On December 12, 1948, WMTR signed on,[2] owned by the Croy family and known as the Morristown Broadcasting Company with studios at 10 Park Place.

The station had a general entertainment format running various radio shows along with playing soft popular music of the day.

The Croys though hated rock and roll music so WMTR only played easy listening and some big bands.

WMTR was still a daytime-only station, signing off with Kate Smith's "Bless This House", instead of the usual "Star Spangled Banner."

In the 1960s a new studio building was constructed at the transmitter site on Horse Hill Road in Cedar Knolls, now shared with co-owned WDHA-FM.

In the late 1970s, WMTR got a pre-sunrise authorization allowing the station to begin operations no later than 6:00 a.m. even if it were still dark.

In 1980, WMTR got post-sunset authorization allowing the station to stay on the air until 6 p.m. even if it got dark before in the winter.

At night they increase their output power from 5,000 to 7,000 Watts and switch antennas resulting in their signal pattern being concentrated more to the southeast than it is during the day.

They continued their Full Service AC format, and began broadcasting in C-QUAM AM stereo in 1983.

[citation needed] In 1999, WMTR discontinued broadcasting in AM Stereo and began a simulcast with WWTR, 1170 AM, in Bridgewater Township.

The station originally played absolutely no Beatles and very limited songs by artists like the Four Seasons or Motown.

Immediately after this change, WMTR began playing more Four Seasons and Motown music and added moderate amounts of British Invasion artists, such as the Beatles, Hollies, and Peter & Gordon.

Public affairs and paid programming remained on the station on Saturday and Sunday mornings until noon.