Hardin County's first radio station began broadcasting at 12 noon on September 28th, 1950. The original five owners were all businessmen in E-town: Horace Tabb, Holly Skidmore, J.W. Hodges, Stokely Bowling, and Clifford Diecks. Bill Harris managed the station for its first two years, then it was Walter "Dee" Huddleston for the next 20. For 56 years WIEL was housed at the same location on U.S. 62W (Leitchfield Road)  in E'town, although the building was expanded when WKMO-FM was added in the mid 70's (1977). Another FM, WRZI, came into the building in 1997 and still another FM, WTHX, came into the building in 2003.

WIEL is the oldest radio station in Hardin County. In 2000 we had some special programming celebrating her 50th anniversary. Dee Huddleston was General Manager for 20 years, 1952-1972, and Bill Walters followed after Dee became a U.S. Senator. The 80's saw numerous GM's and in 1989 WIEL left the Top 40 format after close to 40 years. After the Top 40 format, WIEL was an automated oldies station (Pure Gold), a news/talk station and back to an automated oldies format once again (Jones Radio), this time under the direction of Ross and Linda Becker of L.A. (originally from Green Bay, Wisconsin). The couple bought WIEL and WKMO in July of 1997 after purchasing WRZI the same year and moved all three stations under the same roof July 25, 1997.

Commonwealth Broadcasting bought the three stations in 2000, and after a short time as an country oldies station WIEL became an ESPN affiliate in 2001. A fifth station, WXAM, was purchased and moved into the building around 2005. In September 2006, a severe thunderstorm flooded the lower portion of the building and this, along with other facility matters convinced management the time had come to pack up and move. WIEL, along with her 4 sister stations, moved into their new studios in the Helmwood Plaza Shopping Center the last week of 2006.

WIEL, which celebrates 57 years on the air September 28th, 2007 still operates at AM-1400, the same frequency she has been at since 1950.

From the time KDKA, the first commercially licensed radio station in America, began broadcasting in Pittsburgh in 1920, AM owned radio. The two nearly were synonymous. If someone was listening to radio, they were listening to a station using amplitude modulation. All the shows and music were on AM. "Before FM, AM was all there was," said Cat Michaels, operations manager for Commonwealth Broadcasting, which runs Hardin County's last AM station, 1400 AM ESPN.

AM ruled the airwaves for about 55 years, but with the advent of better sound from FM, AM listeners began making the switch. FM, or frequency modulation, got a boost from regulators at the Federal Communications Commission in the early 1970s when it said only FM could use essentially stereo sound, which matches more closely with the human ear. The sound was not only fuller, but cleaner. The difference in amplitude of AM is what creates the static and AM is more dependent on weather conditions and the time of day. AM signals bounce off the ionosphere, which is lower during the day. Because of this, at night AM is more powerful and has a farther range.

"The decline really started in the late '70s, early '80s," said Bill Evans, president and general manager of WQXE and WULF in Elizabethtown. Evans got his start in radio on the old AM station WAKY as a 21-year-old disc jockey, and in 1969 switched to FM as one of the original WQXE signees. "When FM came out, it took 10 or 12 years for everyone to get FM radios," Evans said. "FM started broadcasting in stereo in the mid-1960s, and stations started picking up on it. All of a sudden the young generation got on with FM. By 1980, it was on par with the number of AM radios."

By the mid-1980s, most AM stations got the hint and many switched to a talk format. By the '90s, AM's decline became even more serious, despite the fact the FCC now allowed both bands to use stereo sound. "FM had already become the thing," Evans said. Now, according to Arbitron, a company that collects statistics for network radio, FM is far more dominant, with 9,103 licensed stations, as opposed to 4,754 licensed AM stations. Michaels and Evans see a future for AM.

"There is definitely a place for it," Michaels said. "Most AM stations that do well have a talk (format). Talk is in mono and you really don't need the sound. Locally, our ESPN station uses the band for sports talk." Evans said bigger populations help AM stations tremendously. "The salvation is in big markets where there is plenty of audience and population," he said. "They're all talkers. In Louisville, the dominant talker is WHAS."

The face of radio soon will change again. The FCC, as it has done with television, will be switching from analog to digital signals, meaning sound on both AM and FM will be significantly better. "It will be exactly the same as CD reproduction," Evans said. Another change is competition from Internet radio. As of now, that hasn't been a factor because of royalties, and because when stations stream, they tend to cut union-made commercials, Evans said. Michaels said for what his station does, Internet competition won't be a problem because of the station's specialized focus, with high school games, local news and information that are difficult to find on satellites or the Internet.

"It's the local element," he said. "We're the last connector to the listener."

• Sep 28, 1950– Station signs on the air
• Oct 22, 1950-"Formal" opening broadcast
• 1952-Walter Dee Huddleston takes over as General Manager at $150 a week...stays 20 years until 1972
• 1972-Bill Walters becomes GM
  
• Feb 13, 1957– Dick Curtis came to work at WIEL, according to 1988 article by Darrell Bird in News-Enterprise
• Oct 1973– Ron Boone joins WIEL staff
• 1977-WKMO acquired. Was originally WLCB-FM, which went on the air in 1974
• April 30,1985-WIEL/WKMO planned to sell to Ken and Darlene Trimble (Ken was part time disc jockey at WIEL in 1965)
• October 3, 1985-Held 35th Anniversary party at Holiday Inn South
• 1989-Charlie Harper becomes General Manager 
• April 1, 1989-Newspaper says February of the same year the station discontinued most of the DJs and went to ABC/Satellite Music Network's Pure Gold satellite, a format that brought an oldies format to WIEL. The station was called Pure Gold 14 WIEL
• September 1990– Station celebrates 40th Anniversary
• 1990–Barry Black arrives as operations manager
• 1994-95-Replaced the original 150 foot radio tower from 1950. Purchased new one from Larry Malone of Mid State Tower Services in Hodgenville, Ky
• May 28, 1995 to Sep 13, 1998-People's Radio Network/Talk America (news/talk format)
• July 1997–Elizabethtown Broadcasting sold station to Ross Becker's Basix Communications, purchasing both WIEL and WKMO
• During the fall of 1997 the studios were extensively remodeled and the "live" studio room was turned into the "On Air" studio for WRZI, a Vine Grove station previously purchased by Ross Becker's BASIX Communications, which was moved into the WIEL/WKMO building. Bennie Ketron as the last live personality on WIEL and he continued to work Sunday mornings and sporting events. It was during this time that the turntables were removed from the studio and the only one which remained was one in the production room. Rev. Carson "Carly" Ward was the last live studio program airing on WIEL. Once the live studio was converted to a control room, Ward and his singers/musicians moved into the WIEL control room with Ketron until Wards death on October 23, 1998. At it's end WIEL Sunday morning programming consisted of 2 remote broadcasts live from local churches, a couple of pretaped local programs as well as the nationally syndicated Music and the Spoken Word featuring the Mormon Taberancle Choir. Carly Ward was on the radio from January 1951 until his death in 1998 almost-38 years! His broadcasts lasted for 15 minutes starting in 1951 at 7AM, then going to 30 minutes from 7:00-7:30 AM and finally 9:00-9:30 AM.
• Sep 14, 1998-Started using the Jones Satellite Network's "Good Times & Great Oldies" format...the station was called Oldies 1400
• 2002-Jones Country Oldies for about 6 months-Classic Hit Country plays the songs and stars that made country the nation's #1 radio format. It's America's first, all classic Country hits
• 2003-Became ESPN Radio 1400

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