WNWR (1540
AM) is a
commercial 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 ...
in
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...
owned by Aztec Capital Partners. Its studio is located at 200 Monument Road, Suite 6,
Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania and its
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 located in the
Roxborough Roxborough may refer to:
Places
* Roxborough, Manchester, Jamaica
* Roxborough, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, US, a neighborhood
* Roxborough, Trinidad and Tobago, Tobago Island, Republic of Trinidad and Tobago
* Roxborough Castle, Ireland
* Roxborou ...
neighborhood of Philadelphia, off Ridge Avenue.
The station airs a simulcast of
WHAT
What or WHAT may refer to:
* What, an interrogative pronoun and adverb
* "What?", one of the Five Ws used in journalism
Film and television
* ''What!'' (film) or ''The Whip and the Body'', a 1963 Italian film directed by Mario Bava
* '' What ...
1340 AM airing Spanish music.
History
The station first
signed on the air on July 11, 1947. 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 ...
was WJMJ which stood for "Jesus, Mary, Joseph." The station broadcast
middle-of-the-road music and religious programming. It was owned by Patrick Joseph Stanton and had its offices and studios in the
St. James Hotel. It was a
daytimer
A clear-channel station is an AM radio station in North America that has the highest protection from interference from other stations, particularly concerning night-time skywave propagation. The system exists to ensure the viability of cross-coun ...
, powered at 1,000 watts and forced to
sign-off
A sign-on (or start-up in Commonwealth countries except Canada) is the beginning of operations for a radio or television station, generally at the start of each day. It is the opposite of a sign-off (or closedown in Commonwealth countries exce ...
at sunset to avoid interfering with other stations on 1540 kHz. In the late 1950s, the station got a boost to 50,000 watts, but it still had to stay off the air at night. One of the programs carried on WJMJ in the 1950s was
George A. Palmer
George Augustus Palmer (February 14, 1895 – January 11, 1981) was an American Protestant clergyman from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, who started the long-running ''Morning Cheer'' radio broadcast in 1931, which eventually had an international o ...
's popular ''Morning Cheer'' daily broadcast.
In 1965 it was acquired by Rust Craft Greeting Cards, which changed the call letters to WRCP, which stood for Rust Craft Philadelphia. In 1967, Rust Craft changed the
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 ...
to
country music
Country (also called country and western) is a genre of popular music that originated in the Southern and Southwestern United States in the early 1920s. It primarily derives from blues, church music such as Southern gospel and spirituals, ...
, a format not found on the Philadelphia radio dial. In 1981, after 560
WFIL
WFIL (560 AM) is a radio station in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States, with a Christian radio format consisting of teaching and talk programs. Owned by Salem Media Group, studios and transmitter facilities are shared with co-owned WNTP ...
adopted a country format, WRCP switched to
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 ...
. Later in 1985, the call sign was changed to WSNI to match
sister station
In broadcasting, sister stations or sister channels are radio or television stations operated by the same company, either by direct ownership or through a management agreement.
Radio sister stations will often have different formats, and somet ...
104.5 WSNI-FM (now
WRFF). For a time, the AM broadcast an all-
Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, formed in Liverpool in 1960, that comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are regarded as the most influential band of all time and were integral to the developme ...
-and-
Motown
Motown Records is an American record label owned by the Universal Music Group. It was founded by Berry Gordy Jr. as Tamla Records on June 7, 1958, and incorporated as Motown Record Corporation on April 14, 1960. Its name, a portmanteau of ''moto ...
format. After two years, a more conventional oldies mix returned and the station became WPGR ("Philly Gold Radio").
In 1995, the station was sold to new owners operating as Global Radio LLC, becoming WNWR. The call letters stand for New World Radio. It switched to mostly ethnic
brokered programming, where show hosts bought time on the station and sold advertising in their communities to pay for their broadcasts. On June 13, 2011, WNWR's entire brokered program schedule moved to
AM 860
AM or Am may refer to:
Arts and entertainment Music
* A minor, a minor scale in music
* ''A.M.'' (Chris Young album)
* ''A.M.'' (Wilco album)
* ''AM'' (Abraham Mateo album)
* ''AM'' (Arctic Monkeys album)
* AM (musician)
AM is an Am ...
WWDB. The station was then leased to broadcast
China Radio International. Several years later, WNWR got authorization from the
Federal Communications Commission
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains jurisdiction ...
to stay on the air around the clock with low power at night. WNWR has gone off the air and is listed as silent since June 14, 2018.
As of Saturday November 17, 2018 WNWR returned on the air broadcasting a Spanish language format.
On December 8, 2019, however, it was on the FCC's Silent AM Stations List.
As of April 27, 2021, WNWR returned to the airwaves with 1,000 watts of power during the day and 7 watts at night according to their engineer, Dana Puopolo.
References
External links
FCC History Cards for WNWR
{{Daytime-only radio stations in Pennsylvania
NWR
Radio stations established in 1947
1947 establishments in Pennsylvania
NWR