Charles River Broadcasting

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Charles River Broadcasting is the owner of three classical music stations, one classic rock station, and one CNN Headline News relay in Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

[edit] History

The company started in 1948 when WCRB first signed on at 1330 AM. In 1954, Charles River Broadcasting added WCRB-FM at 102.5 FM, which remains today. By the 1970s, WCRB's programming was removed from the 1330 AM signal, which was relaunched as beautiful music WHET. (WHET was sold in 1982 and is now WRCA.)

By the early 1990s, Charles River Broadcasting and WCRB entered into a commitment for the station to continue running classical music until 2092. Later in the decade, the company purchased WFCC-FM Chatham, WKPE-FM Orleans (both on Cape Cod), WCRI Block Island/Westerly (formerly WVBI), and WCNX Hope Valley, Rhode Island (formerly WJJF) (both in Rhode Island) from their respective local owners. In addition, a satellite service named the World Classical Network is also operated by Charles River Broadcasting.

Recently, Charles River Broadcasting explored a sale possibility for its stations [1] (effectively interpreting the commitment as a request and not an order), and announced in December 2005 that they are selling WCRB to Greater Media, and announced the sale of WCRI/WCNX to Christopher Jones in January 2006 [2]. As of 2006, there has been no announcement regarding the sale of Cape Cod stations. Interestingly, Mr. Jones was a Unitarian Universalist minister in the Waltham Unitarian Universalist Church.. one of the few Unitarians to own a broadcasting property in the U.S.