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Summary
On January 5, 1962, “Country Frank Manthos”, his wife Jane and George and Mary Gillespie paid the Brunswick mayor & council $4,000 for a modest parcel of land near the city dump in back of the High School baseball diamond, the new Scheer Stadium.
On this spot, Brunswick’s first radio station, WTRI, 1520 on the AM radio dial, was built. For many of us who grew up in the 1960s, this was the music of our lives as our parents woke up to it and Brunswick baseball leagues warmed up to the country strains of Patsy Cline, Porter Wagoner, George Jones & Tammy Wynette, Johnny Cash, Conway Twitty, Merle Haggard, Loretta Lynn and others. The radio station has changed hands many times over the years, and may have been most notably owned by Bert Thornton, who hosted “radiothons” in the ’70s and early ’80s for good causes.
Allen Salisbury took it over in 1986 and the station has been owned by several owners since then.
Here’s what other have said about WTRI:
“My dad, Randy Sigler, did the Sunday morning gospel show and I would get up early and go with him…it was awesome!” – Jeannie Sigler Hawes
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1966
October 2, 1966
WTRI On Air
WTRI (1520 kHz) is a commercial AM radio station licensed to Brunswick, Maryland, serving Southern Frederick County, Maryland and Northern Loudoun County, Virginia. WTRI is owned by Hasmukh Shah and airs a South Asian format of Bollywood music and talk in Hindi and Punjabi.
WTRI first signed on the air on October 2, 1966. It aired a country music format and transmitted with 250 watts, required to go off the air at sunset. WTRI is a day-timer, required to go off the air at sunset because AM 1520 is a clear channel frequency, reserved for Class A WWKB in Buffalo, New York, and KOKC in Oklahoma City.
By day, WTRI broadcasts with 17,000 watts from a tower off 13th Avenue in Brunswick. Programming is also heard on an FM translator station, 101.7 W269DH in Leesburg, Virginia.
October 20, 1966 | The Blade Times
Just as busy and as excited as anyone about the new radio station is this cute “pixie”, Lean Manthos, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Frank Manthos, who served as messenger Sunday – bringing records from the studio library to her father who was announcing (that’s his hand reaching for the “platters”.)
1971
WTRI Broadcasts ‘Country Crossroads’
Randy Sigler, WTRI’s Sunday Morning DJ, prepares the broadcast tapes for the nationwide syndicated radio show, Country Crossroads.
Source: Photo courtesy of the Sigler family.
WTRI Receives Honors
Randy Sigler, WTRI’s Sunday Morning DJ, poses to show some of WTRI’s awards and special recognitions.
Source: Photo courtesy of the Sigler family.
Sunday Mornings With DJ Randy Sigler On WTRI
WTRI’s Sunday Morning DJ Randy Sigler playing yesterday and today’s country music favorites.
Source: Photo courtesy of the Sigler family.
1974
April 25, 1974 | The Brunswick Citizen
New Home For WTRI
WTRI’s Sunday MWTRI is going bigger! The new ell is almost closed in. The Ziegler Brothers, contractors, last week put on the new roof and poured the concrete floor.
1978
January 18, 1978 | The Brunswick Citizen
WTRI Station Manager Honored
Charles Thornton, Jr., general manager of WTRI radio, Brunswick, has won an important award from the Southern Baptist Radio and Television Commission. He is being honored for his efforts in raising money for the Locust Grove Rest Home in Bolivar, West Virginia.
Chuck will be one of nine broadcasters from across the nation who will attend an “Abe Lincoln Awards banquet” on February 9, at Ft. Worth, Texas. One of nine will go on to win the annual Abe Lincoln award, a statue of the great American. Evangelist Billy Graham will be the keynote speaker at the banquet.
1983
December 8, 1983 | The Brunswick Citizen
WTRI & The ‘B.H.S. News Connection’
Ad in Brunswick Citizen announcing The B.H.S. News Connection with WTRI project.
December 8, 1983 | The Brunswick Citizen
The ‘B.H.S. News Connection’
Rick Heffner with some of his winning graphics he made to advertise the “B.H.S. News Connection” – the broadcasting of the news that is going on this week from a “special newsroom” in the school library through Radio WTRI. Librarian Buddy Phillips, Fred Thornton, and school Principal Alan Slobojan found Rick’s work first rate.
Source: “B.H.S. News Connection.” The Brunswick Citizen, 8 December 1983.
1984
January 19, 1984 | The Brunswick Citizen
WTRI Providing Country Music
Tom Lesser is at the main control board and in complete charge of what is going on the air, as station manager Fred Thornton and announcer Kia Anderson stop in for the picture.
October 25, 1984 | The Brunswick Citizen
Fireman Day At WTRI
Sound Effects! You will have to hear them – and all the other goings on – to believe them! The ads are AMAZING! This coming Saturday will be Fireman’s Day at WTRI…and as every year the members of the Brunswick Volunteer Fire Company have prepared a special treat for the community, all day long, from 7:15 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. The firemen got the ideas for the ads , wrote them, and – this is hard to believe…acted as actors and announcers. (Wait till you hear “Doc Shaffer” pull a tooth!) Pictured: Bill Sauser left, plans a good one: Charlie Smith (behind him) and WTRI Manager Fred Thornton get into the act. Local merchants have contributed many items to be given away; members of the community are asked to tune in and take part in the fund raiser. All proceeds go to help the fire company.
1986
LaRouche Organization Purchases WTRI
WTRI was owned by the Lyndon LaRouche organization based in nearby Leesburg, Virginia, from 1986 to 1991. The LaRouche organization sold the failing station and it switched to a local music format in 1992.
December 23, 1986 | The Washington Post | By John Mints
Airing the LaRouche Line
Md. AM Station Owned by Extremist’s Associates Stirs Controversy
For years, songs of cheating hearts, faithless love and two-timing men have curled like chimney smoke through the foothills and hollows of the Blue Ridge Mountains from country music station WTRI-AM. But now there’s a difference.
Between the twanging guitars and yodeling cowboys broadcast by the Frederick County radio station, there comes word of dire conspiracies, murderous plots against local residents, and traitors in their midst.
Call it Radio LaRouche, which broadcasts its surprising mix of programs from studios in tiny Brunswick, Md., an old railroad company town 55 miles up the Potomac River from Washington. Associates of political extremist Lyndon H. LaRouche Jr. bought the 500-watt station across the river from their Loudoun County headquarters 11 months ago and have been generating confusion among local people since then.
