WCHR (1040 AM) is a

religious Religion is usually defined as a social- cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatural, ...

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 radi ...

Flemington, New Jersey Flemington is a borough in and the county seat of Hunterdon County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey.Trenton, New Jersey Trenton is the capital city, capital city (New Jersey), city of the U.S. state of New Jersey and the county seat of Mercer County, New Jersey, Mercer County. It was the capital of the United States from November 1 to December 24, 1784.

which is owned and operated by

Townsquare Media Townsquare Media, Inc. (formerly Regent Communications until 2010) is an American radio network and media company based in Purchase, New York. The company started in radio and expanded into digital media toward the end of the 2000s, starting wit ...

History

Originally the station operated as WJHR ("Jersey Hometown Radio") with an adult contemporary format. It briefly broadcast a talk format called "Chat Radio" and had short stints as a business talk station and an

ESPN Radio ESPN Radio, which is alternately platform-agnostically branded as ESPN Audio, is an American sports radio network and extension of the ESPN television network. It was launched on January 1, 1992, under the original banner of "SportsRadio ESPN" ...

affiliate before adopting the call letters and religious format of WCHR, which had been operating on 920 AM in Trenton, in 2002. On January 3, 2008,

Nassau Broadcasting Partners Nassau Broadcasting Partners LP was a company based in Princeton, New Jersey that owned radio stations in New England and the Mid-Atlantic United States. Nassau's stations, which included both AM and FM frequencies, were located in Maryland, New J ...

announced that 1040 would drop the religious format and switch to a full-time simulcast of New York City's WEPN. Nassau moved the religious programming and the WCHR call sign back to 920, which had been broadcasting as a Philadelphia-oriented ESPN Radio affiliate under the call letters WPHY. On February 5, 2008, the station took the WNJE call sign. On May 21, 2012, WNJE ended the simulcast of WEPN and joined

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, Amer ...

; this came in advance of WEPN's own switch to ESPN Deportes Radio in September, after ESPN Radio took over the operations of

WEPN-FM WEPN-FM (98.7 MHz) branded as ''ESPN New York'', is an all-sports radio station licensed to New York City. The station is owned by Emmis Communications and its operations are controlled by Good Karma Brands, under a local marketing agreeme ...

in April. WNJE, along with nine other Nassau stations in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, was purchased at bankruptcy auction by NB Broadcasting in May 2012. NB Broadcasting is controlled by Nassau's creditors — Goldman Sachs, Pluss Enterprises, and P.E. Capital. In November, NB Broadcasting filed a motion to assign its rights to the stations to

Connoisseur Media Connoisseur Media LLC is an American media company. It is based in Westport, Connecticut and led by Jeff Warshaw. Connoisseur operates radio stations and digital assets in markets across the U.S. cities of Billings, Fredrick, Maryland; Bay Shore, H ...

. On December 3, 2012 WNJE dropped ESPN Deportes Radio and began simulcasting the religious format of sister station WCHR 920. The sale to Connoisseur Media, at a price of $38.7 million, was consummated on May 29, 2013. On November 13, 2013, the simulcast of the religious format ended, and the Christian programming was subsequently heard only on 1040 as 920 adopted a secular talk format. The WCHR call sign was once again moved to 1040, and 920 became WNJE. Effective July 2, 2018, WCHR and sister stations WNJE and WPST were sold to Townsquare Media for $17.3 million.

References

External links

Flemington, New Jersey CHR Townsquare Media radio stations {{NewJersey-radio-station-stub