Broadcast area Lehigh Valley Frequency 1160 kHz | Branding ESPN Lehigh Valley First air date 1962 (as WYNS) | |
City Lehighton, Pennsylvania Slogan Lehigh Valley Sports Radio | ||
WBYN (1160 AM) is a radio station licensed to serve Lehighton, Pennsylvania, USA. The station is owned by Connoisseur Media, through licensee Connoisseur Media Licenses, LLC.
It broadcasts a sports format and features programming from ESPN Radio. Until January 4, 2016 the station ran a wide array of Christian programs ranging from local church services to national political religious features to national radio preachers and teachers. The station also previously played a moderate amount of inspirational music.
History
The station was signed-on in 1962 by Martin Phillip under the call letters WYNS (pronounced wins). Phillip sold the station to Ragan Henry in 2000. Following financial losses, Henry took WYNS off-the-air on December 31, 2002; in 2003, he sold WYNS to Nassau Broadcasting Partners. Following the sale, the station, which had been an oldies station, began carrying sports radio programming from ESPN Radio, simulcast from sister station WEEX in Easton, PA. (WYNS had abandoned the oldies format in 1998 in favor of country music, but subsequently reversed that change.)
In 2005, WBYN, a co-located Christian FM station was leased in an LMA to Nassau, with plans to eventually purchase that FM station. The call letters were changed to the current WBYN on September 25, 2005, when the station started simulcasting WBYN-FM. The simulcast continued until the winter of 2006 when the FM station changed formats to an Adult Rock Hits format called Frank FM and call signs to WFKB. WBYN's religious format remained on AM 1160 and on WFKB-FM HD-2. Nassau continued to manage WFKB with plans to buy that. After being unable to negotiate a purchase of WFKB or extend the LMA, WDAC Radio took back operations of WFKB on March 15, 2009. On March 31, 2009, WFKB dropped the Adult Rock Hits format, reverted to a religious format, and reverted to WBYN-FM calls.
The religious format on WBYN-FM, while similar to WBYN, was different programming. WBYN-FM focused more on national features, plays more music, while WBYN-AM focuses more on talk and teaching, with some shows coming from Salem Media. WBYN-FM is still owned by Nassau and is programmed from Princeton, New Jersey much of the same content as co-owned WCHR.
The station, along with nine other Nassau stations in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, was purchased at bankruptcy auction by NB Broadcasting in May 2012. NB Broadcasting is controlled by Nassau's creditors — Goldman Sachs, Pluss Enterprises, and P.E. Capital.
In November, NB Broadcasting filed a motion to assign its rights to the stations to Connoisseur Media. The sale to Connoisseur Media, at a price of $38.7 million, was consummated on May 29, 2013.
On January 4, 2016 WBYN changed their format back to a simulcast of WEEX.