Two weeks ago the confusion deepened when WTRI’s general manager, William Maniaci, quit the station, citing what he said was the “air of extreme secrecy” created by LaRouche associates running the station. In addition, the chief stockholder in the LaRouche-affiliated partnership that owns the station — retired Bethlehem Steel executive Charles Zimmerman of Sarasota, Fla. — has had his bank file suit in an attempt to recover the approximately $ 250,000 he gave the LaRouche group to acquire the station, plus about $ 2.3 million more he said the organization fraudulently induced him to give or lend. The suit is pending.
LaRouche associates say that Zimmerman, 80, is being unfairly manipulated by his bank to turn against them. After giving the money to the LaRouche followers, Zimmerman, who has acknowledged memory problems, allowed his bank to become guardian over his finances. “It’s frightening,” said Jeanette Ephraim, a liquor store owner in the downtown area of the quiet town of 5,000. “We really don’t know what to think” of LaRouche. “Leesburg wants to get rid of him, so he comes over here.”
The LaRouche associate who runs the station, Allan Salisbury, said he would not answer a Washington Post reporter’s questions about the station unless the interview were broadcast live. The Post said the conditions were unacceptable.
In previous interviews, Salisbury, a longtime top LaRouche group member, said that it is he who owns WTRI, not the LaRouche organization. Salisbury added that he does not censor the station’s news reports. The LaRouche group recently has stepped up efforts to broadcast its message on radio. It sends reports by mail to about 90 stations around the nation, and the Federal Communications Commission has granted approval to a corporation operated by LaRouche associates to operate a new AM station, KCHN, in Jeffers, Minn.
The family of Charles (Bert) Thornton sold WTRI to a group of LaRouche supporters last January for $ 350,000. For about nine months, Salisbury kept the basic format, introducing the LaRouche ideology only occasionally, former employees said.
But former employees said Salisbury started increasing the number of news broadcasts written by LaRouche associates to at least twice a day around early October. That is when 400 law enforcement officers raided LaRouche headquarters in Leesburg, and 10 of his associates were indicted on federal charges of obstruction of justice and credit card fraud in connection with LaRouche’s 1984 presidential campaign.
Maniaci — a radio talk show host from Hawaii who is not a follower of LaRouche and who was hired as WTRI’s general manager in January — told friends that the station’s atmosphere became oppressive around the time of the raid. “I am nothing more than a figurehead, a rubber stamp to give this operation an appearance of credibility,” Maniaci said in a resignation letter dated Dec. 13. “I can no longer tolerate the humiliation that I have been subjected to over the past few months.”
While WTRI remained basically a country music station, Maniaci said in his letter that Salisbury censored news stories on LaRouche “so as not to show your political associates in a bad light . . . . You have stated that the only credible news [sources] in the country are those of the LaRouche organization.”
Former station employees said that Salisbury, among other things, did not allow terms such as “extremist” to describe LaRouche in news stories. The station has tried to discourage criticism. When hired, employees, including Maniaci, have been required to sign statements with the station or a LaRouche organization stating that they would not speak to outsiders about the station’s operations for five years.
In his resignation letter, Maniaci said that Salisbury did not allow him to make management decisions concerning the station, tried to eavesdrop on his personal telephone calls, read personal papers on his desk, and rummaged through his garbage. Maniaci left the area after resigning. He could not be reached for comment.
His lawyer, Michael Halper, said that Maniaci had grown disenchanted with the station in recent months because he was treated as “an errand boy” and because of the “distasteful” nature of the LaRouche news broadcasts. Halper said the LaRouche group’s critical comments about Israel were particularly disturbing to Maniaci. The son of a Sicilian father and a Jewish mother, Maniaci, 45, celebrated his bar mitzvah — the Jewish rite of manhood — on Dec. 6 at a Frederick synagogue, Halper said. As Maniaci’s troubles mounted, the station’s connections to LaRouche were alienating many of its listeners, residents said.
Some local merchants who had advertised for years with the station said they have pulled their ads because of its tie to LaRouche. “The town’s very negative about the radio station now,” said Mickey Duncan, owner of a Brunswick bar and president of the town’s Downtown Business Association, who said he stopped advertising with the station. “It’s the connection to LaRouche.” Members of the town’s volunteer fire company, which for a number of years had its members run the station for a day as a promotional event, declined this year, partly because of unease about the LaRouche connection, town residents said.
Last week, the local paper, the Brunswick Citizen, editorialized that “there are some things the community can do to show its disapproval. Community groups, churches, clubs, government agencies should think whether they want their news broadcast by WTRI . . . . And everyone . . . can simply stop listening — even if your favorite music is country.”
Source: TBD
1992
July 17, 1992 | The Frederick News-Post | By Karen Gardner
Airwaves Alive With All Local Music of WTRI
BRUNSWICK – Folksinger Margie Rylatt strummed a last few chords on the guitar and introduced a recording of her work before slipping off the stool in the cramped studio of radio station WTRI and packing up her guitar. That scene is repeated just about every day as local musicians play live and recorded music on a station dedicated to them.
“There is so much talent out there that needed to be showcased,” station owner Liz Roberts said.
Country, rock, folk, bluegrass, WTRI plays them all. The only musicians who seem hesitant to come in and play for the tiny station are of the classical ilk, and that’s not because they haven’t been invited.
“We play all local music,” Ms. Roberts said. Tapes are accepted, as long as they can be played clearly over the airwaves.
By “local” WTRI means musicians in a 50-mile radius of Brunswick. That’s about how far the station’s 500 watt signal reaches. WTRI reaches listeners in Frederick, Hagerstown, Thurmont, Mount Airy, Martinsburg, W. Va., Leesburg and Winchester, Va., and Rockville.
That station has a collection of music from about 400 musicians. Ms. Roberts has run into some skepticism. “Everyone thinks it’s lunacy to have all local music.” But she’s slowly proving that there is a market. WTRI has a cadre of local musicians and musical experts to host shows every weekday. Nancy Wiles, Brooks Tegler, Pete Kennedy and Paul Adkins with Borderline Band member Ron Pennington play their specialties, recorded and live. Folk music expert Kate Buck plays recordings of new and veteran folk musicians.
Tom Whalen plays the morning drive, interspersing recordings by local musicians with sports and weather information. From 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. each day, former WAMU mainstay Lee Michael Demsey plays the folk acoustic and bluegrass music that made him a name while at the Washington, D.C., National Public Radio affiliate.
On a recent Friday afternoon, when Pete Kennedy normally whiles away the time from 2 to 4 p.m. playing folk tunes on his guitar, guest singers Margie Rylatt and Sandy Mitchell showed the audience what they could do. Mr. Kennedy was away at a Nashville festival. Part of the program was done interview-style, with Ms. Roberts introducing the guests and chatting with them about their music. She perched on a chair, often slipping her bare feet out of her sandals and folding them under her legs as she talked and listened.
