WMOL was the Top 40 radio station of the Quad Cities during the 1960s and 70s, as any local kid who grew up in that era would tell you. WMOL left behind a broad, mixed format full of farm reports and MOR bric-a-brac about the time the Beatles reached the shores of America. In its rock and roll heyday, WMOL led the way in pushing the top pop bands of the day. The station broke the Q's, Gone, Creedence Clearwater Revival, and the Raspberries into the QC market.
After floundering during the disco era, the station regained some of its earlier prominence with a classic rock format before sliding listenership and some short-term ownership decisions begat a series of quick-fix format shifts, each one seemingly more desperate than the last. After six format shifts over a decade, including Christian zydeco and power polka, the station landed on an Americana format, traditional country and roots-styled music from the heartland. And you can't get much more heartland that the banks of the Mississippi River. Program Director John B. Stephens notes that the Americana format offers a "good fit between the station and the industrial market base we have to draw from here in the Quad Cities. We get lots of blues listeners on our Monday night Birth of the Blues program, thanks to the Mississippi Blues Festival in Davenport. Our Sunday bluegrass programming, Molly and Tenbrooks, also does quite well." Stephens also noted that the Saturday morning radio auction routinely flooded the station switchboard. "Yes, eBay cut into our demand a little, but the trashy stuff still goes over well here. The show gets lots of offers for services, too," notes Stephens. "Some of the stuff, well, some stuff we just can't put on the air."
WMOL began broadcasting Greens' home games in 1996 and remains committed to bringing local listeners what Stephens calls "the grand American game in its purest form." Greens' scorer and play-by-play man John Dark brings you the play-by-play of each Moline home game. Be sure to join John fifteen minutes before each contest for his pre-game show, Left in the Dark, featuring player interviews and insights into the game. After the game, be sure to join John for The Run Down, a report of scores and highlights from around the SJL, sponsored in part by Wyffels Hybrids .