Some of this column’s Final Listens are sad because they involve heritage radio stations that sounded anything but legendary at the end. Maybe I didn’t know to listen until the staff had already been taken off the air. Often there was little going on in the way of station events or even imaging. Hearing the shell of a radio station and knowing it would soon be gone altogether were doubly sad.
Listening to WRNR Annapolis, Md., last week was sad because the longtime Triple-A station sounded really good. Middayer Randi Kirshbaum sounded very cheerful about the weekend. There were still promotions on the air—for the Last Waltz tour coming to Washington, D.C., and for the station’s Yappy Hour, listeners bring their dogs to a local bar in conjunction with the SPCA. There was also that sweeper about “local independent radio”—now routine for Triple-A stations, never necessarily a silver bullet, and yet sadder when you know a station has been sold (in this case to religious WRBS-FM/AM Baltimore).
WRNR’s local independent owner is veteran programmer Steve Kingston, who hints that there may be another possible incarnation for WRNR. (There is at least one likely Baltimore area translator open.) Kingston was one of the first major programmers to notice what I was doing as radio editor of Billboard when he was PD at WHTZ (Z100) New York. That also amped up the wistfulness of listening last week, so I hope there’s an act two for the station if he wants one.
As with the recent observation that some New York suburbs have the ability to hear two Triple-A stations, there are also places where WRNR’s signal overlaps with Baltimore’s more eclectic non-comm WTMD. When WRNR’s sales were announced, there were online comments about the final end of the legacy of Alternative radio legend WHFS. Former WHFS PD Bob Waugh left WRNR earlier this year (while veteran personality Weasel left WTMD recently).
That said, WRNR didn’t strike me as any more Classic.Alt than the rest of the Triple-A format now. In fact, given Triple-A’s ongoing dialogue about its parameters, WRNR sounded well balanced in terms of new/old, alternative/everything else, hits/depth, and the various other decisions that programmers grapple with now. Here’s WRNR just before 10 a.m., November 11:
- The Head & the Heart, “All We Ever Wanted”
- Keane, “Somewhere Only We Know”
- Rosa Linn, “Snap”
- Psychedelic Furs, “Pretty in Pink”
- Death Cab for Cutie, “Here to Forever”
- Van Morrison, “Crazy Love”
- Pearl Jam, “Daughter”
- Vance Joy, “Clarify”
- Tears for Fears, “Head Over Heels”
- Bruce Springsteen, “Nightshift”
- Elton John, “Madman Across the Water”
- Florence + Machine, “Dog Days are Over”
- Nirvana, “Polly”
- Pixies, “Here Comes Your Man”
- Stone Temple Pilots, “Sour Girl”
- The Heavy Heavy, “Miles and Miles”