Ms. Rylatt, a recent arrival to the Frederick musical scene, combines contemporary folk, blues, rock and country. Mitchell, a fiddle and guitar player ranges from bluegrass to country to rock. Speaking in her chatty,, British voice trained by 20-plus years as a radio reporter for the BBC, NPR and other broadcast venues, Ms. Roberts talked informally with Mr. Mitchell. A self-taught guitarist, Mr. Mitchell was introduced as a singer of songs that “should be recorded and passed down through the generations.” Wearing a sleeveless plaid shirt and jeans, he sat on a stool at the mike and strummed his guitar as they talked. Ms. Roberts encouraged that in pre-airtime conversations. “That’s real flavorful,” she said.
They then rehearsed a discussion of Mr. Mitchell’s songs. He decided to open with a country tune, Steve Warriner’s “Life Is A Highway.” Then, he said, “maybe the ‘Ballad of St. Anne’s Reel.” It’s just a great song, that has a traditional fiddle tune in it.”
On the air, he introduced the reel as a song about a shipwreck near Prince Edward Island. As he finished the song, Ms. Roberts noted that it involved some fast picking, and asked Mr. Mitchell if he’d been to Ireland. “I’ve learned from some Irish fiddlers,” he said. “The fiddle does get people going. It’s gets the blood moving. It buzzes. It’s got a great acoustic wooden buzz on it.”
He then mentioned he learned bluegrass in Kentucky and Nashville, and played a fiddle tune. Recorded music of his followed, and Ms. Roberts relaxed, while the Washington Post’s Eve Zibart, who covers musical nightlife, prepared for her weekly show. Every Friday from 4 to 5 p.m., she previews the musical acts playing in Washington, D.C., that weekend.
Nancy Wiles, a Frederick country singer who also plays at the Wheeling Jamboree, hosts a show every Thursday from 2 to 4 p.m. “It gives people an alternative. Your major radio stations won’t play anything not on the Top 30. Also, it’s gives me a chance to see what it’s like on the other side of the radio.”
“I think it’s a neat thing Liz is doing, shying away from Top 40,” Frederick country singer Nancy Wiles said.
Other musical guests may pop in Monday through Friday from 4 to 6 p.m., when Ms. Roberts hosts an afternoon drive time show. She also chooses music from the shelves of old albums, cases of cassette tapes and rows of compact discs that are becoming the station’s collection. Andrea Kershaw, a family friend from England and a student at nearby Shenandoah University in Winchester, Va., manned the studio controls as Ms. Roberts talked.
At 6 p.m. that station goes off the air until dawn the next day. That should change in a few months. Then, Ms. Roberts said, the station hopes to go on air 24 hours. With more time to fill, Ms. Roberts envisions novels serialized aloud on the air, more time for interviews and coverage of local events. Eventually, she’d like to do a radio soap opera. Ms. Roberts, 49, admitted she knew nothing about the local music scene when she took over an ailing WTRI Dec 31. But she had about six weeks to learn before the station was to back on the air in mid-February.
“It was a purely business choice,” she said. “There were 36 stations in the listening area. There’s nothing I could play that wasn’t already being heard. I was looking for a little niche, to be a bit different.” As she talked, Robin Tatina, an ad saleswoman, walked in barefoot, wearing a sundress, and as casually as her dress, announced that a nearby psychiatric hospital in Virginia had agreed to advertise. “We’ve had the ultimate flattering thing,” Ms. Roberts said. We’ve had advertisers call us.” At first, she and her husband, Peter, a Washington Lawyer who manages the station’s books, sold ads. But the station can now support five ad salespeople, she added proudly. She’s had no trouble getting taped music from area musicians. “We just play everybody once. We don’t turn anybody away. If listeners ask for it, we’ll call them back.”
Most musicians who have recorded their music or who are brave enough to come and sing before a microphone have some talent, she added. The studio gets a bit cramped when more than a half-dozen people squeeze in. Another room in the tiny station is being converted into a larger studio. In there, Ms. Roberts is hoping to entice musicians to have on-air jam sessions. Mr. Mitchell said the exposure could only help his budding career. A fiddler and guitar player who often appears at musical festivals, he recently moved to Frederick. “It’s good experience to be interviewed and do live stuff,” he said. “Although it’s a little nerve-wracking.” As he got ready to leave the station, Ms. Roberts handed him a tape of his performance. “We recycle tape here,” she said, almost apologetically as she prepared his tape from old tapes, cutting and pasting. “It’s a primitive radio station.”
But she quickly added that, while larger stations have more modern equipment, they also offer their listeners little spontaneity. “On many radio stations, everything is written out,” she said. “Nothing is left up to chance.”
It’s all quite a change, for the former globetrotting reporter, who spent the last half-dozen years traveling to Alaska, Mexico and other exotic locales doing documentaries for NPR on woman dying in the workplace, woman in Vietnam and Native American writers, among other subjects. “I’d much rather do this,” she said. She and her husband left the Washington area, home for 10 years, and moved to Lovettsville, Va., just across the Potomac River from Brunswick. “I wanted to come out here, move out to the country.” And now she has a purpose.
Source: TBD
December 3, 1992 | The Washington Post | By Paul Hodge
A VOICE FOR LOCAL TALENT AT SMALL RADIO STATION
How do musicians get their music played on radio stations?
Well, says Ed Nelson, when you drive into the BP gas station in Brunswick, Md., and there’s a car with a “press” bumper sticker, you say, just to pass the time of day as you pump unleaded regular, “Hey, what kind of press are you?”
And when the car’s owner, a woman with unusual red hair and an unusual British accent — unusual in Brunswick, population 5,117 — says, “I’m the new owner of the radio station on the hill,” you say, “There’s lots of good talent around here. So, why not put my band on the air?”
“I’m the new owner of the radio station on the hill,” you say, “There’s lots of good talent around here. So, why not put my band on the air?” – Liz Roberts, Owner of WTRI.
That’s how Nelson of the Jones Boys and dozens of other musicians in Northern Virginia, western Maryland and nearby West Virginia were able to hear their music played in February on the first day of operation under new ownership for WTRI — 1520 on the AM dial. And they have been heard almost every day since on the only radio station in the nation to broadcast exclusively local music, fiction and humor.
When Liz Roberts bought it at bankruptcy last fall from the maverick political organization of Lyndon H. LaRouche Jr., she didn’t know what she was going to do with the little station at the upper end of the AM dial that could operate only during daylight hours and had a range of only 50 miles.
