
WJOI

WJOI (Joy 1340 AM) is a radio station in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States. It runs a Christian format with Contemporary Christian music from Salem Radio Network's Today's Christian Music network. It also features brokered teaching and preaching programs from both local churches and national ministries. It also airs brokered ethnic programming (mostly German) and Polka music on Saturdays. It is known on-air as "Joy 1340/98.7". Under ownership of the Milwaukee Radio Group subsidiary of Saga Communications, its studios (which are shared with the other four sister stations) and transmitter are located in Milwaukee's West Side.
History.
The station signed on the air as WEMP in 1935. In June 1943, WEMP became the first in Milwaukee to broadcast a 24-hour schedule. They also carried various ethnic programs and sports broadcasts, including Marquette University basketball and the Milwaukee Brewers. WEMP was also an affiliate of the NBC Blue Network, which later became the ABC Radio Network, until 1948.
In 1955, when WEMP moved to 1250 AM, the new owners of 1340 kHz changed the call sign to WRIT, and launched a Top 40 format. The call letters stood for We'Re IT. Future television talk show host Tom Snyder got his start at the station as a news reporter in the 1950s.
WRIT switched to all-news on September 29, 1975, with NBC's News and Information Service (NIS). The all-news format was unsuccessful, and the station dropped the WRIT call sign in 1978, picking up the WBCS (Wisconsin's Best Country Station) call letters from their country-formatted FM sister station, which they began simulcasting. The WRIT call sign was resurrected on New Year's Day 2000, by oldies-formatted WZTR as a tribute to the former Top 40 format of the old WRIT.
The station became WMKE in 1980, programming its own country format, and later aired a gold-based AC format, before going back to WBCS in 1984, again simulcasting their FM sister. The station briefly aired an all-talk format in 1985, before going back to simulcasting their FM sister.
When WBCS-FM flipped to AOR as WLZR-FM in 1987, the AM station also became WLZR, simulcasting their sister station for several years. In the early 1990s, WLZR 1340 aired its own automated formats, first heavy metal as "The Crusher", then an alternative rock format known as "The Warp" until 1994, when it again reverted to a full-time simulcast of its sister station.
Eventually, the station began to sell much of their air time to religious and sports broadcasters, and became WJYI (Joy 1340) on May 30, 1997.
In early 2011, WJYI began simulcasting on the HD Radio HD2 subchannel of sister station WZBK-FM, replacing the previous automated smooth jazz format which aired on that subchannel in the aftermath of the May 2010 WJZX format switch. The station later moved its simulcast to WJMR-HD2 and now to WHQG-HD2.
On May 8, 2016, WJYI launched FM translator 98.7 W254CU and rebranded as "Joy 1340 AM/98.7 FM".
The WJYI call letters and those of co-owned WJOI in Norfolk, Virginia, swapped on April 29, 2021.