WWDJ 970 is a radio station licensed out of Hackensack, New Jersey and serving the New York Metropolitan area. They carry a religious format which sells blocks of time to ministries. They feature short features to church services to 30 minute and 60 minute religious shows. The station is owned by Salem Media

History

Early Years

The station signed on in 1926 as WAAT on 1270, moving to 1070 in 1928, 940 in 1930 and in 1941 on 970. 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 1950's similar to what WNEW and WOR and WCBS were eventually doing. 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 WATA 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 could not be supported. 13 WNTA was goven to National Educational Foundation in 1961 and became WNET and took on an educational non commercial format which they are 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). Tehy 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

Around the time that 94.7 was sold and made WFME, WNTA 970 was sold to Communications Industries Broadcasting. They kept a MOR format until September 15, 1965. It was determined that New York City needed a Country Music station and they were one of the few cities without one. In fact today they still have no country music station.

So that September day in 1965 AM 970 became WJRZ and took a Country music format. The station did decent but never was a leading station by any stretch. They did have a serious fire in 1971 that destroyed their studios but were quickly back on the air days later.

Top 40 Years

The station was put up for sale that Fall. Around that time 570 WMCA dropped Top 40 for all talk leaving WABC as the only Top 40 radiuo station. It was decided that there was a need for another Top 40 station so after Christmas WJRZ station dropped Country music and switched to Top 40. New York City would be without a Country music station until 1973 when 1050 WHN switched to it from MOR.

The station was sold to Pacific and Southern Broadcasting shortly after in 1971. The station became known as 970 WWDJ. The Top 40 format did okay for a while but FM competition by Oldies WCBS FM, Adult Top 40 stations WXLO 99X (now WRKS Urban AC), and the evolution into Adult Top 40 station 66 WNBC (now WFAN Sports) began to eat into the mediocre ratings.

Finding God

By 1974 the station was losing money and unable to sell enough advertising. As a result WWDJ dropped the Top 40 format on April 1, 1974 and switched to a Religious format. Initially they 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 Contempoorary Christian Music. Pacific and Southern merged with Cobined 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 1980's and into the 90's.

In 1993 WWDJ was sold to Salem Media who owned WMCA 570 which ran Christian Talk and Teaching. Initially it was though 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 eas dropped. The programming expanded with music only on from 6-8 AM and 4-6 PM weekdays. The announcers were laid off and teh 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. Today they are known as WMCA II. They even call themselves WMCA II all the time except for the hourly station ID's. They basically run syndicated religious shows that they lack room on WMCA to carry.