“There are 36 AM and FM radio stations on the dial in the Baltimore-Washington area,” said Roberts, a former reporter for the British Broadcasting Corporation and National Public Radio. “There’s a nonstop talk show and three classical music stations, and the rest play every other kind of music (including 14 that play only country music). So we decided to survey 400 people in the area and see what they wanted.”
She had callers phone one person listed on each page of the phone books for Loudoun County and Frederick County, Md. — the two counties where WTRI’s signal is strongest. The survey found that local people didn’t want to hear just one kind of music. “Only 2 to 3 percent wanted to hear only country music,” Roberts said, which is what WTRI had been playing, along with news from the Lyndon LaRouche news service. “But 98 percent of the people we surveyed said . . . they would like to listen to the music of local musicians.”
That should not be surprising in this Blue Ridge Mountain area, where the hills are alive with the sound of country western, bluegrass and folk music. Almost every night of the week, bands are playing in some American Legion hall, fire hall, school or tavern in this musical corner where Virginia, Maryland and West Virginia meet (the tri-state area gives the radio station its call letters). “In a way, Ed Nelson gave me the idea” for the station’s new identity, Roberts said.
She sat in the radio station on a recent Monday morning with a staff of half a dozen bustling around her in tiny adjacent rooms taken up by tapes, electronic equipment and the station’s mascot, Sidney, a shaggy English sheep dog acquired from the pound.
Nelson and Donny Jones, a carpenter who founded the popular Brunswick Jones Boys band with four brothers and sisters about 10 years ago, were among the area musicians who came in last week to bring new tapes, perform their music live and chat on one of the station’s casual disc jockey programs, most run by area musicians.
The station’s policy is to give playing time — at least once — to every musical group in the area. The Jones Boys band, which is booked almost every weekend night until summer, “just plays for fun on weekends,” said Donny Jones. “We play what people want to hear and dance to, mostly a kind of country rock,” he said. Another local musician who ambled in last week, in work boots and jeans, was Clayton Adams, who raises cattle on his mother’s farm in Waterford. He has a degree in international relations and a band called Genghis Angus, made up of friends who worked at one time or another on the Adams farm.
Black angus cattle decorate the cover of a new compact disc his band recorded at a small Falls Church studio. Called “Birthday in Pietown,” the CD is “kind of rural new music,” said Adams. “It already has had a lot of good feedback,” said Andrea Kershaw, a 23-year-old native of Birmingham, England, who is Roberts’s assistant and who has become the station’s resident expert on local music and the more than 400 area musicians who now have tapes and compact discs at the radio station.
She also is the station’s third Brit, said Roberts, along with receptionist Janet Arey. “Janet’s from London, has a lovely cockney accent, lives in Brunswick and applied for a job. But I said absolutely not. “I didn’t want any more British accents here. Then we needed a receptionist, and she’s been wonderful.” Having anchored the station in local music, along with local weather and rural traffic reports, Roberts has now launched “The Fiction Factory,” a radio program that showcases local authors.
WTRI’s first hour of fiction, recently picked up by National Public Radio — and to be rebroadcast by satellite to the nation’s 410 NPR stations at 1 p.m. Dec. 8 — featured a short story from Loudon County author John Gardiner’s new book “The Incubator Ballroom,” a collection of stories published in The New Yorker. The program also included a short play by Rockville resident Harvey Zuckman, a law professor at Catholic University, and a Raymond Chandler-style detective skit by Shepherdstown, W.Va., author F. Ethan Fisher, who writes under the pen name Johnny Dime.
How did Roberts go from teaching school in Birmingham, England, to owning her own radio station, near the BP gas station, in Brunswick, Md.? After receiving a degree in philosophy from Oxford University and a graduate degree in psychology from the University of Birmingham, Roberts began teaching in a special program to improve race relations “in a rough downtown area of Birmingham where there had been race riots.” The BBC asked her and another teacher to do a radio program about their work, then hired her full time.
After 10 years with the BBC, Roberts moved to Washington with her husband, Peter. He is a patent lawyer who now works for Mobil Corp. here. Roberts applied immediately to the local bureau of the BBC, but they didn’t need reporters. So she walked across the street to NPR headquarters and within three days of arriving in the United States was doing a radio broadcast about a native American theater program at the Smithsonian Institution. “Of all bizarre things, I soon became an expert on native American {Indian} affairs for NPR,” Roberts said.
During her 10 years with NPR, she produced more than 25 radio documentaries, did a weekly arts program for WETA, arts and human interest stories for WAMU and a series for the Voice of America. Her documentary on “Women Vets in Vietnam” won several awards, as did her health story on “9-5 Danger Zone.” She now lives in Lovettsville, across the river from Brunswick and the 110-foot tower of WTRI-AM stereo.
1993
February 28, 1993 | The Baltimore Sun | By Patrick McGuire
The Little Station That Could
7:29 a.m. In the airwaves southwest of Frederick, near the quiet Potomac River community of Brunswick, population 5,000, the only voice coming over the car radio at 1520 on the AM dial is the strident sneer of shock-jock announcer Howard Stern. Thanks to the magic of electromagnetism, his bilious attitude has filtered all the way down through the ether from WKBW in Buffalo, N.Y. Somewhere, the great radio pioneer Guglielmo Marconi is spinning in his grave.
7:30 a.m. A piercing signal emanates from the radio, followed by the crisp tones of banjo music. It’s as if Howard Stern has been hit by a well-aimed phaser and blasted into antimatter. The deep voice of Tom Whalen booms over the bluegrass, announcing that WTRI, Brunswick’s daring little 1520-AM, dawn-to-dusk, 500-watt station, is on the air.
7:37 a.m. Tom, who spent 15 years in New York as an actor and truck driver before retreating to the charm of small-town radio, reads a list of school buses delayed because of an overnight dusting of snow. He then urges listeners to get on down to the Sheetz gas station and eatery, “where you can see your sandwich being made.”
7:50 a.m. Reading from the sports page of the Frederick $H newspaper, Tom recaps basketball scores from the previous night. He is alone in the station, a single-story, cement-block bungalow whose living room is the lobby and whose bedrooms are the studios. The front door bears a homey brass knocker and the stoop has a mat — as do the rows of split-level homes in the typically neat suburban neighborhood that starts just across the street.
In a field out back of the bungalow stands the station’s antenna. It carries Tom’s voice over a 50-mile radius, extending into a tri-state area bounded by Hagerstown, Frederick and Gaithersburg in Maryland; Leesburg and Herndon in Virginia; and Martinsburg in West Virginia.
