WVXR (102.1 FM) 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

Randolph, Vermont Randolph is a town in Orange County, Vermont, United States. The population was 4,774 at the 2020 census, making Randolph the largest town in Orange County. The town is a commercial center for many of the smaller, rural farming communities that ...

. The station is owned by

Vermont Public Vermont Public Co. is the public broadcaster serving the U.S. state of Vermont. Its headquarters, newsroom, and radio studios are located in Colchester, Vermont, Colchester, with television studios in Winooski, Vermont, Winooski. It operates t ...

. It is a

classical music Classical music generally refers to the art music of the Western world, considered to be #Relationship to other music traditions, distinct from Western folk music or popular music traditions. It is sometimes distinguished as Western classical mu ...

station, serving as the central Vermont outlet for Vermont Public Classical.

History

The station signed on October 25, 1982 as WCVR-FM. Originally owned by Stokes Communications and broadcasting at 102.3, the station carried a

country music Country (also called country and western) is a popular music, music genre originating in the southern regions of the United States, both the American South and American southwest, the Southwest. First produced in the 1920s, country music is p ...

format, at times simulcast on sister AM station WCVR/WWWT. It moved to 102.1 in the early 1990s. Stokes sold WCVR-FM and WWWT to Excalibur Media in 1999; Excalibur, in turn, was sold to

Clear Channel Communications iHeartMedia, Inc., or CC Media Holdings, Inc., is an American mass media corporation headquartered in San Antonio, Texas. It is the holding company of iHeartCommunications, Inc., formerly Clear Channel Communications, Inc., a company founded by ...

the following year. Clear Channel dropped the country format on January 23, 2003, replacing it with a simulcast of

classic rock Classic rock is a radio format that developed from the album-oriented rock (AOR) format in the early 1980s. In the United States, it comprises rock music ranging generally from the mid-1960s through the early-1990s, primarily focusing on comm ...

station

WCPV WCPV (101.3 FM) is a commercial radio station broadcasting a country music radio format. Licensed to Essex, New York, United States, the station serves the Champlain Valley of New York and Vermont. Although licensed to Essex, New York, many ...

from the

Champlain Valley The Champlain Valley is a region of the United States around Lake Champlain in Vermont and New York extending north slightly into Quebec, Canada. It is part of the St. Lawrence River drainage basin, drained northward by the Richelieu River into ...

. In January 2008, Clear Channel agreed to sell its Vermont stations to Vox Communications as part of Clear Channel's plan to divest itself of most of its smaller market radio stations. The sale was completed on July 25, 2008. Vox soon concluded that it had no interest in retaining WCVR-FM and what had become WTSJ, and reached a deal to sell the stations to Great Eastern Radio in September 2008. Great Eastern replaced the WCPV simulcast with a separate classic rock format. However, it never closed on the deal, and a year later Vox retook the station. In March 2010, another deal to sell WCVR-FM, this time to Vermont Public Radio (VPR), was reached; Vox then shut the station down on April 1 for financial reasons. VPR returned the station to the air July 30 as WVXR, carrying the VPR Classical service.

References

External links

* * {{NPR Vermont VXR Radio stations established in 1982 Classical music radio stations in the United States NPR member stations 1982 establishments in Vermont Randolph, Vermont