WVDL-FM (defunct)

**WVDL-FM** (96.3 FM *WVDL*) was a commercial radio station that broadcast a Spanish talk format. It was licensed to New York City and served the New York metropolitan area. WVDL was owned by Heftel Broadcasting Corporation and its transmitter was located at the Empire State Building in Midtown Manhattan.

## History

### Former callsigns

W59NY (1941-1943)
WQXR (1943-2012)

WMAM-FM (2012-2019)

### Original WQXR operations

WQXR-FM is the outgrowth of a "high-fidelity" AM station, WQXR. This station was founded as experimental station W2XR by John V. L. Hogan and Elliott Sanger, and began operating in New York City on March 26, 1929, as a mechanical television station. In conjunction with the television transmissions, the station commonly broadcast classical music. In 1936 this station was converted into a standard AM broadcast station, licensed to New York City, with the call letters WQXR.

One of the listeners was the inventor of wide band FM, Edwin Howard Armstrong. When Armstrong put his experimental FM station, W2XMN, on the air, he arranged to rebroadcast some of WQXR's programming. This ended in 1939, when Hogan and Sanger put their own experimental FM station on the air, W2XQR, just down the dial from Armstrong at 42.3 MHz. In 1941, the station began transmitting from the top of the Chanin Building, where it remained until 1965 when it moved to the top of the Empire State Building. Remnants of the original tower remain on the Chanin Building.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) began licensing commercial FM stations in 1941, and W2XQR moved to 45.9 MHz, becoming W59NY. Effective November 1, 1943, the FCC modified its policy for FM call letters, and the station became WQXR-FM.

#### "The radio station of the *New York Times*" (1944–2012)

In 1944, Hogan and Sanger sold their holding company, Interstate Broadcasting Company, to the New York Times Company. When the FM broadcast band was moved from 42–50 MHz to its present frequency range of 88–108 MHz in 1945, WQXR-FM moved to 97.7 MHz. In early 1948 the frequency, home of WQXR-FM, to 96.3 MHz.

WQXR was the first AM station in New York to experiment with broadcasting in stereo, beginning in 1952. During some of its live concerts, it used two microphones positioned six feet (two meters) apart. The microphone on the right led to its AM feed, and the one on the left to its FM feed, so a listener could position two radios with the same separation, one tuned to 1560 and the other to 96.3, and listen in stereo.

During the 1950s, WQXR-FM's programming was also heard on the Rural Radio Network on several stations in Upstate New York, including ones targeting Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse and Albany. This ended when the RRN stations were sold to Pat Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network. Both the AM and FM sides continued to simulcast each other until 1965, when the FCC began requiring commonly owned AM and FM stations in large markets to broadcast separate programming for at least part of the day. WQXR-FM concentrated on longer classical works, while WQXR (AM) aired lighter classical music and talk programs produced in conjunction with *The New York Times*. While this plan gave classical music fans two options, it also increased expenses for the stations.

In 1962, the QXR network was purchased by Novo Industrial Corporation but the WQXR stations remained under the New York Times Company ownership.

After briefly attempting to sell the WQXR stations in 1971, *The New York Times* was able to get a waiver of the simulcasting rules. The stations continued to duplicate each other until 1992, when the AM side changed its programming from classical to popular standards, becoming WQEW (now WFME). In 1998, the *Times* entered into a long-term lease for WQEW with ABC, a move which brought Radio Disney to New York City. The Times Company also included a purchase clause in the lease contract, and ABC exercised the option in 2007. This left WQXR-FM as the *Times*'s lone radio station and, following a sale of its group of television stations to Local TV LLC that same year, the Time's sole broadcasting property.

#### Sale to Heftel Broadcasting Corporation (2009)

On July 14, 2012, the New York Times Company announced it was transferring the license for WQXR-FM on 96.3 FM to Heftel Broadcasting Corporation, with the sale slated to close in the second half of 2012. Heftel paid the New York Times Company $33.5 million for the license for 96.3 MHz.
The changes took place at 8:00 p.m. on November 8, 2012. Heftel took over operation of the 96.3 FM facility, and a week later, changed its call letters from WQXR-FM to WMAM-FM. The last music played on 96.3 MHz as WQXR was a live recording of *"West Side Story" - Symphonic Dances: 4. Mambo* of Leonard Bernstein. WQXR-FM began stunting until the 15th.

On November 15, 2012, WMAM-FM changed their format to Spanish Tropical, branded as "MAMI 96.3".

### As a Spanish Talk station

On March 24, 2019, Heftel announced that it would flip WMAM's Tropical format to a Spanish-language conservative talk format on March 31, 2019. It rebranded as "Voz De Los Latinos". The call sign became WVDL-FM. However, the MAMI brand was bought by rival Alarcon Media Group, along with most jocks and engineers being hired at AMG for the relaunch of MAMI in New York. On April 2, 2019, MAMI was relaunched on WPAT-HD2, with the subchannel becoming the most listened to HD subchannel in the entirety of the NYC market. WVDL's license was turned into the FCC on January 25, 2022.