Chicago Radio Online: Stations Streaming Live

Updated 6 October 2026

You can listen to Chicago radio online in any browser, with no download and no account: open 72FM, search for a station's name, and press play. Chicago's dial has public radio, a famous talk station, classical and jazz, and a place in music history as the birthplace of house music.

News, talk and public radio

• WBEZ 91.5 — Chicago Public Radio, with NPR news and local reporting.
• WGN 720 — Chicago's best-known news and talk station.
• WLS 890 AM — news and talk; WLS 94.7 FM plays classic hits.

Music

• WFMT 98.7 — classical music and fine arts.
• WDCB 90.9 — jazz and blues.
• WKQX 101.1 — alternative rock.
• 103.5 KISS FM — hits.
• Smooth Jazz WNUA — smooth jazz.
• WIIT 88.9 — the Illinois Institute of Technology's college station.

More from Chicago

• Chicago House — house music, in the city where it began.
• My70sRadio — the 1970s, at 320kbps.
• CRIS Radio — a radio reading service from the Chicago Lighthouse; see radio for blind listeners.
• Moody Radio WMBI 90.1 — Christian radio.

The sound of the city

House music was born in Chicago's clubs in the 1980s, and the city is also the home of electric blues and a great jazz tradition. Next door, Indiana radio online covers the state. House music radio, blues radio and jazz radio go deeper.

A little history

Chicago's call letters tell stories: WGN stands for "World's Greatest Newspaper", the Chicago Tribune's old motto, and WLS for "World's Largest Store", the Sears department store that founded it. WFMT carried Studs Terkel's interview programme for 45 years, and This American Life began at WBEZ in 1995.

Listening from elsewhere

Chicago keeps Central time — six hours behind UTC in winter and five in summer.

A route in

1. WBEZ, for the city's public radio.
2. WFMT, for classical music.
3. WDCB, for jazz and blues.
4. Chicago House, for the sound the city gave the world.

For the rest of the country, American radio online goes further.