WCTC (1450 AM "Fox Sports New Jersey") is a

commercial Commercial may refer to: * a dose of advertising conveyed through media (such as - for example - radio or television) ** Radio advertisement ** Television advertisement * (adjective for:) commerce, a system of voluntary exchange of products and s ...

radio station Radio broadcasting is transmission of audio (sound), sometimes with related metadata, by radio waves to radio receivers belonging to a public audience. In terrestrial radio broadcasting the radio waves are broadcast by a land-based radio ...

broadcasting a

sports radio Sports radio (or sports talk radio) is a radio format devoted entirely to discussion and broadcasting of sporting events. A widespread programming genre that has a narrow audience appeal, sports radio is characterized by an often- boisterous on-ai ...

format Format may refer to: Printing and visual media * Text formatting, the typesetting of text elements * Paper formats, or paper size standards * Newspaper format, the size of the paper page Computing * File format, particular way that informatio ...

Licensed A license (or licence) is an official permission or permit to do, use, or own something (as well as the document of that permission or permit). A license is granted by a party (licensor) to another party (licensee) as an element of an agreeme ...

New Brunswick, New Jersey New Brunswick is a city (New Jersey), city in and the county seat, seat of government of Middlesex County, New Jersey, Middlesex County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey.Middlesex Middlesex (; abbreviation: Middx) is a Historic counties of England, historic county in South East England, southeast England. Its area is almost entirely within the wider urbanised area of London and mostly within the Ceremonial counties of ...

Somerset ( en, All The People of Somerset) , locator_map = , coordinates = , region = South West England , established_date = Ancient , established_by = , preceded_by = , origin = , lord_lieutenant_office =Lord Lieutenant of Somerset , lord_ ...

, and

Union Union commonly refers to: * Trade union, an organization of workers * Union (set theory), in mathematics, a fundamental operation on sets Union may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Music * Union (band), an American rock group ** ''Un ...

counties. The station is owned by

Beasley Broadcast Group Beasley Broadcast Group, Inc., based in Naples, Florida, is an owner/operator of radio stations in the United States. , the company owned 63 stations under the Beasley Media Group name. History The company was founded in 1961 by George G. Beasl ...

(through Beasley Media Group, LLC). It is the radio home for

Rutgers University Rutgers University (; RU), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a Public university, public land-grant research university consisting of four campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's ...

athletic events and

Somerset Patriots The Somerset Patriots are an American Minor League Baseball team based in Bridgewater Township, New Jersey, that is the Double-A affiliate of the New York Yankees. They compete in the Eastern League, known as the Double-A Northeast in 2021, and ...

Minor League Baseball games. WCTC transmits with 1,000

watt The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantify the rate of energy transfer. The watt is named after James Wa ...

s, non-directional. It formerly broadcast in

C-QUAM C-QUAM (Compatible QUadrature Amplitude Modulation) is the method of AM stereo broadcasting used in Canada, the United States and most other countries. It was invented in 1977 by Norman Parker, Francis Hilbert, and Yoshio Sakaie, and published i ...

AM stereo. The

transmitter In electronics and telecommunications, a radio transmitter or just transmitter is an electronic device which produces radio waves with an antenna (radio), antenna. The transmitter itself generates a radio frequency alternating current, which i ...

is off Valentine Street at South 5th Avenue in

Highland Park, New Jersey Highland Park is a borough in Middlesex County, New Jersey, United States in the New York City metropolitan area. The borough is located on the northern banks of the Raritan River, in the Raritan Valley region. As of the 2020 United States Cens ...

, near the

Raritan River Raritan River is a major river of New Jersey. Its Drainage basin, watershed drains much of the mountainous area of the central part of the state, emptying into the Raritan Bay on the Atlantic Ocean. History Geologists assert that the lower Rar ...

. Programming is also heard on 250-watt

FM translator A broadcast relay station, also known as a satellite station, relay transmitter, broadcast translator (U.S.), re-broadcaster (Canada), repeater (two-way radio) or complementary station (Mexico), is a broadcast transmitter which repeats (or tran ...

W228DY at 93.5

MHz The hertz (symbol: Hz) is the unit of frequency in the International System of Units (SI), equivalent to one event (or cycle) per second. The hertz is an SI derived unit whose expression in terms of SI base units is s−1, meaning that one he ...

in New Brunswick.

History

WCTC is considered New Jersey's first radio station built during the post-

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

broadcast boom. It

signed on Signing may refer to: * Using sign language * Signature A signature (; from la, signare, "to sign") is a handwritten (and often stylized) depiction of someone's name, nickname, or even a simple "X" or other mark that a person writes on do ...

in 1946. The following year, it added an FM station, 98.3 WCTC-FM (today

WMGQ WMGQ (98.3 MHz Magic 98.3) is a commercial FM radio station licensed to New Brunswick and serving Central Jersey (Middlesex, Union and Somerset Counties). It is owned by the Beasley Broadcast Group, along with sister station WCTC 1450 AM. It ...

). WCTC derives its

call sign In broadcasting and radio communications, a call sign (also known as a call name or call letters—and historically as a call signal—or abbreviated as a call) is a unique identifier for a transmitter station. A call sign can be formally assigne ...

from the Chanticleer, a flamboyant fighting rooster from the medieval fable

Reynard the Fox Reynard the Fox is a literary cycle of medieval allegorical Dutch, English, French and German fables. The first extant versions of the cycle date from the second half of the 12th century. The genre was popular throughout the Late Middle Ages, as ...

