radio station
Radio broadcasting is transmission of audio (sound), sometimes with related metadata, by radio waves to radio receivers belonging to a public audience. In terrestrial radio broadcasting the radio waves are broadcast by a land-based radio ...
Spanish-language
Spanish ( or , Castilian) is a Romance language of the Indo-European language family that evolved from colloquial Latin spoken on the Iberian peninsula. Today, it is a global language with more than 500 million native speakers, mainly in the Am ...
Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Since ...
and its transmitter site in
Cherry Hill, New Jersey
Cherry Hill is a township within Camden County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2020 U.S. census, the township had a population of 74,553, which reflected an increase of 3,508 (+4.94%) from the 71,045 counted in the 2010 census.< ...
. The station is owned by Multicultural Radio Broadcasting, Inc and licensed to Multicultural Radio Broadcasting Licensee, LLC.
History
WTTM originated as the expanded band "twin" of an existing station on the standard AM band.
On March 17, 1997 the
Federal Communications Commission
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains jurisdicti ...
(FCC) announced that 88 stations had been given permission to move to newly available " Expanded Band" transmitting frequencies, ranging from 1610 to 1700 kHz, with WHWH in Princeton, New Jersey authorized to move from 1350 to 1680 kHz."FCC Public Notice: Mass Media Bureau Announces Revised AM Expanded Band Allotment Plan and Filing Window for Eligible Stations" (FCC DA 97-537), March 17, 1997. A construction permit for the expanded band station was assigned the call letters WAXK on March 6, 1998, although the call sign was changed to WTTM twenty days later, adopting call letters that had just been removed from its longtime home on 920 AM in
Trenton, New Jersey
Trenton is the capital city of the U.S. state of New Jersey and the county seat of Mercer County. It was the capital of the United States from November 1 to December 24, 1784. As a result WHWH went off the air on Friday, April 7, 2006 at midnight. However, WHWH was allowed to return to the air in May 2007 after the FCC relaxed the rule, and both stations have remained authorized. One restriction is that the FCC has generally required paired original and expanded band stations to remain under common ownership.
The new WTTM reached the air in 1999 with a
sports
Sport pertains to any form of competitive physical activity or game that aims to use, maintain, or improve physical ability and skills while providing enjoyment to participants and, in some cases, entertainment to spectators. Sports can, ...
format, mostly broadcasting programming from ESPN Radio. In 2002 the station was sold from Nassau Broadcasting to Multicultural Radio Broadcasting Inc. MRBI leased the station to EBC Radio to program the station with a South Asian Indian format. The lease arrangement ended in 2005 and shortly thereafter the station's city of license was relocated from Princeton to Lindenwold, moving it into the Philadelphia radio market.
WTTM began carrying
ESPN Deportes Radio
ESPN Deportes Radio was an American Spanish language sports radio network created and produced by Disney-owned ESPN. Programming included call-in talk shows and commentary from hosts about a full range of sporting events, including soccer, Ameri ...
during the nighttime hours on April 1, 2019; the network's programming was provided to the station by Spanish Sports Productions, who also produces WTTM's Spanish-language
Philadelphia Phillies
The Philadelphia Phillies are an American professional baseball team based in Philadelphia. They compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member of the National League (NL) National League East, East division. Since 2004, the team's home sta ...
and
Eagles
Eagle is the common name for many large birds of prey of the family Accipitridae. Eagles belong to several groups of genera, some of which are closely related. Most of the 68 species of eagle are from Eurasia and Africa. Outside this area, jus ...
broadcasts. The launch came two months before
ESPN
ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). The ...
announced on June 11, 2019 that ESPN Deportes Radio would cease operations on September 8. After ESPN Deportes Radio was discontinued on September 8, 2019, the station became an affiliate of TUDN Radio.TUDN Picks Up Some Former ESPN Deportes Radio Affiliates , ''Radio & Television Business Report''. September 9, 2019. Retrieved September 9, 2019.