General Info

1270 AM WLIK is owned by WLIK, Inc, a family owned business for over fifty years. Dwight Wilkerson is principal stockholder. See our history below for more information. The radio industry was just a babe compared to other media such as magazines and newspapers. It was in 1954, hardly 30 years old as an industry, when a Lenoir City lumberman, Arthur Wilkerson, requested a grant from the Federal Communication Commission to build a radio station in Newport and Cocke County. Radio was still regarded as a novelty by many people. Something that was an interesting sideline to another business. Wilkerson was one of the early pioneers of radio in East Tennessee, WLIK was his third radio venture after putting WLIL on the air in Lenoir City, his hometown and WAEW in Crossville. WLIK began broadcasting in April 1954. The first announcer on air was Ray Shirley, a local Church of Christ preacher. WLIK is unique in that radio is a volatile and changing industry and WLIK has been under the same ownership since its inception in 1954 and has had only two managers. First, the late Ira B. Crisp from 1954 through 1962 and Dwight Wilkerson from 1963 to the present. Angie Wilkerson, third generation, joined the business in 2000. WLIK began broadcasting as a 1000 watt radio station. It suffered the misfortune of a fire in 1958 and shortly thereafter went to 5, 000 watts.