Due to its location near the bottom of the AM dial, transmitter power, and the surrounding region's flat land, WIND's daytime signal covers much of Northeast Illinois, Northwest Indiana and Southeastern Wisconsin.

[6] WIND carries the Salem Radio Network line up of hosts, including Dennis Prager, Hugh Hewitt, Mike Gallagher, Sebastian Gorka, Jay Sekulow and Charlie Kirk.

WIND airs two local shows on weekdays, Chicago's Morning Answer with Amy Jacobson and Dan Proft, and Shaun Thompson in afternoons.

Much of the weekend is devoted to specialty talk shows on money, health and real estate, some of which is paid brokered programming.

[8][9] WIND is the flagship station for Carl Amari and Lisa Wolf's nationally syndicated nostalgia & showbiz program "Hollywood 360" which airs Saturday evenings.

The station began broadcasting on August 16, 1927, holding the call sign WJKS, and was originally licensed to Gary, Indiana.

[22][23] Other WIND personalities during its music years included Jim Lounsbury,[25] Linn Burton,[14] Jay Trompeter,[26] Bernie Allen,[27] Lee Rogers,[28] Dick Williamson,[29] Perry Marshall,[30] Bruce Lee,[31] Kassidy,[32] Joel Sebastian,[33] Robert W. Morgan,[34] Chuck Benson and Kurt Russell,[35] Ron Britain,[36] Bob Del Giorno,[37] and Connie Szerszen.

[36][54] In addition to the music played on the station, WIND aired Contact, a nighttime talk show hosted by Dave Baum.

[57] Local personalities included Clark Weber, Eddie Schwartz, Dave Baum, Steve King, and Jimmy Piersall.

[58][59][60][61][62] Syndicated personalities heard on WIND included British-American talk show host Michael Jackson and Dr. Toni Grant.

[64] On December 12, 1985, at 1:03 p.m., on the same day of the closing of the sale to Tichenor, WIND officially signed off the air by playing "The Whiffenpoof Song" and "The Star-Spangled Banner".

[70] In October 2003, the station's talk programming moved to AM 1200 WRTO, and it began airing a Spanish adult contemporary format.

[76] Those broadcasts continued through the 2013 football season, with the Illini moving back to their longtime Chicago affiliate, WSCR.

[76] WIND was formerly the alternate station of the Chicago Blackhawks and the Northwestern Wildcats in the case of scheduling conflicts at their flagship, WGN.