page_title: WNYM
section_title: Early years (1926 - 1970)
hierarchical_section_title: WNYM / History / Early years (1926 - 1970)
caption_attribution_description: English: Advertisement by the Bremer Broadcasting Corporation soliciting performers for radio station WAAT in Jersey City, New Jersey, which had studios in the Hotel Plaza.
context_page_description: WNYM – branded "AM 970 The Answer" – is a commercial radio station licensed to Hackensack, New Jersey and serving the New York metropolitan area. The station is owned by Salem Media Group and programs a conservative talk radio format. Its studios are shared with co-owned WMCA in lower Manhattan, and its transmitter is located in Hackensack.
context_section_description: Bremer returned to the broadcasting airwaves four years later, with a new station licensed on August 19, 1926 to the Bremer Broadcasting Corporation in Jersey City, which was assigned the sequentially issued call letters WKBD. WKBD began a series of test transmissions in late August, initially broadcasting from Bremer's store at 210 Jackson Avenue. The next month Bremer was permitted to reclaim the call sign used in 1922, and the station was renamed WAAT. Its initial slogan was "The Voice At the Gate of the Golden State". A formal debut broadcast from studios at the Hotel Plaza in Jersey City was held on November 20, 1926.
  WAAT began operations during a chaotic period when most government regulation had been suspended, and new stations were free to be set up with few restrictions, and could chose their own transmitting frequencies. Bremer initially squeezed WAAT onto the crowded New York area AM band using a non-standard frequency of 1275 kHz. Following the reestablishment of government control by the formation of the Federal Radio Commission, on May 3, 1927 the station was moved to a more traditional frequency of 1270 kHz, which a month later was changed to 1220 kHz. In November 1928, the station moved to 1070 kHz, which was followed by a switch to 940 kHz in April 1930. Effective March 1941, under the provisions of the North American Regional Broadcasting Agreement, stations on 940 kHz were reassigned to 970 kHz, which has been the station's frequency ever since. In 1943, WAAT's main studio location was changed from Jersey City to Newark, New Jersey in the Hotel Douglas, later moving to the Mosque Theatre at 1020 Broad Street.
  In 1947 Bremer launched an FM adjunct, WAAT-FM (94.7, now WNSH), and the following year a sister television station, WATV, began broadcasts on channel 13. In 1951 the stations were sold to Irving Rosenhaus; WAAT evolved to a middle of the road music format by the 1950s, similar to what WNEW, WOR, and WCBS were doing at that time.
  In 1957 the WAAT/WATV operation was sold by Bremer to National Telefilm Associates, who changed the station's call letters to WNTA. National Telefilm split up its holdings in 1961, with WNTA-TV (now WNET) being sold to a New York City-based nonprofit educational group, and the WNTA radio stations going to Communications Industries Broadcasting.  The new owners changed the calls to WJRZ and retained the MOR format until September 15, 1965, when WJRZ became the first radio station in the New York metro area to play a country music format 24 hours a day. was the flagship radio outlet for the New York Mets from 1967 until 1971.
  In 1968 the station established a new transmitter site in Hackensack, New Jersey, and changed its community of license from Newark to Hackensack. A serious fire destroyed its studios located in a house on Hackensack Avenue in North Hackensack on October 17, 1970; the station operated out of a prefab building near their transmitter site for a period of time afterward.
caption: In November 1926 WAAT introduced broadcasts originating from the Hotel Plaza in Jersey City.[14]