WNTN

WNTN

FCC
Facility ID	48781
Class	D
Power	6,700 watts (day) 3 watts (night)
Transmitter coordinates	42°23′13.35″N 71°8′19.19″W / 42.3870417°N 71.1386639°W / 42.3870417; -71.1386639 (WNTN)
Links
Public license information	Public file LMS
Webcast	Listen live
Website	wntn1550am.com

WNTN (1550

.

WNTN broadcasts a community-based

, as well as to the area's large Irish population.

History

WNTN signed on April 1, 1968, broadcasting a "

. The free-form progressive rock format lasted until January 1976, when the format reverted to MOR after the station had been recently sold.

In 1977, the station became the first in the Boston radio market to adopt a disco music block. With its unique sound and popular disc jockeys, including Wendy Hunt and Vinnie 'Disco Vinnie' Peruzzi, WNTN experienced a ratings rise and attention from the areas newspapers and television stations. The format's success, however, was short-lived. By the spring of 1978, crosstown FM station WBOS began playing disco music in the evenings and adopted the format full-time that autumn as "Disco 93". In addition, Wendy Hunt left WNTN to work at WBOS in 1978, as did Vinnie Peruzzi. In 1979, he joined another new FM disco station: WXKS-FM "Kiss 108".

Unable to compete with the two FM disco music stations, WNTN switched its format to adult contemporary music mixed with local news and information in 1977. But that format was short-lived; it flipped within a year to oldies music and within six months had a brief catapult into legitimate Boston ratings as the oldies format managed by Rob Wolf, who had earlier hired Howard Stern.

For a brief time in the early 1980s, the station resurrected a disco (or by that time, "contemporary dance music") format, promoted as the "Daytime Nightclub".

In 1987, the station dropped music and changed to a

national talk shows with local and national news updates. Music programming returned by 1993 in the afternoon hours, consisting of mostly adult contemporary however it was dropped completely by 1998.

Since the mid–1990s, many local AM stations, including WNTN, experienced a downturn in advertising revenue. WNTN responded by adding leased-time programming, allowing groups and individuals to pay for an allotted amount of time on the station and program it to their taste. The station now airs a variety of talk and music shows aimed at numerous ethnicities and age groups.

Move to Cambridge

From sign-in in 1968. studios and transmitter were at 143 Rumford Avenue in Auburndale area of Newton. In 2015, a construction permit application was filed to diplex WNTN with WJIB in Cambridge and drop power to 750 watts. In early 2017, the radio station was sold to the host of Grecian Echoes; however, the sale did not include the land or the studio building.^[4] The new company, Delta Communications, set up studios and offices in Needham, Massachusetts, and began broadcasting from its new transmitter site in March 2017. In 2018, a modification to increase power to 6,700 watts was approved by the FCC.^[5]

Howard Stern

From August to December 1975, while studying at Boston University, future radio pioneer and self-proclaimed "King Of All Media" Howard Stern was an on-air personality at WNTN, his first professional job in the radio industry. Stern claims that the hiring manager refused to pay him because he was "horrible, and nobody would pay you". Stern claims that he offered to work for free, but that request was denied.^[6]

References and notes

External links

• Official website
• WNTN in the FCC AM station database
• WNTN in Nielsen Audio's AM station database