Massena NY Radio: No Buyers, WYBG-AM Signs-Off

Dorothy, Curran Wade

Listeners tuning their radio dials to 1050 AM will hear the sounds of silence.

WYBG radio is no more.

The Watertown Daily Times reports, Tuesday was the last day of operation for the station that began beaming its signal 57 years ago under the call sign WSTS out of the former Slavin’s building. For the past 27 years, it has been under the local ownership and operation of Wade Communications Inc.

“I told Nathan (C. Jaquith, control room operator), ‘You have the dubious distinction of playing the national anthem for the last time,’” owner and general manager Curran E. Wade said.

Wade, who has been in the broadcasting business for 61 years, including 50 in New York state — 27 or which have been with WYBG — said he and his wife, Dorothy M. “Dottie,” have attempted to sell the station. But, he said, there were no buyers, leading to the decision to leave the airwaves. There is, however, a 30-day window with the Federal Communications Commission for a new owner to bring the station back on the air.

WYBG 1050 AM (1 Kw-D, 66 Watts-N)

Mr. Wade said a number of factors figured into the decision to close the radio station. As the only live and locally owned and operated radio station, he was handling 99 percent of the sales, was traveling about 700 miles a week and will turn 79 years old in two months.

A transmitter problem in 2013 kept the station off the air for two months, from October to the beginning of December, and Mr. Wade said it never recovered from that.

Wade Communications purchased what previously had been a music station in 1988 and kept the music format for a while before deciding to make a switch to the talk format. Over the years, listeners found talk shows hosted by Bill Bennett, Laura Ingraham, Dennis Prager, Michael Medved, Roger Hedgecock and others, as well as national, regional and local news coverage.