A Vt. AM, With An FM Translator, Gets New Lease on Life

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Travel between metropolitan Montréal and Vermont’s biggest city, Burlington, and you’ll find the quaint town of Saint Albans.


Here, a silent AM licensed for 1kw during daylight and 107 watts at night, which has an FM translator assigned to it, is being handed to a new licensee.

It effectively ends months of planning and preparation from Tiffany and Eric Miller, who had revived the long-dormant operation in mid-2019.

A Form 314 filing was made Friday (2/21) with the FCC that effectively seeks their approval of a change in control of WRSA-AM 1420 and an FM translator, W262DH at 100.3 MHz, from Radio Sound Company, the entity led by the Millers.

For a token $1, plus assumption of liabilities, the AM and FM translator are being handed to Radio Broadcasting Services, a wholly owned subsidiary of Northeast Digital & Wireless.

That’s the entity led by Steven Silberberg and minority shareholder Ed Flanagan that owns and operates WWMP-FM 103.3 in Waterbury and Montpelier; WCAT-AM 1390 in Burlington; and WIXM-FM “Mix 102.3” in Grand isle, Vt.

WRSA is already incorporated into the sales and marketing materials for RBS’s “Champlain Radio Group,” with the station joining WIXM, WWMP and WCAT. This sees WRSA taking on the Bloomberg Radio programming heard of WCAT and its W252CJ at 98.3 MHz.

RBS’s other stations include WFAD-AM 1490 in Middlebury and WIFY-FM in Addison, a signal tied to the Adult Alternative “Point” network of stations heard across Vermont.

Silberberg’s NDW is also the parent of licensees with properties in South Dakota, Idaho, Wyoming, and New Hampshire. Perhaps most noteworthy, however, is NDW’s ownership in Beanpot Broadcasting Corp. That’s the entity that serves as the licensee of Boston-focused Adult Alternative network WXRV “The River.”

There is only an oral agreement between RSA and the Millers.

In June 2019, there was much promise for WRSA under the Millers. An article in the Saint Albans Messenger, noted how they brought the station back “after years of radio silence.” A mix of locally originating spoken word and music programs was in the works; a now-dormant website reflected these efforts, which included Jeff Ishee hosting “On The Farm,” Matthew Engels offering the “who and why” behind the music, and former WHBQ/Memphis and KFMB-FM “B100″/San Diego air personality Bob Landree.

“They envision live studio sessions for local musicians, interviews on the air for unique local craftspeople,” the Messenger reported.

Alas, the costs associated with operating WRSA, along with the challenges of operating a small-town radio station focused on local listeners and businesses, were seemingly too great for the Millers to overcome.

Further, there was a reeducation process needed for WRSA. According to the Messenger, “few people knew the station existed in its intermittent years of operation after 1998.”

Now, if anyone knows WRSA exists, it is for Bloomberg Radio, and business and financial news originating from the big city some five hours to the south.