WHEN airs an urban adult contemporary radio format and is owned by iHeartMedia, Inc.[2] The station carries The Steve Harvey Morning Show and the Keith Sweat Hotel, which are syndicated by iHeart subsidiary Premiere Networks.

WHEN became an affiliate of the CBS Radio Network, replacing WFBL, and began airing middle of the road music with a sizable news staff.

[7] In the 1970s, the station became famous for playing a jingle during the testing of the Emergency Broadcast System, a practice that was outlawed by the Federal Communications Commission by the end of the decade.

It was aimed specifically at young adult listeners who had grown up with the first generation of rock music and still enjoyed upbeat contemporary songs, but had begun to regard most top 40 stations as too juvenile in their presentation.

The station blended an adult presentation with up-tempo music and full service information elements, serving as a model for other stations seeking a similar audience, along with format pioneers like WGAR in Cleveland, WGR in Buffalo and WNBC in New York City.

The formula kept WHEN a market leader for a decade and a half, until late in the 1980s when many music listeners began moving to FM.

The format change preceded abandonment of the format on co-owned WPHR-FM, which switched to a simulcast of WSYR on the FM band to fill in areas in Syracuse's western, southern and eastern suburbs where WSYR's AM directional signal pattern provides poor coverage.