Business & Tech

Is 92.5 FM 'The River' Coming to Concord?

A subsidiary of the Massachusetts radio station has bought WWHK 102.3 FM, the former WKXL-FM signal in West Concord.

Could the old WKXL 102.3 FM be returning to its adult album alternative roots?

WWHK 102.3 FM, the Concord radio station that has been playing symphonic renditions of rock and new wave classics, has been sold to a subsidiary of 92.5 FM The River, according to RadioInsight.com, a radio industry news and information website.

Devon Broadcasting Company, a subsidiary of Northeast Broadcasting, the independent owners of the popular 92.5 FM The River station that is simulcast around New England, purchased the station for $425,000, according to a Federal Communications Commission filing. Birch Broadcasting, a company created and owned by conservative online columnist Andrew Sumereau, had purchased it for $950,000 more than five years ago from the Vox Media Corporation, after the FCC determined in 2008 that Nassau Broadcasting, a company that purchased a number of Vox's radio stations in the market, owned too many.

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After Sumereau purchased the station, it was playing hard rock music and then, went dark for a short period of time. Not long after that, it began playing the symphonic renditions of songs, everything from The Doors to Nirvana.

The station has a complicated, chaotic history.

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It first went on the air in 1972 as a sister station to the popular, historic WKXL 1450 AM station. In 1980, the owner, Frank Estes, who also owned a WKXR in Exeter, decided to retire, and sold the stations to a group of employees, including Dick Osborne, Jim Rivers, Pat Chaloux, Dan Colgan, Don Dunklee, the late Gardner Hill, and others. 

In the late 1980s, the owners experimented with what was called “light alternative” at the time, with a similar sound to what The River has now, with live disc jockeys spinning records. However, advertisers weren’t drawn to the format and the experiment ended in 1991, with the station simulcasting the AM signal on FM. 

In 1999, both the AM and FM stations along with 105 JYY were sold to Vox Media for $5.1 million (About $7.2 million in today's dollars) and later, began broadcasting country music as WOTX, The Outlaw. 

In 2004, the station was sold to Nassau Broadcasting as part of a multi-station deal valued at $26 million but the FCC ruled it was too many stations. Formats were shifted – WOTX became WWHK, The Hawk, airing classic rock, until the sale to Sumereau was finalized in 2011.

The station could be, however, returning to its light alternative format roots though since Devon Broadcasting, which also owns WLKC 105.7 FM in Campton, simulcasts The River on that station. The River is also simulcast on FM stations in Massachusetts, in the towns of Athol and Orange. 

The company could also try something completely different, since it also owns WNYN 99.1 FM in Whitefield/Littleton, which bills itself as “Free 99.1,” playing “whatever, whenever,” from disco, metal, rap, Top 40, grunge, and new wave, according to its website.

No one from 92.5 The River responded to an email requesting comment about the sale.


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