Welcome to WNJRadio.Com
Tunein now radio listeners

Some early personalities on AM 1430 WNJR included news director Tom Costigan, who was once the narrator of the Fox Movietone Newsreels, announcer Alois Havrilla, who previously did voice-over work for the Paul Whiteman and Jack Benny radio programs. Havrilla was a news commentator on WNJR and also hosted a music program, "Alois Havrilla Presents." And, Carl Ide did morning drive, played jazz in the afternoons on his "S.S. Cool" program and did a transcribed hour of music and poetry in the evenings.

WNJR's early programming also featured some western swing and Latin dance music. By the early 1950's, WNJR's format evolved into a mix of jazz, jive and R&B. Alan Freed's rock-n-roll show was first heard in the New York area on WNJR via syndication from Cleveland's WJW.

By the 1950's, AM 1430 WNJR also featured some African-American broadcasters including George Hudson & Ramon Bruce. Other personalities included Hal Wade (who did overnights, replaced in 1953 by Danny "The Cat Man" Stiles), Charlie Green, Pat Connell, Herman Amis, Enoch Gregory and Hal Jackson. In the fall of 1953, WNJR was sold to Rollins Broadcasting and switched to an exclusive R&B format.

In August 1967, the staff at AM 1430 WNJR went on strike over discrimination issues, putting the station off the air for about 6 hours. Vintage pictures of some of WNJR's on-air personalities, circa 1968, are available on http://radiohistory.com/ 

Rollins Broadcasting was re-organized as Continental Broadcasting in November 1968, but the FCC refused to renew its license citing fraudulent advertising, falsified logs and other violations. WNJR continued to operate during the appeals process, but on July 17, 1971 went off the air.

On July 29, 1971, WNJR returned to the air, operated temporarily by the City of Newark, under the name "Radio Newark." In December 1971, the interim license was transferred over to a group of station staff and applicants known as the WNJR Radio Company. In 1972, WNJR became the New York affiliate of the Mutual Black Network (later named the Sheridan Broadcasting Newtork) and joined the National Black Network in 1973. 

In May 1975, the WNJR Radio Company license was cancelled and a new group of 4 applicants took over as 1430 Associates. In 1976, one of the applicants, Sound Radio Inc., was awarded the license. However, the FCC reversed that decision in June 1978 when WNJR was invloved in another fraudulent advertising scheme. All of WNJR's legal troubles came to an end in 1982 when Sound Radio received permanent authorization to run the station. By this time, the station's format was a mix of gospel and urban contemporary programming. 

From 1983 to 1986, the mornings featured big band music. In 1986, Sound Radio erected a new transmitter for WNJR in the hopes of increased coverage and audio, but by 1989, the company fell into bankrupcy. Some personalties at this time included Thurman Miller, Carlos DeJesus, Steel Colony, Henry Singleton, Valerie Steele, Jerry "Love" Brown and Jeff McCall.

In 1989, Spanish American Radio Communications Inc. bought Sound Radio for $4.1 million, but ultimately couldn't meet its payments. In 1991, the station was sold for $6.75 million to Douglas Broadcasting, a West Coast black-owned corporation. WNJR's format shifted to brokered ethnic programming. During this time period, Independant program producer Randy Parker hosted "The Weekend Traffic Jam" radio show on Friday & Saturday. 

By the late 1990's, Arthur Liu's MultiCultural Broadcasting had purchased the station and initially kept the ethnic programming. However on June 8, 1999, WNJR's calls were changed to WNSW and featured an Adult Standards format, in response to the demise of the format on New York station WQEW. Because of the station's limited coverage area, the Adult Standards were not a big hit and by mid-2000, the format was eventually eliminated as more ethnic programming began to fill in the hours.

(Thanks to Thurman Miller and Lonnie Tucker for some of this information) 

(Also, thanks to Pirate Jim's "New Jersey AM Radio History")  Archived here.