It had operated as a Class B AM radio station. As of Monday morning, it was reduced to an online-only offering featuring Christmas music. That’s because this facility, owned and operated in recent years by John “Duke” Hamann, no longer has a broadcast signal.
The FCC affirmed the cancellation of this station’s license, for being dark for too long without permission and then seeking its renewal.
It marks the formal end of WNJC-AM 1360 in Washington Township, N.J., a facility that has been dark for two years.
Problems began for licensee Forsythe Broadcasting in early 2024, following the May 27, 2022, filing of an application to renew WNJC’s license. On March 26, 2024, an Operational Status Inquiry Letter notified Forsythe that WNJC’s license may have expired, on the grounds that WNJC had been off the air for more than 12 months.
The Commission’s rules allow the reinstatement of a station license in order “to promote equity and fairness,” however Forsythe never submitted a Special Temporary Authority request to go silent. Rather, the FCC’s Media Bureau learned about WNJC’s lack of operation through postings on the internet.
In a May 2024 response to the Media Bureau inquiry, Forsythe admitted that WNJC had been non-operational since March 2023. And, it requested a reinstatement despite the 14 months of silence. Why? Forsythe cited the expiration of its lease agreement for its transmitter site, its inability to secure an alternate site, and “disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.”
Forsythe also cited various unrelated Commission proceedings in support of its request.
None of these arguments swayed the Media Bureau, and that led to an Application for Review seeking full Commission review of the bureau ruling. That has now been denied.
It marks the sad end of a station boasting the motto “The Power of Communication” that in 2017 was “rescued” from “potential obscurity” by Hamann, and business partners Antonio Muñiz and Javier Machorro. By 2023, Muñiz and Machorro had moved on. WNJC lost its tower lease.
WNJC signed on the air as WWBZ-AM in 1946 and went dark in 1989, ending its service to Vineland, N.J. A studio move to Washington Township, closer to Philadelphia, was then made; the tower remained focused on Southern New Jersey.
