Uploaded February 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago

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[remastered] Here's one of the most remembered commercials for WVON 1390 AM - or VON for short. Featuring "We are Family" by Sister Sledge and some of their radio personalities like Richard Steele and (?) as well as shots of downtown Chicago, Jesse Jackson, church choir members and others.

This station has a bit of a confusing history, but it now occupies the frequency 1690 AM.

WVON was a "heritage" station to Chicago's black community featuring great Black air personalities like Lucky Cordell, Bruce Brown, Herb Kent "the cool gent", Yvonne Daniels, Richard Steele, and many others. WVON became well-known outside the Chicago area as well. Berry Gordy, the founder of Motown Records, sent every song he produced immediately to WVON before any other station. Other similar stations across the country took inspiration from WVON's format. The station also had an active role during the Civil Rights Movement, covering it extensively.

They now have a lineup of various talk shows with hosts such as Tavis Smiley, Dorothy Tillman, and Al Sharpton.

"We're family - don't you think so? Let's all hold hands and sing together..."

Note: This is to replace an earlier, now broken (unplayable) video posting, preserved as an unlisted video here to save the original comments: youtu.be/0iEwSinozuk

Also: a different WVON commercial from the same time period can be seen here: youtu.be/ZZpdAC64nr8

This aired on local Chicago TV early Tuesday, May 20th 1980 during the 12:00am and 1:00am timeframe.

About The Museum of Classic Chicago Television:

The MCCTv (FuzzyMemoriesTV) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit whose primary mission is the preservation and display of off-air, early home videotape recordings (70s to early 80s, mostly) recorded off of TV (in Chicago or other cities now too); things which would likely be lost if not sought out and preserved digitally. If you have any old 1970s videotapes recorded off of TV please email: tapes@fuzzy.tv Even though (mostly) short clips are displayed here, we preserve the entire broadcasts in our archives - the complete programs with breaks (or however much is present on the tape), for historical preservation. For information on how to help in our mission, to donate or lend tapes to be converted to digital, please e-mail tapes@fuzzy.tv Thank you for your help!