEO who heads Merlin Media, said last month he would explore "all the available options," including finding a new buyer for the stations.
Michaels was not immediately available Tuesday for comment.
WKQX was not included in the station sale to EMF, according to the FCC filing
Starting with one station in 1982, the nonprofit Educational Media Foundation has grown into a Christian broadcasting force with two networks and more than 900 stations across the U.S. Its contemporary Christian music formats include K-LOVE and Air1.
The K-LOVE format is currently heard on WJKL-94.3 FM in west suburban Glendale Heights. That station is also owned by the foundation.
Novak, 68, was a veteran radio programmer with stints at Top 40 stations in Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Diego before joining the fledgling Christian broadcaster in 1998.
He said "change is inevitable" and urged current Loop listeners to give the new WLUP format a try for 30 days before dismissing it.
The station will keep the WLUP call letters, but the longtime nickname, "The Loop," will probably be shelved, Novak said.
"We do appreciate and understand the heritage of that station, for sure," Novak said. "But it depends on where and how we can use (The Loop slogan)."
An FM pioneer, the station at 97.9 signed on in the 1950s as WEHS and morphed into rhythm and blues outlet WHFC in 1963 under Leonard Chess, the legendary Chicago record company executive.
Jimmy de Castro, who ran WLUP and its roster of larger-than-life air personalities during the station's heyday in the 1980s, said The Loop has a unique place in Chicago history and the radio industry more broadly.
"We tried to break new ground, to break the rules, to be different and had amazing, talented people," de Castro said Tuesday. "We had a hell of a lot of fun."
In recent years, WLUP has faded to the middle of the listener pack, going through several ownership changes in the process.
Partnering with Chicago-based private equity firm GTCR, Michaels formed Merlin Media in 2011, buying WKQX and WLUP in Chicago, and WRXP-FM in New York, from Emmis Communications Corp. for about $198 million in cash and equity.
Atlanta-based Cumulus has been operating WLUP and WKQX since January 2014 under a local marketing agreement with Merlin that included an option to transfer ownership of the stations.
Merlin executed the option to sell the stations for about $50 million and filed a transfer application with the FCC in October. Cumulus filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection the following month.
WLUP is ranked 15th in the latest Nielsen survey for Chicago with a 2.9 share.
Dahl, who currently hosts afternoon on WLS-AM 890, said the end of rock at WLUP marks a bygone era in radio industry.
"We took a lot of chances and made a few mistakes," Dahl said. "Nobody is allowed to even try that in this day and age. Who helps kids define who they are today? YouTube? That seems both sad and lonely."
De Castro, who now heads up the eight Entercom radio stations in Chicago, said for listeners and staffers alike, The Loop of old remains something bigger than radio.
"The Loop was an amazing place," he said.
