WWDJ Totally Explained

Everything about Wwdj totally explained

WWDJ, 970 AM, is a radio station licensed out of Hackensack, New Jersey and serving the New York metropolitan area. The station is currently owned by Salem Communications and presents a talk-based Christian radio format.

History

Early years

The station signed on in 1926 as WAAT on 1270, moving to 1070 in 1928, 940 in 1930 and finally to 970 in 1941. They featured a general entertainment format. The station was owned by Frank Bremmer. In 1948 their TV station WATV 13 signed on (now PBS WNET 13). In 1951 the stations were sold to Irving Rosenhaus. WAAT evolved to a music format by the 1950s, similar to what WNEW, WOR, and WCBS were doing at that time. They also signed on 94.7 FM in the 50's and that station was WAAT FM (now WFME Family Radio a traditional religious format).

WNTA-AM FM TV Years

National Telefilm Associates would buy the three stations in 1959. WAAT and WATV became WNTA and WNTA TV. WAAT FM also became WNTA FM. WNTA 970 remained a MOR music station. WNTA FM played easy listening and WNTA TV was attempting a general entertainment format. Still even in New York City 7 commercial stations couldn't be supported. 13 WNTA was given to National Educational Foundation in 1961 and became WNET and took on an educational non commercial format which they're today.
WNTA FM began selling time to a Christian Non Commercial Group called "Family Stations" headed by Harold Camping (which still runs Family radio today). They ran religion part of the day and easy listening other parts. By 1964 they sold the entire broadcast day to family Radio and shortly after they were sold outright to them becoming WFME which they still are today. They even play the same music now they played back in 1964.

Country Music Years

WNTA 970 was sold to Communications Industries Broadcasting and changed callsigns to WJRZ on March 31, 1962. They kept a MOR format until September 15, 1965, when WJRZ became the first radio station in the New York metro area to play a Country music format 24 hours a day. WJRZ carried New York Mets games from 1967 until 1971, with the classic Mets broadcasting crew of Lindsey Nelson, Bob Murphy, and Ralph Kiner. Station personality Bob Brown hosted the Mets pre- and post-game shows, and built an audience with his genial manner, call-in shows, and "Mets Manager for a Play" contest.
The station had a serious fire that destroyed their studios on October 17, 1970; the station operated out of a prefab building near their transmitter site for a period of time afterward.

Top 40 Years

The station was put up for sale in fall of 1970. Around that time 570 WMCA dropped Top 40 for all talk leaving WABC as the only Top 40 radio station. It was decided that there was a need for another Top 40 station so after Christmas WJRZ dropped Country music and switched to Top 40.
The station was sold to Pacific and Southern Broadcasting on January 6, 1971. It changed its call letters on May 16 of that year, and became 970 WWDJ, known on the air as "97-DJ". The station was hampered by a directional signal that covered Manhattan and parts of New Jersey well but suffered in the rest of the Five Boroughs and was virtually nonexistent on Long Island. Eventually, FM competition from Oldies WCBS-FM and adult Top 40 station WXLO/99X (now WRKS), and an evolution to adult Top 40 by WNBC (now WFAN), began to eat into WWDJ's ratings.

Finding God

By 1974 the station was losing money and unable to sell enough advertising, and the studios had been moved to the transmitter site. As a result, WWDJ dropped the Top 40 format on April 1, 1974, and switched to a Religious format. Because the change took place on April Fool's Day, many listeners thought the switch was some sort of joke. Initially, WWDJ sold blocks of time to outside ministries about 15 hours a day and played music about 8 hours a day. The music they played was traditional Christian Music except on Saturdays they played a few hours of a then new type of music known as Contemporary Christian Music. Pacific and Southern merged with Combined Broadcasting in 1977 becoming Communicom.

CCM Years

By the late 70's the music during the week was a mix of traditional and soft contemporary. By 1981 the music was Adult Contemporary Christian and evolved to Contemporary Christian by 1984. The station still only played music part-time. They continued with the Contemporary Christian Music/teaching/preaching format throughout the 1980s and into the 1990s, with Frank Reed (formerly of WNBC) handling mornings.
In 1993 WWDJ was sold to Salem Media, owner of WMCA 570, which ran Christian Talk and Teaching. Initially it was thought that WWDJ would move to music full time with specialty Christian music programming on weekends but this never happened. By then WWDJ played music from 6-9 AM and 1 to 9 PM weekdays.

Sounds Of Praise & Celebration

In the Fall of 1995 The Contemporary Christian Music listeners dropped. The programming expanded with music only on from 6-8 AM and 4-6 PM weekdays. The announcers were laid off and the station revamped the format to a Rhythmic Christian Music format. This employed Contemporary Uptempo Praise & Worship Music, Gospel Music, and light Contemporary Christian songs. They positioned themselves as "The Sound Of Praise & Celebration".

WWDJ Today

This format continued until 2004 when the music was dropped and WWDJ moved to a Christian Brokered format 24/7. WAWZ FM 99.1 in Northern New Jersey dropped all but a few religious shows to play Contemporary Christian Music 18 hours a day. Salem picked up many bumped shows. This caused Salem to decide to air programming full time on 970 WWDJ. For about two years, AM 970 billed itself WMCA II all the time except for the hourly legal ID (WWDJ, Hackensack).
The station's on-air identity has reverted to 970 DJ as of 2007 but it still runs overflow programs from sister station WMCA, as well as some syndicated mostly-secular personalities, such as Laura Schlessinger and Kevin McCullough. They also broadcast infomercials and church services to 30 minute and 60 minute religious shows. The station also broadcast the New Jersey Devils during the 2007 Stanley Cup Playoffs.

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