Station owner Liz Roberts, who bought the near-bankrupt country-music station a year ago from associates of political extremist Lyndon H. LaRouche Jr., hopes to take delivery soon of new equipment to boost the power to 10,000 watts. When she does, she will have two reasons to celebrate.
First, the station will have a new transmitter to replace the ancient monster that sits a few feet from Tom’s microphone. It emits a steady thrum during the day and puts out so much heat that the back door of the bungalow must remain open — allowing heat to escape, but also letting frigid outdoor air seep inside. In the summer, the sound of lawn mowers and crickets comes through that doorway and combines with the thrum for an interesting background symphony to all announcements.
Second, it will mean that Liz Roberts’ grand broadcasting experiment — in which the veteran producer for the British Broadcasting Corp. and National Public Radio gambled with a format shunned by other stations — will have survived against heavy odds. Her plan is simple: WTRI plays only local music, most of it country, folk and bluegrass, some of it recorded, and much of it performed live right in those tiny bedroom studios.
Because her definition of “local” is loose enough to include the richly endowed music scene in the Washington-Baltimore region, hundreds of guitar pickers, songwriters and singers have found their way to the remote bungalow, hauling in everything from banjos to jaw’s harps.
In the meantime, Liz has invited church choirs and schoolchildren into her station; she has brought in horn players from high school bands to talk of their musical goals; she has even had area writers read their short stories over the air. Several times the station has broadcast community events, including the annual Railroad Days festival that Brunswick is noted for and a Halloween party for 400 children.
While many feared that a station with such a narrowly defined format would go over like an endless amateur hour, WTRI in its first 12 months has surprised the doubters. It has managed to win awards, raise eyebrows in the radio industry and even draw praise from broadcasting critics. More importantly, it appears to have won the acceptance of the locals.
“She really is trying to involve the community,” says Bobbie Wilkinson, a listener from nearby Hamilton, Va. “When she gets people from the community involved, other people listen because they look on her as a friend. How many radio station presidents are that accessible to the public?”
Still, Brunswick’s mayor, Richard E. Goodrich, notes there was a difficult adjustment period. “One of the things Liz had to overcome was the fact WTRI was once affiliated with that group out of Leesburg,” he says, referring to the unpredictable and often unpopular LaRouche political organization.
“So Liz walked into a situation with a credibility problem,” he says. “But she did her homework and has been very hard-working. She has shown her commitment to be part of the community. It’s so nice to say to people, ‘I’m from Brunswick — and by the way, do you listen to our local radio station?’ “
10 a.m. The front door — which was always locked under the previous ownership — opens and Margie Rylatt, a young folk singer-songwriter out of Frederick, enters shyly with her guitar.
“It’s just wonderful to be able to come up here,” she says, grinning excitedly. “There are a lot of musicians who record on independent labels, and it’s hard for them to be heard on a big station or a Top-40 station. This gives us a chance to be heard.”
10:10 a.m. Andrea Kershaw, the station’s music director, adjusts Margie’s microphone and closes the back door to the bungalow so the studio feels just slightly less like the Arctic. She screens the hundreds of tapes sent in by musicians, and in the summer she also mows the station’s lawn. “We all wear three or four hats here because there are so few of us,” she says. She also sells ads and keeps watch over Sidney, Liz’s shaggy sheep dog, who is a fixture at the station.
“I did a degree in psychology,” says Andrea, a native of Britain whose mother was a BBC colleague of Liz Roberts. “But the fact is, in England there were not that many people crying out for psychology majors. So I came here.”
10:15 a.m. Margie Rylatt strums a tune called “It’s a Hard Life.” Out in the living room, Sidney stretches out, taking up most of the floor space. Liz emerges from her bedroom office and steps over him, reading from a Country magazine press release that describes a recent readers’ poll naming WTRI announcers as the best in several categories.
“I think this says folks are listening to local music,” she says, “and they like it a whole lot more than the experts who say Top 40 is the way to go.”
10:20 a.m. In the main studio Tom is engaged in a heady conversation with Margie about the hidden meaning of “It’s a Hard Life.” Sidney softly groans in his slumber.
“When I came up here looking to buy a station, I listened to every one in the area and visited many,” says Liz. “Everyone was replicating everyone else. There are just a few set formats: Basically you don’t offend anyone, and keep it soft and gentle. It’s all elevator music. Some stations don’t even have announcers in the building. It’s getting to the point where there is no local identity at all.”
She and her husband, Peter, a patent attorney, emigrated from Birmingham, England, in 1982, itching for a change in their lives. She worked at NPR for several years, but grew restless for her own operation and jumped at the chance to buy the failing WTRI. It wasn’t until she’d come to the Brunswick-Leesburg area, though, that she stumbled onto the idea of using the station to showcase area talent. Until then, she’d vaguely thought of converting WTRI’s format from country to all-oldies.
“At several parties I was invited to,” she says, “I noticed that sooner or later a guitar would come out of a case and people would retreat to the kitchen and sing. Every party developed into a musical experience. There’s a strong tradition of that in this area.”
Then, a Lovettsville, Va., gas station operator asked if she would play the music of his bluegrass band once she’d taken over WTRI. She agreed, and decided for the first day or so to highlight musicians from the Maryland and Virginia listening area. Word of her intentions spread so quickly along the musicians’ grapevine that by the time the sale of the station was made final in February 1992, she had received more than 100 tapes from hopeful singers.
“We started playing local music and we have never run out of material,” she says. To date, she has collected almost 600 recordings, including one sent by a baker in nearby Shepherdstown, W. Va., along with three loaves of his bread.
10:45 a.m. Janet Arey, the third British employee at WTRI, fills a glass jar on her desk, just inside the front door, with large dog biscuits. Officially the office manager, she is also the station’s photographer, snapping candids of each guest. She brings singers that crucial glass of water before they go on the air, cooks them small pizzas in a microwave oven, answers the phones, and even fills in when an extra voice is needed for a chorus.
When Janet, who lives only three blocks from the station, applied for a job, Liz initially turned her down. “I didn’t want to be seen as a British Mafia,” Liz says. “But later that day, the phones were ringing off the hook. I called Janet back and said, ‘Just come up and help us out for a day.’ And she did and we all fell in love with her.”
“It’s just one big happy family,” says Janet, handing Sidney a dog biscuit.
10:55 a.m. Asked why Tom seems to be the only person at the station without a British accent, Janet quips in a Cockney accent, “Well, it’s because he doesn’t work at it.”
Tom, overhearing, shoots back, “I have to keep reminding them who won the American Revolution.”
11:10 a.m. Liz seems unfazed that a current issue of Broadcasting magazine says radio broadcasting is in an
irreversible decline. She is used to ignoring gloomy forecasts. “She certainly has shown there are no obstacles in her way,” says Mayor Goodrich.
