This time-share agreement ended in February 1954, when ABC's parent company American Broadcasting-Paramount Theatres and the Prairie Farmer merged their AM stations into one, WLS becoming the surviving entity and jointly owned by both.

By 1968, WLS-FM expanded its hours on the air to 6 a.m. to Midnight, simulcasting WLS (AM)'s Clark Weber morning show from 6 to 8 a.m. and carrying Don McNeill's Breakfast Club from 8 to 9 a.m.

It was replaced in 1969 with a syndicated program from the ABC Radio Network entitled "Love", voice-tracked by "Brother John" Rydgren, and which aired from 7 p.m. to 1 am.

In 1970, ABC decided to change the call signs on all of their FM radio stations to distinguish them from their co-owned AM (and excluding two markets, TV) counterparts; this not only included WLS-FM, but WABC-FM in New York City, WXYZ-FM in Detroit, KXYZ-FM in Houston, KGO-FM in San Francisco, and KQV-FM in Pittsburgh.

[5] At age 19, Jim Kerr hosted mornings at WDAI and did additional work at WLS before finding future success at WPLJ and WAXQ.

[10] Steve Dahl would wind up the morning host at former crosstown rival WLUP, and would anchor the "Disco Demolition Night" promotion in July 1979, that would later be cited as a harbinger for the genre's popular collapse in America during 1980.

[11] The station stayed with the disco craze until 7 am on May 22, 1980, when, after stunting by playing Donna Summer's "Last Dance" on a loop, 94.7 became WRCK-FM, "95 W-ROCK", a hybrid of adult Top 40 and oldies, and featured Bob Sirott in mornings for a brief time.

The simulcast included Larry Lujack during the morning drive and Brant Miller's evening show into the mid-1980s, while airing its own programming during the day.

WYTZ, which was briefly rebranded as "Hell" (an aborted and controversial one-week stunt)[15][16] and "Hot 94.7" in March 1991, became rhythmic for a short-period of time and could not withstand the competition from "B96".

[17][18][19] On June 13, 1994, WLS-FM split off from simulcasting and launched its own "Young Talk" format featuring former popular WKQX (Q101) morning host Robert Murphy ("Murphy in the Morning"), Rich Roeper, Rush Limbaugh (in simulcast with the AM), Jay Marvin, Lise Dominique, Turi Ryder and Johnny Vonn, as a way to compete against WLUP-FM's hot talk format.

On May 1, 1997, WKXK dropped the country format and flipped to classic rock, branded as "CD 94.7" (with new WXCD call letters being implemented on May 23).

WXCD abruptly dropped classic rock on November 29, 2000, and flipped to an '80s' hits format, rebranded as "The Zone", and changed its call sign to WZZN.

Eventually, the station was live and local (which included hosts such as John Landecker, Dick Biondi, and Greg Brown) except for overnights, when they would continue to run True Oldies Channel programming.

On November 3, 2014, Jack Diamond, formerly of sister station WRQX in Washington, D.C., became WLS-FM's new morning show host, with Miller shifting to a co-hosting role.

The start of 2018 brought Dave Fogel back to WLS-FM as Berk's morning co-host, with Miller briefly moving to a weather reporting only position, until being released.