Mr. Malone began his broadcast career as a junior in high school, working part-time at WBYS in hometown Canton, Illinois. While earning his bachelor’s degree, he worked at a variety of Illinois radio stations including Peoria’s WIRL-AM, WSWT-FM, WXCL-FM, and suburban WFXW-AM in St. Charles. After graduation, Mr. Malone’s first full time job was in radio sales at WXCL, then the number one radio station in the Peoria market.
After deciding that his future was in radio programming, Mr. Malone went back to his roots at Canton’s WBYS, joining the station as Operations Manager. One year later, he moved on to become Program Director at Peoria’s WTAZ-FM, then an all-talk radio station. He was later named Program Director and afternoon drive talk host of Peoria’s legendary WMBD-AM, where between 1999 and 2004, he re-tooled the programming away from an aging and sleepy full service format to an edgy and topical talk radio outlet, almost doubling the station’s ratings during that span.
In 2004, Lincoln College recruited Mr. Malone to take the reins of the radio broadcasting program. While now teaching and managing WLNX-FM on a full-time basis, Mr. Malone remains involved in commercial radio, working part-time for Townsquare Media in Peoria as an on-air personality for “97.3 River Country.” He also works freelance, specializing in the implementation and maintenance of digital broadcast automation systems. |