Indeed, Monitoring Times, a broadcasting-industry publication, wrote in an editorial: “Three cheers for Liz Roberts’ courageous new format: local music.” Alex Zavistovich, editor of Radio World magazine, also had words of encouragement: “If you’re a local station you should try to reflect that interest in all aspects of your programming, including music.”
Still, the ultimate question is, do people listen?
“Local music is a radical format,” says Tom. “Radio becomes comforting background music to a lot of people. But with this format, people have to stop and say, ‘What is this?’ “
Liz says she bases her belief that she is reaching her audience on faith and a few encouraging events. There was the day not long after Hurricane Andrew hit southern Florida, when a Brunswick man drove his empty truck trailer to the station and challenged Liz to get listeners to fill it up with clothing items that he would then haul south.
She did just that, broadcasting the appeal for disaster-relief items. For a solid week listeners trooped up to the station to deposit everything from mattresses to diapers to canned goods. On another occasion, a woman arrived with a lost dog. A few minutes after the station announced its find, the pooch was reunited with its owner.
“The only way you know you’ve got listeners is if they act,” Liz says. “Far from not giving a damn what they listen to, I think people adore what we are doing. We took a survey when we started and asked, ‘If you heard someone local playing music, would you listen?’ And 98 percent said, ‘Absolutely. We’d love to hear what Joe’s boy is doing.’ “
In fact, Susan Planck, who operates Wheatland Vegetable Farms on Route 287 near Lovettsville, was so keen on the idea that she and her husband, Chris, donated $300 to the station even before it went on the air.
“We just loved what Liz was planning,” says Susan. “People like to hear local people on the radio. Liz has shown you can be local and please your listeners.”
11:20 a.m. Baltimore singers Jane Brody and Julia Vanek knock timidly on the station’s front door. Liz swings it open and flings her arm around their necks, hugging and welcoming them. She has never met them before.
Inside, Julia looks around the homey station, taking in the large sheep dog. “You get a sense that this is the way the world is supposed to be,” she says. Her partner, Jane Brody, nods in awe. “It’s home-grown. It’s organic.”
11:45 a.m. As Jane and Julia begin singing one of their original, folky, bluesy compositions, Liz watches through a studio window.
“I like to get people in here to play, so that when you play their tapes it means much more to you that you know the people,” she says. “We say to everyone we will play you one time. If they are absolutely excruciating — and about 1 percent are — we still give them one play.”
Once a singer forgot his lyrics in the middle of his song.
“Listeners called up immediately and said they sympathized and knew just how bad he felt, and asked that he be given another chance. So we gave him another go.”
12:15 p.m. Charlie Donelon, a Western Maryland bluesman, has hauled his three guitars into the main studio. Kate Buck, a Frederick folk music guru, has taken over now from Tom and sits behind the studio mike. In the living room, Jane and Julia and Margie Rylatt are in animated conversation with Pete Papageorge, yet another singer-songwriter who has stopped by. Some performers are invited in on a regular basis and some just drop in. The only rule of thumb is that if there is time, they get to go on the air. The mood now is festive. Janet rushes about, snapping photos and serving up slices of homemade zucchini bread.
1:30 p.m. Sidney paws open the door and takes off down the street. Andrea yelps and gives chase. Janet serves tea.
2:05 p.m. Bluegrass guitarist Paul Adkins arrives to host his weekly bluegrass show. During a commercial he says, “I’ve never heard anything like this station in my entire career, and I’ve been traveling around the country on the bluegrass circuit for 15 years. There’s no one else out there playing local styles like this.”
4:15 p.m. Liz plunges into her “drive time” segment. Unlike disc jockeys who offer traffic updates and news, Liz today recites a recipe for homemade dog biscuits.
Off the air she adds, “So many stations have cards that tell the deejay exactly what to say. I think listeners more prefer a chatty style. They feel we are talking to them.”
4:25 p.m. Slim Harrison, perhaps the most unusual musician in WTRI’s vast repertoire, plops down on a stool next to Liz in the main studio. Employed part time by the Maryland Arts Council to teach folk music to children and teachers, Slim is also well-known for his workshops on “How to Play Your Mouth.”
This afternoon he pulls from his pocket a simple jaw’s harp and to its twangy drone sings a dog ditty:
“Every time I go to town,
The boys keep kicking my dog around;
Makes no difference if he is a hound,
You gotta quit kicking my dog around.”
5:05 p.m. The phone rings. A listener says the radio sounds like a country store. Everybody takes it as a good sign.
5:15 p.m. Until it can be powered up to a 24-hour-a-day station, WTRI must sign off with sundown each day. “We’ll be back bright and early tomorrow,” Liz announces cheerily. Then, eyeing Andrea and Janet, she adds, “Right now it’s time for all of us to say . . . ” And with a stiff upper lip, three British voices echo in unison: ” ‘Nite!”
5:25 p.m. Janet looks horrified. “Oh gosh, Sidney’s water dish is empty.” She fills it and then hauls the day’s rubbish to the curb for tomorrow’s trash pickup.
L Andrea is on the phone, meanwhile, closing a deal for an ad.
Liz, looking tired, takes a seat behind Janet’s desk, where Janet seldom has been all day. Liz talks about the volume of advertisers she’s built up. “We do have ourselves in the black, but our noses are just above the water line,” she says. “We’ve worked hard to show we are not just a garage-band station. But the key to it all is if we can’t sell this, then it was just a fun idea.”
Somewhere, no doubt, Guglielmo Marconi is resting a little easier.
[Updated October 24, 2018]
Source: https://www.baltimoresun.com/1993/02/28/the-little-station-that-could/
2005
March 21, 2005 | The Frederick News-Post | By Ed Waters, Jr.
Three area men own Brunswick radio station
BRUNSWICK In an era when local radio stations seem to be a thing of the past, three entrepreneurs are bringing the airwaves back to local ownership.
Buddy Rizer, Marty Sheehan and Taylor Walsh are partners at WTRI, or as they refer to it, “Vegas Radio,” for its new format. The airwaves are filled with a blend of Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin, Tom Jones and Carly Simon at 1520 AM. When the new owners bought the station, it was in disrepair, said Mr. Rizer, a Gaithersburg resident who will be moving to Frederick County. He and his friends spent hours “over-filling” a large commercial dumpster, and there is still work to do.
“We plan to do a lot more renovation,” Mr. Rizer said during a tour of the station. And that includes the land in back of the station building, where the antennas are located. “I can’t wait until warm weather so I can get out here and clear the land (of overgrowth).” With the advent of chain-owned radio stations, WTRI is unique, but not necessarily the only one, if Mr. Sheehan’s goal is reached.
