NYC Radio: WWRL Switches To Spanish Wednesday

Another piece of New York’s black radio heritage disappears Wednesday when WWRL 1600 AM switches to a Spanish-language format.

According to media writer David Hinckley at the NY Daily News, the change is mostly historic, since WWRL has not been a “black” station in years. Its most recent format was progressive talk, and morning host Mark Riley was the only major daily link to the station’s “black radio” days.

Still, coming soon after the demise of WRKS 98.7 FM, it underscores the constriction of what was once a more robust tradition of black radio in New York City.

The heyday of WWRL as a black station ran from 1964, when Egmont Sonderling bought the station and switched it to a black music format, to 1982, when new owners switched it to gospel.

During those years, The Soul Brothers on “The Big ’RL” created a cutting-edge spot for R&B music and a community meeting place.

The DJs were a critical part of that success. Besides PD Bobby Jay, the lineup included Enoch Gregory, Gary Byrd, Jeff Troy, Hank Spann and Jerry Bledsoe, and most of the jocks stayed there 10-15 years, remarkable stability for radio.


What ended the ’RL era, says Jay, was the collapse of a plan to transfer the format to FM.

“That was in the late ’70s, when the audience was moving to FM,” he says. “The owners bought an FM, WRVR, that played jazz. The plan was to move jazz to 1600 and the ’RL format to FM.

“If that had happened, we would have given ’BLS a run for its money. But it never did.”



After gospel, WWRL tried classic soul, only to have a big FM suddenly do the same thing. For the last decade, it has tried different talk formats, before finally deciding to go Spanish.

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