WISR

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WISR

Broadcast area	Butler, Pennsylvania / Pittsburgh
Branding	"Your Hometown Station"
First air date	September 26, 1941
Frequency	680(kHz)
Format	News, talk, sports, nostalgia
ERP	250 watts (Daytime); 50 watts (Night)
Callsign meaning	Isaac Samuel Rosenblum
Owner	Butler County Radio Network
Website	http://www.insidebutlercounty.com

WISR is a commercial AM radio station licensed to Butler, Pennsylvania. The station was the first to go on the air in Butler County, doing so on September 26, 1941. The station was the very last to be granted a broadcast license before the FCC halted the licensing of any more stations until after World War II. It has always broadcast on AM 680 with a maximum power output of 250 watts, non-directional. The station had operated as a daytime-only station until it was granted limited nighttime power in the late 80's.

1 First in Butler County: A Family Affair
2 1997: Duopoly Sale
3 Brandon Ownership Era Ends
4 WISR Today

[edit] First in Butler County: A Family Affair

WISR was the brainchild of local businessman David Rosenblum, who felt that the community could use a local radio station to promote its community and events. Naming the station after his father, Isaac Samuel Rosenblum, David Rosenblum managed the station and sold airtime, with his wife Georgia keeping the books. The couple continued to operate the radio station until their deaths in the early 1950's. It was at that time that the Rosenblums' son Joel, assumed the operations of WISR. Joel Rosenblum's brother Raymond later owned and managed a station of his own some 25 miles to the east, known as AM 1380 WACB (now WTYM) Kittanning.

[edit] 1997: Duopoly Sale

Joel Rosenblum continued to operate WISR out of its original studio on North Main Street in downtown Butler until 1997, when he agreed to sell the station to Brandon Communications Systems, Incorporated. That company, headed by Robert C. Brandon and his brother Ronald, was the licensee of WISR's crosstown competitor, WBUT (AM) and WLER-FM, which first signed on the air in 1948. Co-incidentally, WLER-FM evolved out of the former FM license that had been issued to WISR. The station had been originally known as WISR-FM until the Rosenblum ownership returned the license to the FCC, failing to make a go with it in these early years of FM. The license was recovered by WBUT's ownership years later.

Another co-incidence: Larry Berg, who had been the owner of competitor WBUT AM/FM from 1964 until 1978, would not disappear from the broadcast industry entirely. He resurfaced at WISR a few years later, where he hosted his own afternoon talk show and sold airtime.

[edit] Brandon Ownership Era Ends

Brandon Communications Systems then changed its name to the Butler County Radio Network soon after the acquisition of WISR. A few years later, the Brandon brothers, one by one, sold their interests in the station to the present ownership made up of four local entrepreneurs, but the Butler County Radio Network has remained the name of the licensee. In 2003, WISR moved from its original North Main Street location to its present location in Pullman Commerce Center, located on the south edge of Butler just off Route 8 south. It shares space with WBUT and WLER.

[edit] WISR Today

WISR, along with WBUT and WLER, has been locally-owned from the very beginning. Its current format is a mixture of news, talk, sports, and nostalgia music, and continues its affiliation with the CBS radio network, which it has maintained since being granted nighttime power. It is also Butler County's exclusive radio home to the Pittsburgh Pirates, Pittsburgh Steelers, Penn State Football, and is the radio voice of Slippery Rock University. Longtime personalities Dave Malarkey and Pat Parker have each been with WISR for many years, with Malarkey first joining the station in 1973, and Parker in 1988.