Beardstown residents[1] Robert and Margareta Sudbrink, through their McLean County Broadcasting Company, obtained a construction permit to build and operate a new daytime-only AM radio station at Normal on November 27, 1961.
[2] The station, with the call letters WIOK and transmitter north of Downs, debuted September 17, 1962, with full-service programming and affiliation with the Mutual Broadcasting System.
[3] Two years after signing on, the Sudbrinks purchased a piece of property on Main Street in downtown Normal to move the studios from the Downs transmitter.
The Illinois Broadcasting Company filed to purchase WIOK in September 1966, but the Federal Communications Commission dismissed the application in January 1967 because of impermissible signal overlap with another station it owned, WSOY in Decatur.
[25] Withers sold the two stations—now WMLA-AM-FM—in 1987 for $700,000, plus an additional $250,000 if the FM frequency were to be upgraded, to the David Keister Stations group, also known as Mid America Radio, of Martinsville, Indiana.
[32] The WBCI designation had been used at Mid America's radio station in Lebanon, Indiana, which switched with the Normal license to become WIRE because listeners there were confusing WBCI—representing Boone County, Indiana—with WIBC (1070 AM) in Indianapolis.