WBBR
WBBR is a radio station, broadcasting at 1130 AM in New York City. It airs Bloomberg Radio, a service of Bloomberg Media, which is owned by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Its transmitters are located in Carlstadt, New Jersey.
WBBR's format is business news, offering a mixture of domestic and foreign financial market updates and interviews with corporate executives and industry analysts, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
The station's origins go back to 1922 as WAAM and 1925 as WODA, both broadcasting from New Jersey. After a merger in 1933, the call letters became WNEW in 1934. The frequency shifted from 1250 to 1130 on March 29, 1941.
WNEW was one of the most well-known radio stations in the U.S., pioneering the playing of phonograph records of current hit songs. Noted disc jockeys included William B. Williams and Gene Klavan, and later Ted Brown, Bruce Bradley, and Jonathan Schwartz. WNEW continued to play a mix of popular music hits and pop standards for decades. Metromedia owned WNEW through the 1950s into the late 1980s. WNEW was also the home of New York Giants football broadcasts for many years, much of that in an era when radio listenership was high due to home games being blacked out on television.
During December 1992 and January 1993, ownership changed, WNEW came to an end, and the call letters and format changed to their current ones.
Detailed history of WNEW, late 1950s-end
In the late 1950's, pop music was dividing between rock and roll and popular standards. Some stations moved to a predominantly rock and roll format and became known as "Top 40" stations, where the most popular songs were played frequently. Other stations played popular standards with some softer rock and roll sounds, and these stations became known as "Middle of the Road" (MOR) stations.
In this period, WNEW opted to be an MOR station. They played artists such as Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, Pat Boone, Peggy Lee, Ray Charles, Sonny James, The Platters, Johnny Mathis, Tony Bennett, Bing Crosby, Frankie Laine, The Four Aces, and The McGuire Sisters. They also played softer songs by artists such as Elvis Presley, The Everly Brothers, Jackie Wilson, Brenda Lee and Connie Francis.
Throughout the rest of the 1960's WNEW, which reported to Billboard as a MOR station, continued to play artists mentioned above along with 1960's artists such as Bobby Vinton, The Fifth Dimension, The Mamas & The Papas, Peter Paul & Mary, Petula Clark, Wayne Newton and Barbara Streisand. In addition, the station played an occasional big band song from the 1940's.
In the early 1970's, WNEW was shifting more towards an adult contemporary format with current artists, while playing the ocassional song from Sinatra and Cole. The station, whose ratings at this point were in the top ten among New York City stations, had an airstaff at this time which included Bill St. James, Bruce Bradley, Ted Brown, William B. Williams (who hated most of the music the station played by then) and Jim Lowe. Jonathan Schwartz would move to the from then-sister station WNEW-FM in 1976. He took a weekend shift where he played non-mainstream standards mixed in with relevant soft rock album cuts and songs from big bands.
Also in 1976, WNEW opted to begin a return to its roots as a pop standards station. That fall, the "Milkman's Matinee" was reinstated and the station played big bands and pop standards on overnights from 2-5:30 AM. In the fall of 1979, the "Make Believe Ballroom" was reinstated much to William B Williams' joy. The station would gradually add more big band songs and pop standards, and by 1980, the station played big band songs and standards for most of the broadcast day, except from 6AM-10AM on weekday mornings and 2PM-8PM on weekday afternoons. By the beginning of the next year, the station would play big band songs and standards for the entire broadcast day. The station would have a slight change of format in 1986, as they began playing contemporary jazz music on overnights and even reported as a contemporary jazz station to Radio & Records.
In 1988, WNEW and WNEW-FM went through a major ownership change, as their owners, Metromedia, sold half interest in the stations to Westwood One. At this point, the station started to tighten their playlist, as they started to add standards artists such as The Lettermen, Al Martino and Vikki Carr into the station's rotation, while shifting their playlist to attract a younger audience. Eventually the station would also add soft adult contemporary songs to their playlist. The next year, the station added NBC Talk Net talk shows which aired in the evening, and in 1990, the station started to air Larry King's radio show in the overnight. These changes would not help the station's ratings, as they would fall during this period.
In 1991, the station decided to go back to playing popular standards of the 1950's and 1960's, while continuing to air shows from Talk Net and Larry King at night. This did not help ratings, and by the following year, the station was sold to Bloomberg, who decided to change the format of the station to business news. In the period before the format change, the airstaff was given an opportunity to say goodbye to which they did, cumulating on December 10 and December 11, 1992, when the station had one big farewell show. During this farewell show, the aisrtaff reflected and talked very deeply about the loss of WNEW. The show would end at 8PM on the 11th, as Mark Simone signed off for the last time with the entire airstaff at his side.
The next day, WNEW would simulcast WYNY, and would continue for the next three days. On December 15, the sale of WNEW to Bloomberg became final, and for the rest of that day, the station continued simulcasting WYNY. Then, after airing the Perry Como Christmas Special, shows from Talk Net, and Larry King, the station would sign off forever at 11:59 PM. As the station signed off, they abruptly ended Larry King and a voice went on and stated "At this time 1130 WNEW New York will leave the air forever...Thanks for your support over the years...This is WNEW New York". The station signed off for a few seconds, then went back on the air with the callsign WBBR. The station would then simulcast WQEW, which was a standards station that had just signed on some two weeks earlier. The simulcast would continue until January 4, 1993, when WBBR's business news format debuted.
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