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WVOX

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Coordinates: 40°55′42″N 73°46′30″W / 40.92833°N 73.77500°W / 40.92833; -73.77500
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WVOX
Silent
Broadcast areaNew York metropolitan area
Frequency1460 kHz
Programming
Language(s)English
Ownership
OwnerChang Media Group[1]
History
First air date
September 9, 1950; 74 years ago (1950-09-09)
Former call signs
  • WGNR (1950–1953)
  • WNRC (1953–1958)
  • WWES (1958–1959)
Call sign meaning
vox, Latin for voice
Technical information[2]
Licensing authority
FCC
Facility ID28024
ClassD
Power
  • 500 watts daytime
  • 122 watts nighttime
Transmitter coordinates
40°55′42″N 73°46′30″W / 40.92833°N 73.77500°W / 40.92833; -73.77500
Translator(s)98.3 W252DX (White Plains)
Links
Public license information
Websitewvox.com

WVOX (1460 AM) is a radio station licensed to New Rochelle, New York and serving the New York metropolitan area. WVOX is owned by Beverly Hills, California-based Chang Media Group, and has its transmitter located at the site of its former studio location in New Rochelle.

WVOX is presently silent pending technical and programming changes to be implemented by Chang Media, who acquired WVOX in October 2023 in a three-way donation/sale transaction from its former locally-based owner, Whitney Media Group. Under Whitney ownership, WVOX primarily aired locally-produced information and talk, including programs presented by local citizens & interest groups. The station was affiliated with Music of Your Life, which aired overnights, weekends, and in time slots not occupied by a local show. The station's coverage area includes most of Westchester County and adjoining portions of New York City, along with Nassau County on Long Island and northeastern New Jersey.

WVOX also operates an FM translator, W252DX (98.3 MHz), located in White Plains, New York.

History

Early years

On April 28, 1949, New Rochelle Broadcasting Service, Inc. filed for a construction permit to build a new radio station at 1460 kHz in New Rochelle. The permit was granted on June 22, 1950, and WGNR began broadcasting on September 9, 1950.[3] WGNR-FM 93.5 had already launched in September 1948.[4]

New Rochelle Broadcasting Service, however, went bankrupt in 1952, signing the station off on August 1. After the appointment of a receiver, Radio New Rochelle, Inc., owned by the Iodice Family, acquired the station and changed the call letters to WNRC on both the AM and FM stations.[5][6] WNRC returned to the air in October 1953; it retained those call letters through a transfer of control to the Daniels family in 1955.[5]

WNRC became WWES-AM-FM on December 10, 1958, as the station was sold to Radio Westchester for $225,000. The Radio Westchester sale made it a sister station to WVIP in Mount Kisco, serving lower Westchester County.[7] On February 26, 1959, however, the station would change its call sign to WVOX, which remains in use as of January 2024.

WVOX

WVOX joined a growing radio operation owned by the New York Herald-Tribune newspaper. By 1962, after John Hay Whitney bought the Herald-Tribune the year before, the paper's radio division included WVOX-AM-FM, WVIP, WGHQ at Kingston and WFYI (now WJDM) in Mineola.[8] With the Herald-Tribune closed, Whitney Communications sold WVOX-AM-FM and WGHQ-AM-FM in 1968 to Hudson-Westchester Radio in an $800,000 acquisition.[9] Hudson-Westchester was led by William O'Shaughnessy, a former account executive with the Herald-Tribune Radio Network who had been WVOX's general manager since 1965.[10]

O'Shaughnessy built WVOX into a community-oriented talk outlet, which by 1973 already had the reputation of being the "soap box of Westchester". That year, it moved out of its former studios, which he called an "upholstered sewer", to new facilities constructed at the station's transmitter site in New Rochelle, which were later renamed One Broadcast Forum.[11][12] O'Shaughnessy hosted a daily talk show on the station for more than 50 years, featuring interviews with many major U.S. politicians, authors, and entertainers.[13] O'Shaughnessy, who was called "the voice of Westchester",[14] was fond of calling WVOX the "quintessential community radio station in America",[15] a label first applied to the station by the Wall Street Journal.[14] In 2005, O'Shaughnessy was one of the first 25 people to be inducted into the new New York State Broadcasters Hall of Fame by the New York State Broadcasters Association.[13][16] He was honored for his long record as a champion of free speech under the First Amendment.[14]

The programming of WVOX during the 1970s included local news roundup shows that were dedicated to towns in its coverage area, such as Mount Vernon and Pelham The call-in show "Open Line", which often exceeded its allotted time slot, was also part of the programming lineup. Ethnic and religious blocks were also featured, along with standards music when the station didn't have a talk show on the air.[17]

Following his departure from WEVD in 2001, Bill Mazer launched an afternoon interview program on WVOX, which aired from 3–6 PM ET (and streamed from WVOX's website), with his son Arnie serving as producer. Mazer's last show was aired August 3, 2009, ending his tenure at the station and marking his retirement from broadcasting.

