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WVNJ-AM Oakland, NJ

dmargalotti said:
According to today's All Access, WVNJ 1160 AM licensed to Oakland, NJ is being sold to Catholic broadcaster Immaculate Heart Media. It's a move that is long overdue. As a stand alone AM station, it's leased-time talk programming has not been financially viable or sustainable for a number of years.


https://www.allaccess.com/net-news/archive/story/179917/immaculate-heart-media-buys-wvnj-oakland-nj
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I thought WVNJ was in Vineland, NJ...that was what the "V" stood for, no?
 
dmargalotti said:
According to today's All Access, WVNJ 1160 AM licensed to Oakland, NJ is being sold to Catholic broadcaster Immaculate Heart Media. It's a move that is long overdue.

As a stand alone AM station, it's leased-time talk programming has not been financially viable or sustainable for a number of years.
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Looking at the current schedule, it looks like it was down to bare-bones.....

http://www.wvnj.com/

Just say the rpice tage: $750,000. Seems overpriced, no?
 
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I'm good pals with the fellow who was the chief engineer of the station, some time back in the 90's.

He said that the owners of the station -- then a Standards format -- wanted to get 50,000 watts somehow sent through Manhattan, specifically Columbus Circle. That would be for marketing and imaging purposes. The best 'Hawk' could do with the four-tower setup was 25,000 watts. There was at least one coastal NJ station on 1160, with which there had been much in the way of negotiation. Four towers gave him some elbow room, as opposed to the strictly symmetric Rorschach coverage patterns of 3-tower stations. But really, he could only steer it so far southeast. And 50,000 watts was out of the question.

Meanwhile, WVNJ BLASTED mostly east. They would show up very respectably in the then-Westchester NY book, and would roar down Long Island sound as a solid signal into Orient Point LI.

* * * * *

Out here in NE PA I heard them once at night, pretty well. That was kind of queer because they have a west null to protect -- I'm guessing -- Chicago and Salt Lake City. And WVNJ at the time was coming in over WYNS Lehighton PA, which is in between both me and WVNJ.
 
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Steve, the only time you would have heard them in NE PA was if for some reason they needed to run 10,000 watts non-directional which they had to do every once in a while for maintenance, repair, calibration, and testing. Otherwise as you said the signal was severely limited to the south and west to protect the contour of 1160 WOBM at the NJ shore. WVNJ did put a great signal as you pointed out into Westchester, Fairfield County, CT, and the northern half of Long Island all the way out through Nassau and Suffolk counties. The problem was without being able to cover all 5 boroughs of NYC it made it a very tough sell. The signal was good in the Bronx, some parts of northern Queens, and could be heard in northern Manhattan as well as the west side of Manhattan but you could not pick it up in mid-town, the east side, lower Manhattan, any of Brooklyn, or any of Staten Island.

Had the station committed to super-serving their home base in Bergen County which had a population above 900,000 they probably would have been better off. But instead they wanted to compete as an NYC station and they were completely handicapped by their signal coverage. And don't forget, they pretty much disappeared at night as they were only authorized to operate at 2,500 watts.
 
dmargalotti said:
Had the station committed to super-serving their home base in Bergen County which had a population above 900,000 they probably would have been better off. But instead they wanted to compete as an NYC station and they were completely handicapped by their signal coverage.
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Philosophically I agree that was the intent the FCC had in licensing a lot of these drop in stations, to super serve their COL. But what do you do when the people who live there don't care about their COL? Everyone knows Bergen County is a bedroom community for NYC, and that's where their interests lie. Broadcasting local high school football games or doing remotes at the car dealers don't matter as much to this audience as it would in a more isolated county in Nebraska. It's really a problem for all the AMs that surround NYC.
 
>> ' .... a bedroom community for NYC, .... ' <<

True as the Sunrise Highway, Big A, :)

In the 70's, and in fact as far back as the late 60's, new shoe-horn* AM stations piled onto the metro NYC feast, like hawks and raccoons would to a leftover Thanksgiving turkey carcass on the road. You and I could probably name a dozen of these stations -- each.
Yet, only two bedroom-cot area stations I can think of ever made it into the actual NYC ratings : WHLI Hempstead LI and WHUD from the aforementioned Westchester County NY.
And I may be wrong, but to my knowledge, the beautiful and proximate Rockland County NY never had one of its stations show up in the NYC book.
WKER 1500 Pompton Lakes is the last rimshot suburban station to exist swell as a music format in it's immediate COL range. But they're gone now.


* 'Drop in stations' is a cool phrase. Can I use it one of these days?
 
