WZRC was first licensed on June 29, 1925 as a portable broadcasting station with the sequentially issued call letters of WIBS, to the New Jersey National Guard, 57th Infantry Brigade, in Elizabeth, New Jersey. Portable stations could be transported from place-to-place on movable platforms such as trucks. In early 1926 ownership of the station was changed to Lieut. Thomas F. Hunter, and in mid-1927 the station was reported to be "no longer portable". In November 1927 the station's owner became the New JerseyBroadcasting Corporation, located at 80 Broad Street in Elizabeth. On November 11, 1928, the Federal Radio Commission implemented a sweeping reallocation of station transmitting frequencies, as part of a reorganization resulting from its General Order 40. The New York City area had a large excess of stations, and WIBS was ordered to begin timesharing on 1450 kHz with four other New Jersey stations: WNJ, WBMS, WAAT and WKBO. WAAT was able to quickly gain permission to move to 1070 kHz, but this still left WIBS in the tenuous financial situation of reduced operating hours and revenues due to having to share its frequency with three other stations.
WHOM and The Popes (1930 - 1960)
The station's call letters were changed to WHOM in early 1930; they stood for owner Harry O'Melia. WHOM's studios moved to Jersey City in 1932. At the start of 1933 WHOM was still limited to one-quarter of the airtime on its shared frequency, however during the year a series of events allowed it to achieve full time operation. In April, it began using three-quarters of the hours, after the FRC refused to renew WNJ's license, and WHOM's owners purchased and silenced WKBO. A few weeks later, WBMS was acquired and shut down, giving WHOM unlimited use of its frequency. On March 29, 1941, WHOM moved from 1450 kHz to 1480 kHz, its location ever since, as part of the implementation of the North American Regional Broadcasting Agreement. During the 1940s the station aired ethnic brokered programming and was owned by Generoso Pope. The Popes built a media empire, including: The National Enquirer, Il Progresso Italo-Americano, Il Bollettino della Sera, Il Corriere d'America, and the Philadelphia daily L'Opinione. Pope used his influence through his media empire to secure the vote of the election of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Harry S. Truman. In 1950 the station's studios moved to New York City.
1960 – 1982
In 1960, WHOM evolved to mostly Spanish programming. In 1975 the station was sold to SJR communications along with WHOM-FM and the call sign was changed to WJIT. The format went from diversified Spanish to Spanish contemporary music. In the late '70s WJIT was the leading salsa and merengue station on the New York dial. In 1982 the format was changed to Spanish Adult Contemporary and the station was sold, along with WKTU 92.3, to Infinity Broadcasting.
1982 – 1998
In 1989, Infinity decided that with a new Spanish station on 97.9 that it should move 1480 WJIT to an English format. The Spanish format was dropped on April 30, 1990, and the station began airing a heavy metal based satellite rock format "Z Rock". The call-sign was changed to WZRC. On May 27, 1993, WZRC switched to country through Transtar's "Mainstream Country" satellite-delivered service. This was short lived; a few months later, WZRC switched to Korean brokered programming. Infinity continued to own the radio station until after its merger with CBS in 1997. At that point, it owned 92.3 WXRK, 101.1 WCBS-FM, 102.7 WNEW-FM, 660 WFAN, 880 WCBS, 1010 WINS, and 1480 WZRC. While it was not required to sell WZRC, it opted to anyhow, and sold the station to Multicultural Media in 1998.
After 1998
Multicultural initially kept the Korean format, but switched to Chinese in 2002 and now in Cantonese.
