WPRX (1120
AM) is a
radio station
Radio broadcasting is the broadcasting of audio (sound), sometimes with related metadata, by radio waves to radio receivers belonging to a public audience. In terrestrial radio broadcasting the radio waves are broadcast by a land-based rad ...
licensed to serve
Bristol, Connecticut
Bristol is a suburban city located in Hartford County, Connecticut, United States, southwest-west of Hartford, Connecticut, Hartford. The city is also 120 miles southwest from Boston, and approximately 100 miles northeast of New York City. The ...
. The station is owned by Nievezquez Productions, Inc. It airs a
tropical music
Tropical music () is a term in the Latin music industry that refers to music genres deriving from or influenced by the Spanish-speaking areas of the Caribbean. It includes the islands of Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, and the Caribbean ...
format.
WPRX is the first wholly owned Puerto Rican station in the United States and airs music from the Caribbean, Central America, South America and Spain, as well as news direct from Puerto Rico. The station features nearly 100 percent local programming.
History
In 1977, the station, then WBIS, was purchased by David Rodgers, who owned stations in
Salinas, California
Salinas (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Salt pan (geology), Salt Flats") is a city in the U.S. state of California and the county seat of Monterey County, California, Monterey County. With a population of 163,542 in the 2020 Census, Salinas is ...
. Rodgers purchased the station from Robert Baker who had previously been the general sales manager at
KDKA-TV
KDKA-TV (channel 2), branded CBS Pittsburgh, is a television station in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. It is owned and operated by the CBS television network through its CBS News and Stations division alongside WPKD-TV (channel 19), a ...
in
Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, United States, and its county seat. It is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, second-most populous city in Pennsylvania (after Philadelphia) and the List of Un ...
. Rogers hired John Hiatt, a broadcaster from El Paso, Texas, to run the radio station, and Rodgers owned the station for nearly a decade before selling the property. At that time, WBIS programmed a
soft rock
Soft rock (also known as light rock or mellow rock) is a form of rock music that originated in the late 1960s in the United States and the United Kingdom which smoothed over the edges of singer-songwriter and pop rock, relying on simple, mel ...
format and was located on 1440
kHz
The hertz (symbol: Hz) is the unit of frequency in the International System of Units (SI), often described as being equivalent to one event (or cycle) per second. The hertz is an SI derived unit whose formal expression in terms of SI base uni ...
and was on the air only during the day.
In 1993 the station was assigned the call letters WPRX by the
Federal Communications Commission
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, internet, wi-fi, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains j ...
(FCC). In September 2010, the FCC canceled WPRX's license because its license had expired without renewal on April 1, 2006; after filing a renewal application, the station was fined $7,000 in August 2011.
WPRX's license was again canceled on June 7, 2017, for not paying debts it owed to the FCC, which prevented the renewal of the station's license;
the license was reinstated on November 15, 2017.
Its license was cancelled again on April 4, 2022, for failing to file a license renewal application;
a month later, the WPRX license was restored after the application was filed.
References
External links
*
FCC History Cards for WPRX(covering 1947-1978 as WBIS)
PRX
Latin rhythmic radio stations
PRX
Radio stations established in 1948
1948 establishments in Connecticut
Bristol, Connecticut
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