(''Le Roman de Renart''). It is also used by

Geoffrey Chaucer Geoffrey Chaucer (; – 25 October 1400) was an English poet, author, and civil servant best known for ''The Canterbury Tales''. He has been called the "father of English literature", or, alternatively, the "father of English poetry". He wa ...

in the ''

Canterbury Tales ''The Canterbury Tales'' ( enm, Tales of Caunterbury) is a collection of twenty-four stories that runs to over 17,000 lines written in Middle English by Geoffrey Chaucer between 1387 and 1400. It is widely regarded as Chaucer's ''magnum opus' ...

'' which was the Rutgers mascot from 1925 to 1955. From the 1960s through the 1980s, it adopted a

full service Full service or Full Service may refer to: * Full-service radio, a wide range of programming * Full Service Network, a communications company Entertainment * "Full Service", a song by the New Kids on the Block from their album ''The Block'' * F ...

middle of the road (MOR) format featuring local news, talk, sports, and adult popular music. For most of those years, Jack Ellery was the popular wake-up host. In 1992, WCTC gave up music programming, switching to All-Talk, featuring programming from ABC Radio and

Premiere Radio Networks Premiere Networks (formerly Premiere Radio Networks, shortened as PRN) is an American media company, a wholly owned subsidiary of iHeartMedia, for which it currently serves as its main original radio content distribution and production arm. It ...

. As of July 2, 2008, WCTC went back to its roots by reverting to an

oldies Oldies is a term for musical genres such as pop music, rock and roll, doo-wop, surf music (broadly characterized as classic rock and pop rock) from the second half of the 20th century, specifically from around the mid-1950s to the 1980s, as we ...

music format. On February 28, 2011, WCTC changed the format back to talk, launching the local midday show "New Jersey TODAY" from one to three in the afternoon hosted by Bert Baron. On July 19, 2016,

Beasley Media Group Beasley Broadcast Group, Inc., based in Naples, Florida, is an owner/operator of radio stations in the United States. , the company owned 63 stations under the Beasley Media Group name. History The company was founded in 1961 by George G. Beasl ...

announced it would acquire

Greater Media Greater Media, Inc., known as Greater Media, was an American media company that specialized in radio stations. The markets where they owned radio stations included Boston, Detroit, Philadelphia, Charlotte, and the state of New Jersey. The compa ...

and its 21 stations (including WCTC) for $240 million. The FCC approved the sale on October 6, and the sale closed on November 1. Under Beasley ownership, WCTC was the primary source for winter school closing announcements. WCTC's former

Talk Talk may refer to: Communication * Communication, the encoding and decoding of exchanged messages between people * Conversation, interactive communication between two or more people * Lecture, an oral presentation intended to inform or instruct ...

format included "

This Morning, America's First News with Gordon Deal ''This Morning: America's First News'' (formerly ''The Wall Street Journal This Morning'') is a two-hour radio news/talk program hosted by Gordon Deal and Jennifer Kushinka, who replaced long-serving co-host Gina Cervetti on January 2, 2015. In a ...

", "Markley, Van Camp & Robbins,"

Guy Benson Guy Pelham Benson (born March 7, 1985) is an American columnist, commentator, and political pundit. He is a contributor to Fox News, political editor of Townhall.com, and a conservative talk radio host. Benson served as a Fellow at the Georgetow ...

, and local host Tommy G. in afternoon

drive time Drive time is the daypart in which radio broadcasters can reach the most people who listen to car radios while driving, usually to and from work, or on public transportation. Drive-time periods are when the number of radio listeners in this c ...

. WCTC carried hourly news from

NBC News Radio NBC News is the news division of the American broadcast television network NBC. The division operates under NBCUniversal Television and Streaming, a division of NBCUniversal, which is, in turn, a subsidiary of Comcast. The news division's var ...

. WCTC also aired special interest shows on the weekends. In July 2021, WCTC began simulcasting on an

, 93.5 W228DY. On September 27, 2021, the wctcam.com web site began redirecting t
Fox Sports New Jersey
This coincided with WCTC's format change to

. On the same day
WCTC's Facebook page
was rebranded.

Former on-air staff

Adam Amin Adam Amin (born December 19, 1986) is an American sportscaster. Amin joined Fox Sports in June 2020 as a play-by-play announcer for MLB and NFL games after previously working for ESPN from 2011-2020. He is also the television play-by-play annou ...

Gordon Deal Gordon Deal is an American talk radio host for the nationally syndicated wake-up show ''This Morning, America's First News with Gordon Deal'', previously called ''The Wall Street Journal This Morning''. Prior to working at ''The Wall Street Jour ...

, host of ''

Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...

'' This Morning once served as a News Anchor at the station. WCTC later carried his syndicated show. * Herb Kaplow *

Dave Marash David Marash, known as Dave Marash (born May 3, 1942), is an American television journalist known for his work at ABC News and Al Jazeera English. Career A graduate of Williams College , Marash worked at New Brunswick, New Jersey, station WCTC-AM ...

* Bruce Williams, syndicated radio personality. He began his broadcast career at WCTC *Jack Ellery

Former logo

Image:WCTC logo.jpg, WCTC logo used from 2004 until July 2, 2008.

References

External links

FCC History Cards for WCTC
* * {{Authority control CTC CTC Radio stations established in 1946 1946 establishments in New Jersey Fox Sports Radio stations Sports radio stations in the United States