“I’d like to get more stations locally, especially in Montgomery County. We have coverage here for Frederick and Loudon (Va.) counties with WTRI,” said Mr. Sheehan, a Chevy Chase resident. Mr. Rizer described the “Vegas Radio” format as “based on nostalgia, but there is a lot of contemporary music that also fits the style. It is really based on style more than era. We have Sinatra, Dean Martin, Tony Bennett, Nora Jones, Squirrel Nut Zippers — we are targeting the 25 to 54 age group.”
Although the music and some announcements are programmed locally into a computer, “I’d like to get an arm for the turntable we have and play some of my 10,000 records,” Mr. Rizer said. WTRI is currently a “daytime station,” Mr. Rizer said, on the air from 6:30 a.m. to 6:15 p.m. “We have applied to the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) for extended hours. We will have to wait to see what they are going to say.”
The three worked for about a year getting the station, Mr. Rizer said, much of it through the help of Business Loan Express. He currently has a live morning show —-6:30 to 10 a.m. — which he said is “unusual these days” in light of large communications firms that transmit shows to all their stations, and only an engineer is on hand to make sure it all works. Mr. Rizer said he has always wanted to be in radio. “My parents have a tape of my brother and I when I was about five years old doing a ‘radio broadcast’ on station WFUN because we thought it was fun.”
He describes himself as “one of those rare people who always knew what they wanted to do. It is my dream come true to own a radio station.” He began his career with WARX in Hagerstown in 1978, worked for 16 years at DC 101 in Washington, and for a year at 98 Rock in Baltimore before becoming a partner in WTRI.
Mr. Sheehan’s background is in sales. He came from Clear Channel and was formerly sales manager at ESPN Radio. Mr. Walsh’s expertise is in Web design and the Internet. “I began at the Montgomery Journal in Bethesda and covered high school sports, but in the early ’80s I became interested in computers and was dragged into radio,” said Mr. Walsh, a Bethesda resident. He said the local reaction has been excellent. “We got our radio station back,” is what I hear, Mr. Walsh said. He hopes to eventually “stream” the station onto the Internet.
The station gets news and weather from Metronews, but Mr. Rizer puts in local traffic and weather reports during his morning show and tapes them for throughout the day. Mr. Rizer said he wants to get local input. “We want to put car washes and bake sales on the air. I plan to do a lot of public appearances and live broadcasts. It is what really sets us apart. The community has really embraced us.”
[Updated Mar 11, 2016]
March 24, 2005 | The Business Gazette | By Kevin Smith
New Owners Revive Brunswick Radio Station
Three media veterans hope that an AM radio station in Brunswick is only the first piece in their nascent radio empire. New co-owners Buddy Rizer, Marty Sheehan and Taylor Walsh bought the 17,000-watt station, making it the county’s only independently owned broadcast outlet.
The newly revived WTRI AM 1520 has been on the air for three weeks, following weeks of work to overhaul the moribund stations facilities. Sheehan, speaking for his partners, declined to disclose the purchase price. The 1,387-square foot building, on 4.3 acres, was assessed at $97,901 last year, according to the Maryland Department of Assessments and Taxation.
The new venture, called JMK Communications Inc., financed the deal through Business Loan Express in West Virginia; it was the lenders first loan for a radio station, Sheehan said.
The partners may be in their first venture as owners, but they are not industry neophytes. Rizer is a former program director and co-air personality at DC101 and 98 Rock in Baltimore; Sheehan is a former sales director in radio giant Clear Channel and officer at ESPN Radio in Washington, DC; and Walsh, who will be responsible for WTRI’s Web presence and writing, has been involved in Internet media for almost 15 years. “Our goal,” said Sheehan, station president and general manager, “is to buy other small stations that need repairs. Hopefully in two or three years we’ll have four or five stations.”
The previous owner used the Brunswick station to transmit Korean programming that originated out-of-town. After they bought it, Sheehan and his partners had plenty of work to fix up the place. The building had been virtually abandoned, and needed rewiring, painting and a good cleaning.
“Over a third of the investment went into the purchase, but when we first looked at the place, we could barely get in the door, it was so blocked with mail,” Sheehan said. “After we bought the the place I got my sons up here and we got to work. All it cost me was a case of beer and a couple of sandwiches. We were finding snake skins in the ceiling.”
In a bit of a coup, JMK landed the rights to carry Washington Nationals games to the county. However, the statin’s license requires it to sign off at 9 p.m. in the summers, so the Nationals deal is for day games only. Sheehan is petitioning the Federal Communications Commission and the 1520 AM radio in Buffalo, N.Y., which can be heard in Frederick after WTRI powers-down, for more air time so it can broadcast night games too.
Despite the building’s deterioration, the property was attractive to the partners because the purchase included the transmitting tower. At many stations, the broadcast towers are on a separate property, with the station playing rent for them. “We looked at a station in Potomac, but it was too expensive and we would have had to pay rent to a country club where the tower was located,” Sheehan said.
JMK plans to compete with its high-powered competitors in the county, Clean Channel and Nassau Broadcasting, by offering lower advertising rates. “We have a five-year plan in place,” Sheehan said. “In the scheme of things, the radio station should be profitable by the end of the first year. We’re running a real lean and mean operation.” The station, which has what the partners call a “Vegas” format, is in a testing phase, Sheehan said.
“March is a test month for us,” he said. “We’ll get some stuff going, make some mistakes. The real launching is the spring. The key right now was that we really had to get on the air.”
The experimentation includes testing the format, which defies traditional classification such as adult contemporary, soft rock, country or classic rock. According to data from Arbitron, an industry rating company, adult contemporary, urban, contemporary Top 40 and country garner the largest market shares.
In radio, as in television, ratings drive the industry. “It’s not unusual for advertisers and agencies to limit buys to the top five or even top three stations in the market,” Arbitron said in its 2004 industry report. WTRI could cash in by riding the Rat Pack nostalgia wave, Sheehan said.
“The simple way to explain the format – it’s good music, it’s got a good beat, a catchy tune,” he said. “Very upbeat, it’s happy and it’s not a genre. As long as it’s good, as long as it put a smile on your face, that’s our style. Our whole goal is to target adults over 30. If we get some under 30 and some over 45, that’s a bonus.”
Artists range from Top 40 singers such as John Mayer and Norah Jones to crooners such as Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin. “We found a hole here,” Sheehan said. “You couldn’t find Sinatra on the radio unless you had XM (satellite radio).”
