The radio roster: FM's two starts, the school station, and the campus air

1943–2023

The rest of the dial: FM came to South Bend twice. The Tribune's first FM grant, for 47.1 megahertz under the construction-era call sign W71SB, was held in suspension while the Federal Communications Commission investigated whether newspaper ownership of radio stations should be restricted at all; the permit was reinstated on 9 June 1941 and the station began broadcasting in May 1943. It became WSBF on 1 November 1943, moved to 101.3 megahertz when the FM band moved, and took the call letters WSBT-FM in 1949. A year of full-time duplication of the AM station was enough: the station discontinued operations at midnight on 31 January 1950 and surrendered its license, its manager Robert H. Swinrz reporting that a survey had shown only a comparatively few radio owners had FM facilities and a negligible number listened. Twelve years later the second WSBT-FM, at 101.5 megahertz, began broadcasting in August 1962 — the station's own record gives 1 August, the WSBT station history gives 12 August, and both stand. It simulcast the AM, moved to beautiful music, and passed through its call signs with its formats: WWJY from 1975 to 1981 on the Schulke beautiful-music package, WTHQ from 1981 to 1984, and from 6 May 1984 WNSN, "Sunny 101.5," an adult-contemporary station that regularly leads the market's ratings and passed with the rest of the Schurz radio group to Mid-West Family Broadcasting on 16 February 2016.

Notre Dame's commercial FM signed on in the same month: WNDU-FM at 92.9, the university's station beside WNDU radio and television, took a Top 40 format on 22 October 1979 and was sold by the university on 23 November 1998 to Artistic Media Partners, taking the call letters WNDV-FM. LeSEA Broadcasting's WHME at 103.1 first aired in 1968 and became the flagship of Lester Sumrall's World Harvest enterprise; its free nineteenth-birthday concert of 1987 grew into the World Pulse Festival, and when its contemporary Christian music format moved to WHPZ on 9 December 1996, WHME turned to Christian talk and teaching as Harvest FM, returning to the music trimulcast in March 2018 with the talk format carried on its HD2 channel. The urban voice of the dial was WUBU at 106.3, on the air from October 1992 under Goodrich Broadcasting, sold within the year to Focus Radio for $300,000; it held the city's urban adult contemporary format for three decades, until VCY America's purchase — announced 28 July 2023 at $425,000 — took it silent on 29 September 2023, changed its calls to WVSB on 17 November, and returned it to the air on 20 November 2023 with Christian programming. The WUBU call letters themselves moved on 17 December 2023 to 102.3, licensed to New Carlisle with studios on Cleveland Road in South Bend, carrying the urban format the frequency had vacated.

The school station is the roster's quiet survivor. WETL at 91.7 megahertz, the radio voice of the South Bend Community School Corporation, began broadcasting on 18 November 1958 from the school administration building in the former Studebaker mansion — the building that now houses Tippecanoe Place restaurant — and by 1977 was operating at 1,300 watts from studios and transmitter at 635 South Main Street. In 2005 the studios moved to Riley High School, where they remain, and the station became "Mix 91.7"; its transmitter stands at Jackson Intermediate School, 5001 South Miami Road. The campus air completes the roster. Notre Dame's Radio Club was producing shows for area stations from 1935, broadcasting from the Fieldhouse; in 1947 the university adopted carrier-current transmission — among the first universities in America to use it — and the student station WND took its home in O'Shaughnessy Hall.

Its calls became WNDU in 1953, until the university took those letters for its commercial stations, and WSND — "We Serve Notre Dame" — in 1955. WSND-FM signed on at 88.9 megahertz on 17 September 1962, a ten-watt educational station offering seven hours a day when classes were in session, while the carrier-current AM station ran beside it for twenty-four years; in 1987 the AM station was spun off as WVFI, broadcasting by carrier current to the Notre Dame and Saint Mary's dormitories until it shut down in the fall of 1998, then re-emerging on the internet in August 1999 and as a global internet station in October 2000. WSND-FM, classical by day and various by night, moved to the Duncan Student Center and a new transmitter at Kern and Ironwood Roads in 2018; the Hesburgh Libraries hold its records from 1972, including the student documentary on Knute Rockne that its sports staff produced for the fortieth anniversary of his death in March 1971. The Elkhart stations that share the market — WSJV's successor signals, WFRN, WTRC — belong to Elkhart's record, as the television entry below states for their sister medium.

Sources:

1. The WSBT station record (FCC-derived) — W71SB's suspension under the newspaper-ownership investigation, the May 1943 start, WSBF, the 101.3 move, the WSBT-FM call of 1949, and the shutdown of 31 January 1950 with manager Swinrz's survey; the second WSBT-FM's August 1962 start, with the 1 and 12 August dates as given in the entry.
2. The WNSN, WNDV-FM, WHME, and WVSB (formerly WUBU) station records — the call-sign and format courses, the 1998 Artistic Media sale, the World Pulse Festival's 1987 origin, the 1996 format move, the 2023 VCY sale at $425,000, and the WUBU call's transfer to 102.3 on 17 December 2023.
3. SBS-TV / WETL, the school corporation station's own history page — the first broadcast of 18 November 1958, the 2005 move to Riley High School, and the Jackson Intermediate transmitter site; WETL's 1977 sign-off announcement — 1,300 watts, studios and transmitter at 635 South Main Street.
4. WSND-FM, the station's own history — the Radio Club of 1935, carrier current in 1947, the WND, WNDU, and WSND call sequence, the FM sign-on of 17 September 1962, the 1987 WVFI spin-off, and the 2018 Duncan Student Center move; University of Notre Dame News, 30 October 2000 — WVFI's passage from carrier current (to November 1998) through internet streaming (August 1999) to a global internet station.