About WFME
WFME (Where Faith Means Everything) is a radio station on 94.7 MHz licensed to Newark, NJ, that serves the New York City metropolitan area. We are a part of the vast reaching ministry of Family Stations, Inc., a non-profit organization, which is commonly known as "The Sound of the New Life". Our studio, office and transmitter site is located in West Orange, New Jersey.
History
94.7 FM signed on the air in 1947 as WAAT-FM. In 1958 it became WNTA-FM and was co-owned with 13 WNTA-TV (now WNET) and AM 970 WNTA (now WWDJ). WNTA-FM had diversified programming such as jazz, classical and easy listening music. After, its owner sold Channel 13 and AM 970, 94.7 became WJRZ-FM in 1962. They began selling some airtime to Family Radio, and on Easter Sunday, April 14,1963, WFME went on th air with its first broadcast. Initial response from listeners was “unbelieveable and phenomenal” according to Craig Hulsebos, who worked for the commerical station at the time, before becoming WFME’s Production Director and Assistant Manager from 1966 - 1971.
In 1966, 94.7 FM was purchased by Family Stations and began airing religious programming 24/7. At that time, operations were moved to the transmitter site in West Orange, New Jersey. In 1970, the power output was increased from 13.5 kW to the present 37 kW, which gives WFME a more effective signal in the metropolitan area.
Charlie Menut, WFME’s current station manager and chief engineer recalls: “I came on board in September of 1981. Family Radio had already been on the air for 22 years. To me, that was mind-boggling, because most stations don’t really last that long - and if they do, formats change. Technically, radio was quite simple back then. You didn’t have computers or satellites. As long as you knew how to use a turntable and a cart machine, you were in pretty good shape! As an engineer, that was my job when I first came to WFME. But, these days, its just a struggle to keep up with the technology!"
Approximately 30 million people live within the reach of WFME’s transmission and Arbitron ratings indicate approximately 200,000 faithful listeners weekly.
About WFME-TV
WFME-TV is a religious television station located in West Orange, New Jersey, broadcasting religiousand educational programming locally on digital channel 66. We are owned by Family Stations, Inc., a Christian broadcast ministry based in Oakland, California.
On March 1st, 1996, WFME-TV / Channel 66 (UHF) went on the air with video recordings of the Open Forum, Echoes, Family Bible Study and other musical programs twenty-four hours a day.
On May 10th, 2004, as part of the FCC mandated conversion to all digital TV, WFME-TV (Digital TV) was the first digital TV station to be broadcasting to the Northern New Jersey / New York City area. It has a powerful 200,000-watt signal on Channel 66 and covers almost 80% of the WFME-FM range. In recent months, by God’s grace, we have had tremendous success in obtaining coverage of WFME-TV’s programming over several of the main satellite and cable companies, including Verizon FIOS, Cablevision, Time Warner Cable, Direct TV, Dish Network, and AT&T U-Verse.
Our complete program schedule and list of satellite and cable companies along with channel numbers where WFME-TV can be found are available on this site.