WSAU (AM)

Weekends features specialty shows, including The WSAU Polka Party, At Home with Gary Sullivan, Our American Stories with Lee Habeeb, The Weekend with Michael Brown, Somewhere in Time with Art Bell, Sunday Nights with Bill Cunningham and Markley, Van Camp and Robbins.

[2] Alvin E. O'Konski applied to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on February 3, 1947, to build a new radio station in Merrill, Wisconsin.

[7] However, its operation was pockmarked with technical difficulties; equipment that was shipped to Merrill arrived damaged and several sections of transmission line needed replacement.

[8] O'Konski applied in 1949 to change frequencies to 550 kHz and add nighttime operation; the FCC approved on March 13, 1950.

[13] In 1951, O'Konski applied for a second increase to 5,000 watts, and he amended this application in February 1952 to move the station from Merrill to Wausau.

[17] O'Konski also began exploratory work on a possible television station application,[18] filing for VHF channel 7 at the start of April.

WSAU radio, a consortium of newspapers known as the Wisconsin Valley Television Corporation, and WOSA were the three groups seeking the channel.

[19] However, seeking to avoid a lengthy comparative hearing, O'Konski amended his application to UHF channel 16,[20] which was granted in February 1954.

[22] WOSA would not have studios in Wausau until February 1955, when it opened a facility in the Thorp Finance Building at Fourth and Scott streets.

[24][25] In January 1958, O'Konski reached an agreement with the Wisconsin Valley Television Company (which had merged with WSAU radio in 1953) to sell WOSA and WLIN for $225,000.

[30] Wausau-based Wisconsin Valley continued to operate under that name until December 1966, when it renamed itself Forward Communications in view of its ownership of KCAU-TV in Sioux City, Iowa.

[35] Journal sold the pair for $3.5 million in 1996 to Midwest Communications, owned by the Wright family—which had started in radio by buying the former WSAU frequency 38 years prior.