commercial radio
Commercial broadcasting (also called private broadcasting) is the broadcasting of television programs and radio programming by privately owned corporate media, as opposed to state sponsorship, for example. It was the United States' first model ...
New York metropolitan area
The New York metropolitan area, also called the Tri-State area and sometimes referred to as Greater New York, is the List of cities by GDP, largest metropolitan economy in the world, with a List of U.S. metropolitan areas by GDP, gross metropo ...
Paterson, New Jersey
Paterson ( ) is the largest City (New Jersey), city in and the county seat of Passaic County, New Jersey, Passaic County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey.Spanish Broadcasting System. The studios are on East 26th Street in
Midtown Manhattan
Midtown Manhattan is the central portion of the New York City borough of Manhattan, serving as the city's primary central business district. Midtown is home to some of the city's most prominent buildings, including the Empire State Building, the ...
.
WPAT-FM's
transmitter
In electronics and telecommunications, a radio transmitter or just transmitter (often abbreviated as XMTR or TX in technical documents) is an electronic device which produces radio waves with an antenna (radio), antenna with the purpose of sig ...
is atop the
Empire State Building
The Empire State Building is a 102-story, Art Deco-style supertall skyscraper in the Midtown South neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, United States. The building was designed by Shreve, Lamb & Harmon and built from 1930 to 1931. Its n ...
and it broadcasts using
HD Radio
HD Radio (HDR) is a trademark for in-band on-channel (IBOC) digital radio broadcast technology. HD radio generally simulcast, simulcasts an existing analog radio station in digital format with less noise and with additional text information. HD R ...
technology. Its HD2
subchannel
In broadcasting, digital subchannels are a method of transmitting more than one independent program stream simultaneously from the same digital radio or television station on the same radio frequency channel. This is done by using data compressi ...
carries "Visión Latina," a Spanish-language
Christian radio
Christian radio refers to Christian media radio formats that focus on Christian religious broadcasting or various forms of Christian music. Many such formats and programs include contemporary Christian music, gospel music, sermons, radio dramas, ...
sister station
In broadcasting, sister stations or sister channels are radio or television stations operated by the same company, either by direct ownership or through a management agreement.
Radio sister stations will often have different formats, and somet ...
Newark, New Jersey
Newark ( , ) is the List of municipalities in New Jersey, most populous City (New Jersey), city in the U.S. state of New Jersey, the county seat of Essex County, New Jersey, Essex County, and a principal city of the New York metropolitan area. ...
. Its frequency of 93.1 MHz had previously been assigned to
Edwin Howard Armstrong
Edwin Howard Armstrong (December 18, 1890 – February 1, 1954) was an American electrical engineer and inventor who developed FM (frequency modulation) radio and the superheterodyne receiver system.
He held 42 patents and received numerous awa ...
's pioneering FM station based in
Alpine, New Jersey
Alpine is a Borough (New Jersey), borough in Bergen County, New Jersey, Bergen County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey, approximately north of Midtown Manhattan. It is the List of extreme points of U.S. states, easternmost town in New Jersey.
...
,
KE2XCC
KE2XCC, first authorized in 1945 with the call sign W2XEA, was an experimental FM radio station located in Alpine, New Jersey and operated by inventor Edwin Howard Armstrong. It was located at the same site as Armstrong's original FM station, W2 ...
. That station went off the air in 1954 with Major Armstrong's death. This was the second station to hold the WPAT-FM
call sign
In broadcasting and radio communications, a call sign (also known as a call name or call letters—and historically as a call signal—or abbreviated as a call) is a unique identifier for a transmitter station. A call sign can be formally as ...
. An earlier WPAT-FM, originally called WNNJ, had operated on 103.5 MHz from 1949 until its deletion in early 1951.
WPAT-AM-FM had a beautiful music format for nearly four decades. The stations aired quarter-hour sweeps of instrumental music, mostly
cover version
In popular music, a cover version, cover song, remake, revival, or simply cover is a new performance or recording by a musician other than the original performer or composer of the song. Originally, it referred to a version of a song release ...
