WSNR

WSNR, (620 AM), is a radio station licensed to Jersey City, New Jersey with a brokered programming format. The station is co-owned by Gregory Davidzon, a Russian-American media mogul who also publishes a weekly newspaper under his name, and Sam Katsman, through licensee Davidzon Radio, Inc.^[1]

WSNR transmits with 3,000 watts days and 7,600 watts nights from five (5) nearly in-line towers in Lyndhurst, New Jersey, directed at mid-town Manhattan, and thereby missing Northeast Manhattan, and Southwest Staten Island, this as a consequence of protection requirements to adjacent-channel stations to the N.E. and S.W. of the transmitter site, however Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens are well-covered, as is the Western portion of Long Island. This is the second transmitter site for this station which, as WVNJ, and licensed to Newark, New Jersey, transmitted with 5,000 watts days and nights, but with separate antenna patterns.

History

The station first signed on December 7, 1948 as WVNJ licensed to Newark, New Jersey, the station played Broadway show music and mostly vocal based easy listening music. By the early 1970s WVNJ had evolved into an adult standards format, playing artists like Frank Sinatra, Benny Goodman, Mills Brothers, Barbra Streisand, Tony Bennett, Ella Fitzgerald, Ray Charles, Andrews Sisters, Nat "King" Cole, Peggy Lee, Artie Shaw, Carpenters, Vic Damone, Sammy Davis Jr., Connie Francis, Patti Page, Johnny Mathis, Dinah Shore, among others. By the late 1970s, WVNJ 620 was marketed as a standards station to accompany its then-co-owned FM station WVNJ FM which played Beautiful Music. The station featured a pure big-band show playing only music from the 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, and early 1950s weekdays between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m hosted by Danny Stiles. In 1980, when WRVR New York dropped Jazz for Country WKHK, WVNJ-FM adopted a night-time jazz format keeping easy listening instrumentals and a vocal per 20 minutes during the day. At that point, WVNJ 620 picked up the beautiful music format for night-time hours while keeping big bands and standards during the day. Ratings were low on WVNJ 620 due to the fact it had a weak signal and 1130 WNEW was also doing a big band based format by 1981.

In August 1983, WVNJ-FM was sold to Malrite and became a CHR format in a new location with a new staff and known as Z 100 WHTZ. WVNJ was sold that October and became a Spanish adult contemporary station. They became WSKQ and were owned by Spanish Broadcasting System. They also moved to a new location in Manhattan. After SBS bought an FM station, WSKQ became WXLX and employed a Mexican regional music format beginning in 1990. In 1996, the station was sold to One On One Sports and picked up that sports talk programming becoming WJWR. After One-on-One Sports merged with the Sporting News newspaper, the network would be renamed Sporting News Radio and WJWR would become WSNR. It was around this time that WSNR would also be re-licensed to Jersey City, New Jersey. WJWR and WSNR were the flagship for the New York Islanders, and at various times carried the play by play for the New York Liberty of the WNBA, the New York CityHawks of the Arena Football League, and the Brooklyn Cyclones of the New York–Penn League

From 2001 to 2006, the station was owned by Paul Allen's Vulcan Ventures; despite the ownership change, it retained the station's affiliation with Sporting News Radio. The station was also briefly an MRN affiliate and was the only New York metro area station broadcasting NASCAR events.

Gregory Davidzon and Sam Katsman, through licensee Davidzon Radio, Inc. purchased WSNR for $12.5 million in a transaction that was consummated on March 31, 2015.

Daytime programming consists of Russian news/talk shows as Davidzon Radio, named after the station's co-owner. Nighttime is leased to Radio Maria's New York English language programming and various other ethnic and specialty programmers.

References

External links

• Davidzon Radio
• Radio Maria New York (English with streaming audio)

• Query the FCC's AM station database for WSNR
• Radio-Locator Information on WSNR
• Query Nielsen Audio's AM station database for WSNR