WJMK's history can be traced back as early as April 17, 1947, when the station first signed on the air at 1210 AM as WKNX, owned by Lake Huron Broadcasting.

For many years, it was also a leading Top 40 hit music station in Saginaw, competing with WSAM (1400 AM) and Flint's WTAC (600 AM, now WSNL).

WKNX's resident "legend" would take form of University of Cincinnati graduate Robert Dyer, who joined the station in 1950 and remained a part of its staff for more than half a century.

The following year, in 1978, WKNX underwent a major change when it was purchased by Radiocom Limited, a company headed by Robert Dana McVay.

Over time, the 1,000-watt station, operating at 1250 kHz, began broadcasting from Bay City with its co-owned Pinconning-licensed FM sister at 100.9.

Concurrent with the application, WKNX moved its studio and office operations from Frankenmuth to its transmitter facility at 2850 Gabel Road in Bridgeport Township.

Unlike its TV counterpart, however, the AM station does not serve Flint or areas south of Saginaw County, due to the directional antenna array beamed towards the north.

In a coincidental situation, WNEM-TV rival WEYI-TV was founded as WKNX-TV, a sister station to WKNX radio; it was sold off in 1972.

The FCC granted WNEM permission in January 2006 to operate at the new power levels with the addition of a fourth tower in its directional antenna pattern.

[2] On May 30, 2013, Meredith had donated WNEM radio's license, equipment, tower and land to Ave Maria Communications, which currently brokers all its Catholic-related programming on WMAX (1440 AM) in Bay City.

Ave Maria Radio later moved the studios to A-M Church Supply at 3535 Bay Road in Saginaw Township.