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Northwest Jersey WMTR 1250

LenoxAve said:
The station used to sound polished and had just the right mix of hits and some occasional nuggets. After Mark Mitchell passed,
Click to expand...

More than that, revenues have plummeted and the company is teetering on the edge of bankruptcy.

www.insideradio.com

Beasley Broadcast Group Cuts Costs, Grows Digital Despite Revenue Decline.

Beasley Broadcast Group closed out 2025 with sharply lower fourth-quarter revenue and a sizable impairment charge tied to FCC licenses, driving a steep net loss. Still, the company pointed to
www.insideradio.com www.insideradio.com

You can't pay staff with no money.
 
TheBigA said:
More than that, revenues have plummeted and the company is teetering on the edge of bankruptcy.

www.insideradio.com

Beasley Broadcast Group Cuts Costs, Grows Digital Despite Revenue Decline.

Beasley Broadcast Group closed out 2025 with sharply lower fourth-quarter revenue and a sizable impairment charge tied to FCC licenses, driving a steep net loss. Still, the company pointed to
www.insideradio.com www.insideradio.com

You can't pay staff with no money.
Click to expand...
I agree. And an AM oldies station isn’t going to be the game changer, but even as a jukebox, it sounds all over the place.

Seems like the budget cuts are impacting other stations as well. I’ve seen WMGQ’s ratings slide over the past few months. For a while, they were almost always in the top 5. Their Holiday book was horrible. You have to wonder if the cost cutting has also affected what was always a consistent performer.
 
LenoxAve said:
You have to wonder if the cost cutting has also affected what was always a consistent performer.
Click to expand...

The big city competition seems to be too much for the smaller local stations to handle.

The drop in ad money came before the cost cutting.

The only station that seems to be surviving is Townsquare's NJ 101.5
 
TheBigA said:
The big city competition seems to be too much for the smaller local stations to handle.

The drop in ad money came before the cost cutting.

The only station that seems to be surviving is Townsquare's NJ 101.5
Click to expand...
WDHA has been a perennial high biller for Beasley. There is some good agency money for that sub-market based on a the need for some businesses to just address NJ or that part of NJ. That trade zone would, if alone, be a top 100 market.
 
I tuned in 1250 around 8:30 PM tonight and instead of WMTR I heard "WTRS Radio, The Greatest Hits of Our Lifetime". About half an hour later, I tuned in again and it was back to WMTR's normal programming.

I thought it might have been DX coming in, until I looked it up and discovered that "WTRS" is an online-only station; there is no actual WTRS on 1250 AM.

So either WTRS Radio is buying airtime on WMTR, or this was some weird fluke, or a deliberate prank to feed an arguably better-sounding Oldies format into WMTR's transmitter on a Sunday night when the boss isn't listening...
live365.com

WTRS Radio.com - Free Internet Radio - Live365

The Greatest Hits of Our Lifetime! Flagship station for The Music Yearbook with Tripp Rogers!
live365.com
 
kevtronics said:
I tuned in 1250 around 8:30 PM tonight and instead of WMTR I heard "WTRS Radio, The Greatest Hits of Our Lifetime". About half an hour later, I tuned in again and it was back to WMTR's normal programming.

I thought it might have been DX coming in, until I looked it up and discovered that "WTRS" is an online-only station; there is no actual WTRS on 1250 AM.

So either WTRS Radio is buying airtime on WMTR, or this was some weird fluke, or a deliberate prank to feed an arguably better-sounding Oldies format into WMTR's transmitter on a Sunday night when the boss isn't listening...
live365.com

WTRS Radio.com - Free Internet Radio - Live365

The Greatest Hits of Our Lifetime! Flagship station for The Music Yearbook with Tripp Rogers!
live365.com
Click to expand...
Sounds like they got hacked. No commercial station like WMTR would program like the so-called "WTRS" does.
 
TheBigA said:
From what I can gather. WTRS is an online radio station run by veteran DJ Tripp Rogers. At one time, he was a jock at a few NJ radio stations.
Click to expand...
And it has a smorgasbord of old music... the keyword being "old".
 
If you thought it was strange that an online-only radio station named itself with not particularly memorable FCC-style call letters, well there's also:

WTRSfm.com, a different online station called WTRS, notably not on FM, playing a rock format.

WTRS-LP 107.7, Revival Society Radio, in Orange, MA

WXUS in Florida, formerly known as WTRS until 2016.
 
Maybe Tripp bought the time to run his show. WMTR runs blocks of brokered programming, especially on weekends. Probably quite inexpensive.
 
Maybe WMTR on an FM Translator in the Morristown Area would be great. or just add it to an HD signal of WDHA (and why not maybe an adjacent market / sister stations WRAT and WJRZ on HD4) - to compete with Beach Radio.

Or if Beasley sells they can combine operations with owners of WOLD-LP to expand further north
 
KyleSmith1988 said:
Maybe WMTR on an FM Translator in the Morristown Area would be great. or just add it to an HD signal of WDHA (and why not maybe an adjacent market / sister stations WRAT and WJRZ on HD4) - to compete with Beach Radio.

Or if Beasley sells they can combine operations with owners of WOLD-LP to expand further north
Click to expand...
Seems like a lot of work for a format that would attract very, very few listeners and zero advertisers.
If Beasley had something better to do with WMTR, they'd do it.
Perhaps someone will buy the property where the 1250 sticks are...in which case, it's so-long WMTR. The property was recently for sale...not sure as to the current status.
 
Was it Richard Arsenault who once published a study about large AM BC signal variations in New Jersey, diurnal and seasonal? He showed huge variations in the signal of WMTR 1250. Maybe that explains the different perceptions of their signal, where you can hear it, and where you can't.
 
This Sunday Tripp Rogers was on WMTR again, this time from the audio feed of WGHT/WTBQ. He called the make-believe WTRS his "flagship station", and at the end of the show rattled off a list of about half a dozen real radio stations carrying his show, but I didn't hear WMTR mentioned. At just before 9 PM, WMTR cut back to local programming, in the middle of a PSA.

So either Tripp is buying time on WMTR now, or has successfully hacked their STL at least two weeks in a row.
 


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