The station signed on the air on March 27, 1947.[4] Its original call sign was WAUX, owned by the Waukesha Broadcasting Company. Its studios were at 319 West Main Street and its General Manager was Carl Taylor. Through the years, 1510 AM has had a series of formats, including variations of adult contemporary, country music and talk.
In 1962, it added a sister station, WAUX-FM at 106.1 MHz. The two stations largely simulcast their programming in the early years. In 1965, they made a slight change in their call letters, becoming WAUK-AM-FM. In the 1970s, WAUK-FM began airing beautiful music and today it is country music outlet WMIL-FM, owned by iHeartMedia.
Sports radio
WAUK switched to sports radio programming in October 1994 and was the home of ESPN Radio in Milwaukee. Because 1510 is a daytimer station, it could not air sporting events at night. As a result, the station leased time from WMCS (1290 AM) to carry the full ESPN Radio schedule between 6 p.m. and 6 a.m. for several years. That arrangement ended after Good Karma Broadcasting moved the WAUK sports format to its new, full-time frequency of 540 kHz, the former home of Christian radio outlet WRRD, owned by Salem Media.
For a while, 1510 WRRD became the replacement station for the religious programming formerly heard on 540 AM. That later ended and WRRD became a second-tier sports outlet for WAUK. Sporting events and ESPN programming that could not air on WAUK due to schedule conflicts were heard on WRRD.
On January 31, 2017, a group known as "The Devil's Advocates Radio" announced plans to purchase WRRD and to change the format to progressive talk, branded as "News Talk 1510" and as "WRRD Resistance Radio". The format change was implemented February 1 of that year.[5][6]
Good Karma Broadcasting sold WRRD to "New WRRD, LLC", effective June 1, 2017, for $760,000. On November 13, 2019, WRRD rebranded as "Talk 101.7" with the sign-on of W269DL 101.7 FM, which also allows the station to carry a full-day schedule, even after sunset.[7]
Signal downgrade
For several years, despite being a daytimer, WRRD was a high-power station, running 23,000 watts. With the shift in emphasis to 101.7 FM, WRRD applied to the FCC for a downgrade to its AM signal to 250 watts non-directional. The application was made on August 19, 2020, shortly after putting the dormant Waukesha studio facility and transmitter site up for sale. The station dropped most local programming in August 2020, resulting in a near-simulcast of sister station WTTN.
On August 31, 2020, WRRD reverted to sports as a simulcast of former sister station WAUK. The station's social media referred listeners to WTTN and its streaming presences with the shuttering of Crute's main studio facility on Brady Street in Milwaukee. On September 4, Good Karma Brands announced the acquisition of the W269DL translator, along with the re-acquisition of WRRD. This came as former owner Michael Crute negotiated with Good Karma to trade the stations, while strengthening its Madison presence.[8][9]
Black talk
On September 29, 2020, Good Karma announced that WRRD would become a talk radio station focused on the city's African American community, branded as "101.7 The Truth". The translator station, W269DL, continued to utilize the 1510 AM transmitter as a signal source. It is the first full-time Black talk station in the market in seven years, after WNOV converted to a music format under new ownership, while WMCS (now WZTI) converted to oldies. WGKB's black talk format was also a local response to iHeartMedia's Black Information Network, which has not yet launched in Milwaukee.[10] Its call sign was changed to WGKB on December 2, 2020.[11]
The new format launched on January 4, 2021, utilizing a live 7 a.m.–6 p.m. schedule of four programs that repeat at night, albeit exclusively over W269DL after WGKB's dusk sign-off.[12] The acquisition of WGKB and translator W269DL by Good Karma Brands was consummated on April 30, 2021.
