Connoisseur Media has closed on its acquisition of Buckley Radio’s Hartford properties and quickly made changes at Classic Hits 102.9 WDRC-FM Hartford.
The bulk of the staff at WDRC-FM has been dismissed including General Manager Eric Fahnoe, Program Director/Midday Host Grahame Winters, Morning Host Mike Stevens, Afternoon Host Floyd Wright, and Night Host Rockin’ Ron Sedaille. The station has also tweaked its playlist to a more Rock based direction branded as “Classic Hits Of The 70s, 80s, and More”. A similar repositioning took place at Connoisseur’s “B103” WBZO Long Island in April.
WDRC-FM and sister “Talk Of Connecticut” 1360 WDRC Hartford/610 WSNG Torrington/1240 WWCO Waterbury/1470 WMMW Meriden will come under the oversight of the Connoisseur Southern Connecticut cluster GM Kristen Okesson and OM Keith Dakin. Dakin will program WDRC-FM, while his duties at Classic Rock “95.9 The Fox” WFOX Norwalk and Hot AC “Star 99.9” WEZN Bridgeport will be taken over by APD Kevin Bagley. Rock 99.1 WPLR New Haven Afternoon Host Mike Lapitino will add middays at WDRC-FM to his duties, while Allan Lamberti will move from MD/Middays at WFOX to APD/Afternoons at WDRC-FM.
What a shame. Rock classic hits is already covered well in Hartford by WHCN and WCCC.
WHCN “The River 105.9” is rock/AC. WCCC “Rock 106.9” is classic rock.
Bad move by Connoisseur to mimic 2 other stations that fill the same niche.
The thing about it that it’s WDRC AM that needed to be blown up, not the FM side., DRC FM;’s radio ratings were more than good enough. To answer the question about the Spanish language FM in Hartford in the early 70’s was WLVH 93.7.