WNEB

WNEB signed on December 16, 1946,^[2] under the ownership of the New England Broadcasting Company.^[3] It was Worcester's fourth radio station (after WTAG, WORC, and WAAB), and its first independent station.^[2] New England Broadcasting, owned by John Hurley, sold the station to George Steffy and Harold Glidden in 1960;^[4] around this time, WNEB had a middle of the road (MOR) format.^[5] Its independent status ended in 1963, when the station joined the CBS Radio Network.^[6]

Glidden took full control of WNEB in 1975, shortly after Steffy's death;^[7] soon afterward, the station shifted to a country music format.^[8] The CBS affiliation had also ceased by this time, and moved to WAAB.^[8] Two years later, WNEB was sold to Segal Broadcasting.^[9] Segal reverted the station to MOR and affiliated it with the ABC Entertainment network.^[10] WNEB shifted to a big band format in 1981;^[11] the next year, it rejoined CBS.^[12] AAMAR Communications bought the station in 1986.^[13] Financial problems soon forced AAMAR to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on December 4, 1990; on August 23, 1991, WNEB went dark.^[14]

Bob Bittner, owner of WJIB in Cambridge, purchased WNEB in 1994,^[15] and brought the station back on the air October 24, 1996, with a simulcast of WJIB's beautiful music format.^[16] A year later, Bittner sold the station to Heirwaves, Inc.,^[17] which relaunched the station with a contemporary Christian music format on November 29, 1997.^[18] Heirwaves sold WNEB to Great Commission Broadcasting in 1999,^[19] which implemented a simulcast of similarly formatted WJLT from Natick (which Great Commission programmed at that time) soon afterward.^[20] Great Commission later changed its name to Grace Broadcasting.^[21]

A financial dispute with Windsor Financial Corporation led to Windsor assuming control of WNEB's license in 2003.^[22] The station's format and staff then migrated to WYCM (90.1 FM) (its station manager, Stephen Binley, had founded Heirwaves and remained with WNEB after the sale to Great Commission),^[23] and Windsor operated WNEB with an automated contemporary Christian music format for several months before switching it to a simulcast of Leicester's WVNE (760 AM), a religious station owned by Blount Communications, that fall; as WVNE is a daytimer, WNEB continued the format on its own during that station's off-air hours.^[24] Blount bought WNEB outright soon afterward.^[25]

WNEB began moving away from religious programming in June 2007 with the addition of The Sean Hannity Show;^[26] in March 2008, it switched to a full-time conservative talk format.^[27] This format ended in April 2009, and the station went silent^[28] for one week before the launch of a Spanish language talk format, also incorporating some inspirational music, on May 4.^[29]

Blount sold WNEB to Emmanuel Communications, with plans to relaunch the station with Catholic radio programming, in October 2010.^[30] Upon taking over on January 14, 2011, WNEB temporarily left the air once more while relocating to new studios;^[31] it returned to the air with the new format on May 1.^[32] As with most Catholic radio stations, WNEB was an EWTN Radio affiliate,^[33] though it intended to produce some local programming as well.^[32] Emmanuel Communications acquired a second station, WESO in Southbridge, in 2014.^[34]

Holy Family Communications, owner of WQOM in Natick and stations in New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, began operating WNEB and WESO under a local marketing agreement on January 1, 2022. The stations became part of Holy Family's The Station of the Cross network.^[35] In early 2024, Holy Family bought the stations outright for $1,000.^[36] Holy Family agreed to sell WNEB, WESO, and WACE in Chicopee to Journey For Life Media for $150,000 in May 2025;^[37] the sale was withdrawn that August.^[38]

• Official website
• Facility details for Facility ID 249 (WNEB) in the FCC Licensing and Management System
• WNEB in Nielsen Audio's AM station database
• FCC History Cards for WNEB