WHWH

WHWH

City	Princeton, New Jersey
Broadcast area	Trenton, New Jersey
Branding	La Unika
Slogan	"La Unika, Unicamente Tuya!"
Frequency	1350 AM kHz
First air date	September 7, 1963 (1963-09-07)
Format	Spanish Christian music
Power	5,000 watts (unlimited)
Callsign meaning	founder Herbert W. Hobler
Owner	Multicultural Broadcasting (Multicultural Radio Broadcasting Licensee, LLC)
Website	http://www.radiowttm1680.com/

WHWH is a radio station in Princeton, New Jersey, serving Trenton, New Jersey. Established in 1963, the station is owned and operated by Multicultural Radio Broadcasting Licensee, LLC.

History

WHWH signed on September 7, 1963. The call letters stand for founder Herbert W. Hobler, a Princeton resident and Princeton University graduate.

One of the first air personalities who gave the station a high profile in its early days was Dave Moss, who moved from WKDN in Camden to become not only the station's first General Manager, but the play-by-play voice of Princeton University sports. Station owner Hobler served as on air analyst with Moss. All-American Bill Bradley led the 1964–65 Princeton Tigers men's basketball team and Tigers football back Cosmo Iacavazzi starred for the university. The games were live on WHWH .

In the mid 1960s, the station grew. It provided extensive community programming from 6.a.m. to midnight. Program Director Bob Alexander led a staff of announcers that included Betty Gates, Bob Lawrence, Lou Mitchell, Joe LeRoy, and Stu Ryder. The music was Middle Of The Road. Weekends included Sunday Show Tune Shop, Saturday Night Hootenanny, and your Dance Party (big band).

Weekday mornings, local news was reported by Larry Grauman and John Davison. Each evening, Ed Ray covered the meetings of town councils, school boards, and zoning boards. News Director Dick Standish aired news during the day, covered politics and the statehouse. He produced an hour-long documentary on the New Jersey Pine Barrens and the people who live there. This show won the New Jersey Broadcasters Association’s 1965 award for Imaginative and Effective Public Service programming. This was the first of a string of salutes earned by station staffers. The extensive hometown coverage continued under News Director Gene Dillard. University sports leaders --- including football coach Jake McCandless --- wrote and aired an 8:05 a.m. sports summary. A local church service was broadcast live each Sunday morning. The YMCA had a regular weekly show. Boy Scout activities were reported every Saturday morning. Local businesses reached potential customers with commercials. Major speeches in the community and at the university were taped or carried live. The station was live from the state fair, and many other special events. This pattern of extensive local involvement continued in the 1970s.

Others of note on WHWH for many years were Guy Hutchinson, Chris Canali, Betty Gates, Stu Ryder and News Directors Bill Schirmann and Phil Painter. Other notables from WHWH included NBC television news reporter Judy Muller who "honed her skills" there in the '70s. On-air personality Howard David left the station to find success at ESPN and the comedic Bill Bircher took over mornings for many years. Wayne Cabot joined the staff in 1982 on his way to WCBS in New York. Jack Speer also worked at the station in 1987, before moving on to Washington to eventually become the hourly newscaster for All Things Considered on NPR.

The station had its own promotional staff directed by Hal Stein and during the 1970s and into the 1980s, the station won many national radio advertising awards because of their production and copy chiefs, respectively John Anastasio and Jack Shuster. While the only station at the time with its own production and marketing department Anastasio and Shuster were incredibly talented, securing RAB and CLEO awards, and coaching other young writer and voice talents such as E.B. Moss, who joined the station some 10 years after her father, Dave, had moved on to WFAS then WKTU in New York. Owner Herb Hobler hired Johnny Morris as sales manager who then rose to head up the successful station. (Morris left the company after over 20 years in the late 1990s, acquiring WIMG in Trenton.)

Like many other mass-appeal AM stations, WHWH eventually found it difficult to compete with FM. In the 1990s and 2000s the station tried adult standards and business news formats with little success. WHWH went off the air on Friday, April 7, 2006 at midnight, as the result of an FCC rule tied to AM expanded-band allocations. However, WHWH was allowed to return to the air in May 2007 after its expanded-band spinoff, WTTM, was moved from Princeton into the Philadelphia market.

For an extended period after its revival, WHWH operated noncommercially except for some brokered local sports programming. Most of its hours were devoted to "Radio T.E.D.", an automated blend of country, oldies, smooth jazz, standards and Christmas music devised by the station's chief engineer, Neal Newman. During the first half of 2010 WHWH simulcast Levittown, Pennsylvania station WBCB. In 2011 WHWH began a Spanish Christian music format called "La Unika", and in March 2012 resumed broadcasting in C-Quam AM Stereo.

External links

• Official website
• Query the FCC's AM station database for WHWH
• Radio-Locator Information on WHWH
• Query Nielsen Audio's AM station database for WHWH