William O'Shaughnessy died May 28, 2022, at age 84.[18]

Pending donation and subsequent sale

Over a year later, on August 25, 2023, O'Shaughnessy's estate announced WVOX and its FM translator would be donated to MMTC Broadcasting, a nonprofit who will then transfer the station's license to Chang Media Group, a minority broadcaster.[19] WVOX's FM sister station WVIP was sold several weeks earlier to Hope Media Group, which converted WVIP to a Spanish-language Christian music format under new WNVU call letters on September 1, 2023.[20] The transfers ended the O'Shaughnessy family's involvement in radio after nearly six decades.

On September 7, 2023, WVOX ended its local programing and ceased operations ahead of the sale.[21] However, about a week later WVOX returned to the air and simulcasted the music programming of noncommercial WJZZ in Montgomery, New York. Upon the FCC's granting approval of the donation/sale transfer on October 26, 2023, the station went silent once again. Under the terms of the sale, Chang Media Group is required to move WVOX's transmitter and studio facilities to a new location, as the O'Shaughnessy family is retaining One Broadcast Forum; Chang will also install a new programming format.

See also

References

  1. ^ "Station Sales Week Of 8/25 - RadioInsight". August 25, 2023.
  2. ^ "Facility Technical Data for WVOX". Licensing and Management System. Federal Communications Commission.
  3. ^ "Listening In". New York Daily News. July 27, 1950. p. 67. Retrieved November 20, 2019.
  4. ^ Gross, Ben (September 6, 1948). "Looking & Listening". New York Daily News. p. 40. Retrieved November 20, 2019.
  5. ^ a b FCC History Cards for WVOX
  6. ^ "Call Letters Assigned" (PDF). Broadcasting. August 24, 1953. p. 102. Retrieved November 20, 2019.
  7. ^ "At Deadline" (PDF). Broadcasting. October 13, 1958. p. 9. Retrieved November 20, 2019.
  8. ^ "The 'Trib' uses tv to reverse a trend" (PDF). Broadcasting. May 14, 1962. pp. 30, 32. Retrieved November 20, 2019.
  9. ^ "Changing Hands" (PDF). Broadcasting. May 6, 1968. pp. 62–63. Retrieved November 20, 2019.
  10. ^ "Ex-Valleyite To Buy 4 Radio Stations". Star-Gazette. October 24, 1967. p. 13. Retrieved November 20, 2019.
  11. ^ "WVOX building new home". The Standard-Star. New Rochelle, NY. April 9, 1973. p. 13. Retrieved August 30, 2023 – via Newspapers.com.
  12. ^ Adams, Val (October 14, 1973). "Radio Roundup". New York Daily News. p. 19. Retrieved November 20, 2019.
  13. ^ a b Colorful Radio Mogul Sees Threat to Freedom of the Airwaves, New York Sun, May 23, 2005
  14. ^ a b c Stephen Warley (2005), Serving Their Communities: 50 Years of the New York State Broadcasters Association, Fordham University Press, ISBN 0-9776117-0-1, ISBN 978-0-9776117-0-6
  15. ^ WLNA radio mellows out, Westchester County Business Journal, September 28, 1998
  16. ^ Westchester County Business Journal, April 25, 2005
  17. ^ Yates, Su; Blackwell, Bruce (February 20, 1977). "Vox Populi is more than a slogan". The Journal News. pp. TV-Radio Week 27, 28. Retrieved November 20, 2019.
  18. ^ Winslow, George (May 31, 2022). "Former NY Broadcasters Association President William O'Shaughnessy Has Died". tvtechnology.com. Future US, Inc. Retrieved June 3, 2022.
  19. ^ Jacobson, Adam (August 26, 2023). "Following O'Shaughnessy's Death, WVOX Is Donated | Radio & Television Business Report".
  20. ^ says, Maria Santiago (June 30, 2023). "Hope Media Group Acquires WVIP In New York's Suburbs - RadioInsight".
  21. ^ Ahead of Sale WVOX Signs Off Radioinsight - September 8, 2023
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