On the other hand, NJ101.5 has done what the poster suggested, and is super-serving the state. They make a point to say "Not New York, Not Philadelphia. Proud to serve New Jersey." And they do. A lot of it has to do with the fact that it's on FM, with a signal that covers the most populated areas from Paterson to Vineland. Had WVNJ somehow added an FM translator (sorry, none are available) it might have had an impact. But the fact that it's on AM with a directional signal hurts it tremendously, regardless of format.
 
FM translator? Why would anyone want to listen to that with a dial full of well programmed NYC stations?
 
If that $750k included real estate, then no, I think a station that at least has the potential to reach NYC is a bargain at that price especially when one considers the price of real property in that part of NJ.
 
luperm said:
FM translator? Why would anyone want to listen to that with a dial full of well programmed NYC stations?
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In this case, it'll be niche programming. Those wanting Catholic radio, something not exactly available up and down the dial will tune in. It won't be a huge audience, but the purchaser has another mission in mind.
 
Now, I'm certainly not the most devout Catholic extant. Maybe not even on the block. I go to the wife's Lutheran church more often (same worship and ceremony to me, except one doesn't have a Pope :)

But I'm in no immediate danger of becoming a heathen or a pagan, either. So my question is why anyone in 2018 would tune in some regional-signalled AM station to 'hear' Catholicism -- or any other religion. As Umfan suggests: such an audience can't be very big.

Televison? Bishop Sheen? I can see that -- 50 years ago. But *radio* ? AM radio? Come on, now.

(I will say three Hail Marys for posting this)
 
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Steve Green NEPA said:
So my question is why anyone in 2018 would tune in some regional-signalled AM station to 'hear' Catholicism -- or any other religion.
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That's the wrong question. People in missionary work don't think in those terms. They think in terms of spreading the word. It doesn't matter who listens, as long as the message gets out.
 
>> '... as long as the message gets out ...' <<
Point taken, Big A.

My inquiry is, 'To whom -- what genre -- will the message be important?'

WVNJ is changing its format. That shift in itself means almost a thorough change in audience. The clearing away of one group of listeners to create room for an entirely new congregation is a big step for any format.

No doubt, the new format will be there to 'clear', understandably, the syndicated format in the NYC metro. I feel that is the only aim, and the only result.
 
umfan said:
In this case, it'll be niche programming. Those wanting Catholic radio, something not exactly available up and down the dial will tune in. It won't be a huge audience, but the purchaser has another mission in mind.
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It's a really limited audience, and amounts to preaching to the choir.

Many years ago, I had a lengthy conversation with Cardinal Landázuri Ricketts of Perú in regards to an AM/FM that the Church had acquired. Their intention was to make the FM commercial to sustain the evangelistic format on the AM.

I suggested that the goal should instead be to use the AM to bring the strays back into the flock... a commercial like format but no paid advertising. Instead, very brief messages, thoughts and bible verses in between the songs. Even testimonials of those who had a better life by being active in their church.

The format worked well, and the Cardinal was most pleased, even flying to Miami to take me to dinner on his way to Rome.

The conclusion is that religious stations that cast a net that only covers those they already have are wasting money, while looking for those who need to be invited back is the real opportunity. The Cardinal apparently brought this strategy up with other church leaders, but found that they all wanted to have mass for shut-ins and similar content for the deeply devout rather than using radio as a missionary effort.

While this occurred over 30 years ago, the idea of using radio for outreach by the Catholic Church has still not become popular or accepted. Even in Perú, the Archbishop who took over the stations after the Cardinal's death simply decided to sell them.
 
There was an FM in Springfield, MA (WJMJ if memory serves) that had a 'golden oldies' show (50's - 60's) and in between sets interspersed their religious message. I liked the oldies but the 7-8 minute religious 'breaks' caused me to push the button to another station. Never used the word 'God'. Used something else instead. Don't know if they are still doing it, but it sounds like a try at what David proposed.
 
K6JHU said:
There was an FM in Springfield, MA (WJMJ if memory serves) that had a 'golden oldies' show (50's - 60's) and in between sets interspersed their religious message. I liked the oldies but the 7-8 minute religious 'breaks' caused me to push the button to another station. Never used the word 'God'. Used something else instead. Don't know if they are still doing it, but it sounds like a try at what David proposed.
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WJMJ is in West Hartford, Conn. It's affiliated with the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Hartford. Not sure if the oldies show is still around, but the regular daytime format on weekdays is pop and AC oldies, a few standards, and soft-sell Catholicism. The breaks run 2 or 3 minutes and are more general advice about being kind, environmentally aware, etc. than hard-sell Catholic dogma. No fire and brimstone, for sure, and I've never heard a word said about the three hot-button church issues: abortion, female clergy and pedophile priests.
 
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