Afternoons are hosted by Bob Lonsberry, who broadcasts his show from the studios of sister station WHAM in Rochester.

The weekend schedule includes shows on money, cars, home repair and pets, some of which are paid brokered programming.

Syndicated shows heard on weekends include The Tech Guy Leo Laporte, At Home with Gary Sullivan, Handel on The Law with Bill Handel, The Weekend with Michael Brown, The Cat's Roundtable with John Catsimatidis and Sunday Night Live with Bill Cunningham.

However, it has traditionally traced its founding to September 15, 1922, the date when station WMAC, which merged with WSYR in 1930, signed on the air.

[7] WMAC was first licensed in September 1922 to "J. Edward Page '(Clive B. Meredith)'", broadcasting on 360 meters (833 kHz) from Fernwood Street in Cazenovia, New York.

During this time WSYR worked with the Federal Radio Commission (FRC) on a national synchronization experiment aimed at reducing co-channel interference through the use of equipment that provided more precisely controlled transmitter frequencies.

[14] For this work WSYR partnered with four other stations broadcasting on 1020 kHz (294 meters): WTMJ in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, KPRC in Houston, Texas, WODA in Paterson, New Jersey, and WGL in New York City.

It carried NBC's schedule of dramas, comedies, news, sports, game shows, soap operas and big band broadcasts during the "Golden Age of Radio".

As network programming moved to television in the 1950s and 1960s, WSYR switched to a full service, middle of the road format of popular adult music, news, sports and talk.

In late 2010, numerous indications based upon FCC filings, domain registrations, and a format change at a sister station, suggested that WSYR was preparing to launch an FM simulcast on 106.9 MHz.