NorthEast Radio Watch 1/26/2026: Public Radio Grows in RI

by Scott Fybush January 26, 2026 in Free Content, Northeast Radio Watch

In this week’s issue… OSM grows with Audacy sale – Remembering Uncle Floyd – Tower down in NY – AM goes dark in NH

By SCOTT FYBUSH

*We don’t have much of an opportunity lately to bring you stories about public radio growing, what with all the funding cuts on the federal level and often at lower levels, too – so when the news broke last week from RHODE ISLAND that the state’s public radio network was finally getting the one big signal it’s been missing for almost three decades, we knew what the lead story in our next column would be.

After merging with Rhode Island PBS (WSBE-TV), the entity now known as Ocean State Media has financial leverage it lacked as a stand-alone, which made it possible to enter into a deal to acquire the class B WVEI-FM (103.7 Westerly) signal from Audacy – and here’s why it’s such a big deal.

Longtime readers of this column have read all about the struggle to get Rhode Island and adjoining areas a public radio voice of their own, something that was missing entirely for the first few decades of the medium. In 1998, Boston University’s WBUR bought the former WRCP (1290) in Providence, turning it into WRNI as an initial stab at local public radio. A decade later, the station came under local control, and ever since 2008 it’s been trying to expand its signal reach in bits and pieces as small upgrades have become available, most notably with the 2018 acquisition and upgrade of what’s now flagship station WNPN 89.3, licensed to Newport. (Full disclosure: as a brokerage firm and as a consulting engineering firm, Fybush Media has assisted at times with some of those expansions.)

But trying to be heard on multiple frequencies in different locations, even in a small state like Rhode Island, isn’t the same thing as having one big signal on one frequency for the whole area, and that’s what will be changing when Ocean State Media moves from “102.9 in Providence, 89.3 in Newport, 89.5 in Westerly, 102.7 in Narragansett” to “103.7 everywhere.” ... The sale hasn’t been filed with the FCC yet, so we don’t know all the details, but OSM says it will be a $4.9 million project to purchase 103.7 and make whatever technical upgrades it needs.

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