WNVU (FM)

WNVU (93.5 FM) is a radio station licensed to New Rochelle, New York and serving the New York metropolitan area. WNVU is owned by Houston, Texas-based Hope Media Group and broadcasts a Spanish language Christian music format known as Vida Unida. WNVU's transmitter is located in the Bronx, New York, on the campus of Montefiore Medical Center.

This article is about the radio station in New Rochelle, New York, on 93.5 FM. For the radio station in Charles City, Virginia on FM 89.7 that previously used the WNVU call sign, see WRIQ.
"WVIP" redirects here. For other uses, see WVIP (disambiguation).
WNVU
Broadcast areaNew York City
Frequency93.5 MHz (HD Radio)
BrandingVida Unida
Programming
Language(s)Spanish
FormatChristian music
Ownership
OwnerHope Media Group[1]
History
First air date
September 13, 1948 (1948-09-13) (75 years ago)[2]
Former call signs
  • WGNR-FM (1948–1953)
  • WNRC-FM (1953–1958)
  • WWES-FM (1958–1959)
  • WVOX-FM (1959–1977)
  • WRTN (1977–2006)
  • WVIP-FM (2006)
  • WVIP (2006–2023)
Technical information[3]
Licensing authority
FCC
Facility ID28023
ClassA
ERP1,750 watts
HAAT132 meters (433 ft)
Transmitter coordinates
40°52′48″N 73°52′39″W
Links
Public license information
WebcastListen Live
Websitevidaunida.com

History

For much of its history, the 93.5 FM facility in New Rochelle was operated as an adjunct to 1460 AM (currently WVOX). 93.5 signed-on in September 1948 as WGNR-FM, under original owner New Rochelle Broadcasting Service, Inc.[2], followed two years later by the launch of WGNR (AM).

New Rochelle Broadcasting Service, however, went bankrupt in 1952, signing the station off on August 1; after the appointment of a receiver, Radio New Rochelle, Inc., owned by the Iodice Family, acquired the stations and changed 93.5 FM's call letters to WNRC-FM.[4][5] WNRC returned to the air in October 1953; it retained those call letters through a transfer of control to the Daniels family in 1955.[4]

WNRC-FM became WWES-FM on December 10, 1958, as both stations was sold to Radio Westchester for $225,000. The Radio Westchester sale made it a sister to the original WVIP (1310 AM, now WRVP) in Mount Kisco, serving lower Westchester County.[6] On February 26, 1959, the station would adopt the WVOX-FM callsign.

WVOX-AM-FM joined a growing radio operation owned by the New York Herald-Tribune newspaper. By 1962, after John Hay Whitney bought the Herald-Tribune the year before, the paper's radio division included WVOX-AM-FM, WVIP, WGHQ at Kingston and WFYI (now WJDM) in Mineola.[7] With the Herald-Tribune closed, Whitney Communications sold WVOX-AM-FM and WGHQ-AM-FM in 1968 to Hudson-Westchester Radio in an $800,000 acquisition.[8] Hudson-Westchester was led by William O'Shaughnessy, a former account executive with the Herald-Tribune Radio Network who had been WVOX's general manager since 1965.[9]

Under O'Shaughnessy's ownership, the WVOX stations became a community-oriented talk outlet, and in 1973 moved into modern facilities in New Rochelle, known as One Broadcast Forum.[10][11] WVOX-FM would begin operating independently of WVOX (AM) around 1977, changing its calls to WRTN. 93.5 FM would undergo several musical format changes over the next 30 years; by the mid-2000s the station, which changed its calls to WVIP in 2006 (flip-flopping with WRTN for a two-month period between August and October 2006) had settled on a brokered format primarily consisting of music and informational programming for the local Afro-Caribbean community.

Sale to Hope Media Group

On July 3, 2023, over a year after the death of Whitney Global Media (parent of Hudson-Westchester Radio) owner William O'Shaughnessy, his estate announced that WVIP would be sold to Houston-based Hope Media Group (formerly known as WAY-FM), a nonprofit Christian radio broadcaster. Hope Media later announced that it would install its Spanish-language music format Vida Unida on the station upon its takeover.[12] The sale announcement was met with both shock and disappointment amongst WVIP's programmers and audience.[13] Two months later it was announced that WVOX would be divested in a donation/sale,[14] ending the O'Shaughnessy family's involvement in radio after nearly six decades.

The sale of 93.5 FM was approved by the Federal Communications Commission in mid-August 2023. Hope Media began operating the station on September 1, 2023 with the new format, and a call letter change to WNVU.

References
  1. says, Maria Santiago (June 30, 2023). "Hope Media Group Acquires WVIP In New York's Suburbs - RadioInsight".
  2. Gross, Ben (September 6, 1948). "Looking & Listening". New York Daily News. p. 40. Retrieved November 20, 2019.
  3. "Facility Technical Data for WNVU". Licensing and Management System. Federal Communications Commission.
  4. FCC History Cards for WVOX
  5. "Call Letters Assigned" (PDF). Broadcasting. August 24, 1953. p. 102. Retrieved November 20, 2019.
  6. "At Deadline" (PDF). Broadcasting. October 13, 1958. p. 9. Retrieved November 20, 2019.
  7. "The 'Trib' uses tv to reverse a trend" (PDF). Broadcasting. May 14, 1962. pp. 30, 32. Retrieved November 20, 2019.
  8. "Changing Hands" (PDF). Broadcasting. May 6, 1968. pp. 62–63. Retrieved November 20, 2019.
  9. "Ex-Valleyite To Buy 4 Radio Stations". Star-Gazette. October 24, 1967. p. 13. Retrieved November 20, 2019.
  10. "WVOX building new home". The Standard-Star. New Rochelle, NY. April 9, 1973. p. 13. Retrieved August 30, 2023 – via Newspapers.com.
  11. Adams, Val (October 14, 1973). "Radio Roundup". New York Daily News. p. 19. Retrieved November 20, 2019.
  12. "Hope Media Group Buys William O'Shaughnessy's WVIP New Rochelle, NY". Insideradio.com. July 5, 2023.
  13. "Shock as NY radio station WVIP 93.5 FM is sold". jamaica-gleaner.com. July 4, 2023.
  14. Jacobson, Adam (August 26, 2023). "Following O'Shaughnessy's Death, WVOX Is Donated | Radio & Television Business Report".


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