Prior to switching to its current programming in 1989, WMCA was a talk radio station during the 1970s and 1980s, and earlier a Top 40 outlet featuring a lineup of disc jockeys known as the "Good Guys".

[5] In December 1940, Flamm had to surrender the station to industrialist Edward J. Noble, who had just resigned as Undersecretary of Commerce, in a transaction involving prominent political figures including Thomas Corcoran.

Through its early decades, WMCA had a varied programming history, playing music, hosting dramas, and broadcasting New York Giants baseball games.

Among its disc jockey staff were Scott Muni, Frankie Crocker, Harry Harrison, and Murray the K. In 1960, WMCA began promoting itself by stressing its on-air personalities, who were collectively known as the Good Guys.

(This was a local recap of the week's news, and should not be confused with Garner Ted Armstrong's The World Tomorrow religious program, which was heard on WMCA after the Good Guys era ended.)

On December 26, 1963, WMCA, with Jack Spector as the DJ, earned the distinction of being the first New York City radio station to play the Beatles' Capitol Records' single, "I Want to Hold Your Hand".

However, according to one account, rival Top 40 outlet WINS "reportedly" played the band's Swan Records single "She Loves You" on September 28, 1963, as part of a listener's poll.

[11] WMCA was keen on playing new songs and breaking new hits and, consequently, it became the radio station most credited for introducing Beatlemania, and the subsequent "British Invasion" musical movement to New Yorkers.

While network-owned WABC was busy broadcasting New York Mets baseball games in the summer of 1963, family-owned WMCA was the music-intensive station that one would hear coming out of transistor radios at pools and beaches.

Some radio industry veterans attribute WABC's "stodgy sound" to standards applied by its corporate ownership and to its staff of longtime (and older) studio engineers.

Whatever the reason, the "sparkling sound" presented on-air by WMCA also contributed to its ratings success in New York City, the largest radio market in the United States.

Shortly after the band's arrival in the United States on February 7, 1964, WMCA secured the Beatles' cooperation, recording several commercials promoting the station's "Good Guys".

[12] Many believe this cooperation was directly linked to the band's awareness of WMCA being the first radio station in New York City to play "I Want to Hold Your Hand" weeks earlier.

This was despite the fact that during their first New York visit the band's movements were restricted to the Plaza Hotel, Central Park, CBS Studio 50 (where they appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show), the 21 Club, the Peppermint Lounge, and Carnegie Hall.

[14] The lock of hair, and a runner-up prize of a photograph on a fan club card signed by all four the Beatles, were obtained directly from the group during marathon "one-on-one" meetings and a reception held with print and broadcast personnel at Plaza Hotel on February 10.

Contrary to some accounts, the enormous number of entries received by WMCA, an estimated 86,000 cards, letters, and packages, were from Beatle fans seeking only to obtain the lock of Starr's hair.

[17] Runner-up winner Stella Scuotto of Brooklyn won the photograph of the Beatles on a fan club card signed by all four members of the band at the Plaza Hotel.

[18] According to Beatles' historian Bruce Spizer, Kay Smith was also a runner-up winner, winning $57 and the rare record sleeve for "I Want to Hold Your Hand", featuring a picture of WMCA's Good Guys.

[12] WABC later went against its own music policies, promising promoter Sid Bernstein that it would play a new group he was handling before any other New York City radio station if it could get exclusive access to the Beatles.

WABC never added records "out of the box", but it did for Bernstein when it played The Young Rascals' "I Ain't Gonna Eat Out My Heart Anymore" before other radio stations.

They included "Name It and Claim It", with the most desired prize being one of the station's yellow "Good Guys" sweatshirts, which were designed by WMCA program director Ruth Meyer.

For four consecutive years (1963 through 1966) WMCA had the highest ratings share of all radio stations in New York City, according to Arbitron, in spite of its directional, 5,000-watt signal which could not cover the same geographic region as non-directional, 50,000-watt WABC.

During this time frame, Pulse and Hooper usually placed adult full-service WOR as the overall number-one station, with WMCA generally but not always leading WABC and WINS as the Top 40 leader.

WMCA program director Ruth Meyer would later speculate in interviews that WABC's creativity during the 1960s could have been hampered by being owned by an ABC network rife with nationwide broadcast policies, commitments, and standards.

In 1969, WABC overnight host Roby Yonge, upon learning his contract with the station was not going to be renewed, used his shift to spread rumors about the "death" of Paul McCartney.

WMCA's ratings decline was due to several factors: the January 1968 split of the ABC Radio Network into four distinct components allowed WABC to drop Don McNeill's Breakfast Club and become fully music-intensive during the day.

Around the same time Ruth Meyer exited WMCA, the station temporarily dropped the "Good Guy" branding and it also lost key personalities, including Harry Harrison, who moved to WABC.

In 1968, a chaotic period began in which Gary Stevens relocated to Switzerland and Harry Harrison moved to WABC, where he replaced Herb Oscar Anderson as its morning host.

WMCA then started experimenting with some talk programming as part of "Power Radio", with hosts ranging from Domenic Quinn to countercultural Alex Bennett.

While it is licensed to New York City, the translator's signal emanates from the towers of Multicultural Broadcasting-owned WPAT in Clifton, New Jersey, off the Garden State Parkway.