94.7 is actually live and local most of the time except for evenings. It's the way they present the station that you are noticing. They often have live board ops running it.

B96 is struggling with remote programming. They have jocks do shifts from all over the country, and I don't believe they have the capability to handle it in a smooth matter. They really didn't do much of anything to the station except change the music. Wasn't really the music that was their biggest problem.

WIIL started out as a Classic Rock station. Heavy on the deep album cuts. They evolved it in the 2000s to more mainstream and eventually Active. The PD who put that together was just fired this year. The afternoon guy is leaving. Across the hall, WXLC's entire local airstaff was tossed out. WXLC's PD was tossed out. They literally put the studio in another location because nobody is ever in it.

The "Star" simulcast is now leaning more Rhythmic Hot AC similar to B96. I'm guessing they're after Eddie's old B96 listeners. It sounds pretty rough. The competition probably is not helping B96 but I doubt it's hurting them either. Not like it's live. At the very least they are still very active in the community even with nobody in the studio. They frequently do appearances in the coverage area. That's quite the commute for Eddie, who is based in Joliet but he's up in Lake County quite often