Boston University has sold NPR Talk 1240 WBUR West Yarmouth, MA to Langer Broadcasting.
Langer will flip the station to a brokered Portuguese format serving the Brazilian and Portuguese populations on Cape Cod potentially simulcasting soon to be sister 650 WSRO Ashland, MA.
The 1240 signal became redundant for Boston University when the school acquired 92.7 WMVY (now WBUA) Martha’s Vineyard last year to simulcast its primary 90.9 WBUR-FM Boston signal.
The press release announcing the sale follows:
Alex Langer, President and Chairman of Langer Broadcasting Group, LLC and Charles Kravetz, General Manager of WBUR, Boston’s NPR News Station, announced that they have signed a letter of intent for Langer Broadcasting Group to purchase WBUR’s repeater signal, 1240-AM in West Yarmouth, Massachusetts. Langer’s new station will serve the large Brazilian and Portuguese communities of Cape Cod and the Islands.
“I’m eager to share more Portuguese-language programming with growing audiences, as we’ve done in the greater Boston area with Radio 650-AM, WSRO,” said Langer. “There is an appetite for more multi-cultural broadcasting in Massachusetts, especially in areas like Cape Cod where the Portuguese-speaking community is increasing every year.”
WBUR has simulcast its programming on WBUR AM 1240 since it secured ownership of the station in 1997. The 1240 signal has served Cape Cod and the Islands since 1940 and was Cape Cod’s first radio station. The changeover is expected to take place sometime in the fall, pending FCC approval.
“In February, when WBUR began simulcasting on 92.7 WBUA in Martha’s Vineyard, we recognized that our 1240-AM signal was redundant in its coverage. And so, we’re pleased the station will now go to Langer Broadcasting, where it’ll be used to serve the Portuguese-speaking communities of Cape Cod and the Islands,” said WBUR General Manager Charlie Kravetz.
WBUR purchased 92.7 from Aritaur Communications earlier this year, boosting its reach to more than 60,000 prospective listeners on Martha’s Vineyard, Nantucket and Cape Cod, as well as in New Bedford, Fall River, Falmouth, Westport, Marion and other Massachusetts South Coast locations. This signal is in addition to WBUR’s current 50,000-watt signal on 90.9 FM, which broadcasts across all of metropolitan Boston and eastern Massachusetts.
WSRO, Langer’s first Portuguese formatted radio station, headquartered in Framingham, Massachusetts, offers family-friendly talk, music, news, entertainment, and religious content. WSRO is the only Brazilian Portuguese-based, 24-hour radio station in the USA.
laurenceglavin 
Left out of the stories I’ve seen so far is the fact that WBUR is also rebroadcast on two FMs on the Cape itself (Martha’s Vineyard is an island of course, but pretty close the mainland). Those outlets are WCCT-FM 90.3 in Harwich, and WSDH 91.5 in Sandwich. These stations seem to serve no other purpose but to rebroadcast WBUR; whether they’re also deemed superfluous by Boston University, I don’t know. They’re not OWNED by BU, so their licensees if they wished might be able to become community stations or be sold (gulp) to some encroaching “religious” operation. WSDH does help WBUR’s coverage near the canal.
WCCT and WSDH are both high school stations that rebroadcast WBUR when not originating their own programming. But as you say because WBUR doesn’t own them they don’t control their destinies. They exist but are not under WBUR management.