May 26, 2005 | The Brunswick Citizen
Live, In The Morning
Budd Rizer (left) continued his Friday morning live remote WTRI broadcasts from Bean In The Belfry last week. Here he is pictured doing his early morning broadcast, accompanied by his afternoon counterpart, Ray Dinterman.
2007
September 27, 2007 | The Frederick News-Post | By Ed Waters, Jr.
Brunswick Radio to Become Spanish Speaking Channel
BRUNSWICK — Radio station WTRI will begin broadcasting during the day in Spanish, Oct. 1. Buddy Rizer, a Brunswick resident who owns the AM station with Marty Sheehan, said Jose Roberto Ekonomo and Aida Esperanza Ekonomo will be leasing air time for Spanish language programming.
The Ekonomos own two travel businesses, one in Gaithersburg and one in Manassas, Va. They also lease AM radio stations in Newark, Del., and Spartanburg, S.C. Rizer and Sheehan will continue to own the station, and the lessee has purchased time to broadcast daily from sunrise to sunset, Rizer said.
“They would operate our license; they are leasing air time. It is a very good financial deal for us,” Rizer said.
WTRI Begins Spanish Language Programming
On October 1, 2007, WTRI flipped to brokered Spanish language programming. The station’s former “Vegas Radio” adult standards format was abandoned at that time.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WTRI
October 3, 2007 | The Gazette | By Rebecca McClay
Spanish Radio Station Takes Over Airwaves In Brunswick
Vegas Radio bids adieu from WTRI after more than two years of airing from western Frederick County.
A Spanish radio station began airing on WTRI 1520 AM Monday, replacing Vegas Radio and disc jockey Buddy Rizer’s Brunswick community morning show.
Rizer, co-owner of the station on 13th Avenue, will begin an online version of Vegas Radio, which features a mix of adult contemporary music, while leasing the building to the new owners He said the offer came from Jose and Aida Ekonomo, a Salvadoran couple who had approached him several months ago. It was too good an offer to turn down, he said.
The couple plans to broadcast mainly from a Manassas, Va., studio, but will likely begin more work from Brunswick in the near future, Rizer said. The Ekonomos were unavailable for comment.
“Radio, like any other business, is a for-profit business,” Rizer said. “While we’ve been pleased with how we’ve done, the income has barely kept up with expenses.” He declined to comment on specifics of the finances or leasing deal.
Like many members of the local business community, Frederick Keys manager David Ziedelis said he is sorry to see Vegas Radio leave. “Regarding radio stations, there is a significant Spanish listening audience, ” Rizer said.
Rizer and co-owner Martin F. Sheenan formed Tricaster Communications to purchase the 1,387-square foot Brunswick facility and station in 2004 and began airing in February 2005. The onsite towers previously transmitted Korean programming from out-of-town.
Rizer, a Brunswick resident, said he and Sheehan plan to remain involved in the community and may try to find another radio outlet to air Vegas Radio. “It’s been the most rewarding thing I’ve ever done,” said Rizer, a former program director and disc jockey for DC101 and 98 Rock in Baltimore. “But I don’t think it’s over at this point.”
Photo: Cassis Bowen / Special To The Gazette
2009
WTRI Becomes ‘Radio Earl‘
As of March 3, 2009, WTRI was effectively dark, though no silent transmission application was filed with the Federal Communications Commission. On April 8, 2009, WTRI began carrying a Classic Country format under the branding “Radio Earl”.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WTRI
2010
WTRI Begins Christian Talk Programming
In January 2010, the “Radio Earl” format was abandoned in favor of leasing the station’s signal to nearby WTHU, a Christian talk and teaching AM radio station. In September 2010, the station ceased operations, and after October 2010, was off the air.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WTRI
2011
WTRI Becomes ‘Radio La Grande 1520‘
In January 2011, WTRI began broadcasting Spanish language music as “Radio La Grande 1520.” On May 18, 2011 WTRI began carrying “KHZ Network” with eclectic pop music also carried on Maryland stations WKHZ, WYRE and WAMD (AM). In September 2011, the station again went silent.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WTRI
2012
WTRI Switches To ‘Radio Asia‘
In May 2012, WTRI began relaying the South Asian programming from “Radio Asia” based in New Jersey. As of March 3, 2013, the station was again silent.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WTRI
2014
WTRI Fined And Now Owned By FCC
In May 2014, after repeated fines for going silent without permission, the station fell into receivership by order of the Federal Communications Commission.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WTRI
2015
‘Radio Asia’ Returns To WTRI
WTRI was off the air and in receivership until it was bought for $275,000 in May 2015 by Hasmukh Shah, who also owns WXMC in New Jersey. Shah began broadcasting the “Radio Asia” format on WTRI, airing a variety of Filmi and Bollywood music, along with talk in Hindi and Punjabi. The purchase was consummated on August 6, 2015, at a price of $275,000.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WTRI
2021
July 6, 2021 | The Frederick News-Post | By Ty Unglebower
Turning the dial
WTRI-AM, Brunswick is a daytime-only radio station. A small one. The station itself is about the size of a large garage at most. Hidden from the view of most of the citizens of Brunswick, it sits on the equally modest 13th Avenue, on what could be called the very edge of residential areas in the city.
Its reach is also modest. On average days, you can hear it in most of Frederick itself, and points southwest within the county. On an exceptional day, (according to radio-locator.com), folks as far away as St. Charles, or Baltimore to the east can catch the signal. Owned by Hasmukh Shah, the station most recently relayed a signal playing Bollywood music and other programing.
In previous decades, it has played country western music in more than one era. An odd mix of supposed “casino” music for a brief period, and programming owned and approved of by Lyndon LaRouche and his people.
It has rarely been a particularly popular or profitable radio station. These days, AM radio is drying up all over the country, outside of the talk formats. Small community radio stations, such as WTRI, which started in 1966, are even more rare, in this age of media mega-conglomerates. The era of the purely community based commercial station may in fact be over. Unless something major were to change in laws, regulations, or cost, WTRI’s days serving the Brunswick area, specifically while making a profit, are long behind it.
2023
June 14, 2023 | Town of Brunswick, Maryland
City of Brunswick Agrees to Purchase WTRI
Agreement of sale was executed on June 14, 2023 to sell WTRI to the City of Brunswick.
September 12, 2023 | Town of Brunswick, Maryland
WTRI Sold to City Of Brunswick
The agreement was passed on September 12, 2023.
2024
On Saturday, February 17, 2024, DJ Randy Sigler visits the WTRI for the first time since 1976. Special thanks to the Mayor of Brunswick, Nathan Brown for meeting us there and letting us tour the building.
Source: Photos courtesy of the Sigler family.
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