Hollywood
Hollywood usually refers to:
* Hollywood, Los Angeles, a neighborhood in California
* Hollywood, a metonym for the cinema of the United States
Hollywood may also refer to:
Places United States
* Hollywood District (disambiguation)
* Hollywood ...
show tune
A show tune is a song originally written as part of the score of a work of musical theatre or musical film, especially if the piece in question has become a standard, more or less detached in most people's minds from the original context.
Th ...
s. Over time, some vocal songs were added. The station was playing four vocals per quarter-hour by the late 1970's. To help the station sound more contemporary, by the 1980s, more soft rock vocals were mixed in. By 1992, vocals made up half of the
playlist
A playlist is a list of video or audio files that can be played back on a media player, either sequentially or in a shuffled order. In its most general form, an audio playlist is simply a list of songs that can be played once or in a loop. ...
. Beginning in January 1993, WPAT-FM had made the transition to
soft adult contemporary
Adult contemporary music (AC) is a form of radio-played popular music, ranging from 1960s vocal and 1970s soft rock music to predominantly ballad-heavy music of the 1980s to the present day, with varying degrees of easy listening, pop, soul ...
After being based in Newark, WPAT-AM-FM moved to studios on Church Street in Paterson. The stations later relocated to studios at the four-
tower
A tower is a tall Nonbuilding structure, structure, taller than it is wide, often by a significant factor. Towers are distinguished from guyed mast, masts by their lack of guy-wires and are therefore, along with tall buildings, self-supporting ...
transmitter site of the AM station, at 1396 Broad Street in
Clifton, New Jersey
Clifton is a city in Passaic County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. Criss-crossed by several major highways, the city is a regional commercial hub for North Jersey and is a bedroom suburb of New York City in the New York Metropolitan Area.L ...
. WPAT-AM-FM were purchased by
Capital Cities Communications
Capital Cities/ABC Inc. was an American media company. It was founded in 1985 when Capital Cities Communications purchased the much larger American Broadcasting Companies, Inc. It was eventually acquired by The Walt Disney Company and re-branded i ...
in 1961.
In 1985, Capital Cities announced that it would buy the ABC Network, including its television and radio stations. As a result of
Federal Communications Commission
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, internet, wi-fi, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains j ...
regulations at the time, the company decided to sell WPAT-AM-FM because ABC already owned 770 WABC and 95.5 WPLJ in New York City. (A broadcasting company could only own one AM and one FM station in each market.) The WPAT stations were sold to Park Communications, owned by Roy H. Park.
Switch to Spanish-language programming
In October 1995, Park Communications announced the sale of WPAT FM to Spanish Broadcasting System, owners of WSKQ. The sale included the license and transmitter, and excluded real estate, sales contracts employment contracts, internal equipment, and leases. The building was sold with AM 930 WPAT. On January 19, 1996, at 11:59 pm, WPAT-FM ceased being an English-language station when control was switched over to current owners Spanish Broadcasting System. WPAT-FM DJ Karen Carson did the last air shift for the station's adult contemporary format that day. Operations Director Ken Mackenzie gave a farewell speech right before the station ended its broadcast.
Immediately after the station signed off from Clifton, a new Spanish-language
adult contemporary
Adult contemporary music (AC) is a form of radio-played popular music, ranging from 1960s vocal and 1970s soft rock music to predominantly ballad-heavy music of the 1980s to the present day, with varying degrees of easy listening, pop, soul ...
format signed on from SBS studios in
Manhattan
Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...
. The branding became "Suave 93.1" ("Smooth 93.1"). Eventually, on February 4, 1998, the station's branding was changed to "Amor 93.1" ("Love 93.1") and in January 2002, returned to "93.1 Amor" ("93.1 Love"). Over time, the station transitioned from Spanish AC to Spanish tropical music.