Re: Who owns WKBR?

["Sean Smyth" <Sportswriter@dejazzd.com>]

Counselor Ross writes:
> I believe it went dark before Bob bought it, and he put it back on the
air.

Of course, Bob can correct me on any inaccuracies, but here's my
recollection:

Bob bought the license not too long after buying WJIB (in 1992 or 1993) and
WKBR returned to the air no later than 1995. It definitely was back on the
air by the time my sports show started running on WJIB that summer.

A good portion of the air time on WKBR was leased by a fellow named George
Ketralarkis (unsure of the spelling), who has a business in Lynn. He was
doing Greek programming for the Manchester audience. Eventually, George
entered into an agreement to take over the station, turn it into a
full-service station of sorts and moved the studios from the Goffstown
transmitter site to a small studio off Elm (?) Street in downtown
Manchester.

The programming was a mish-mash of stuff when George owned it. I know they
ran the Manchester City Council meetings on a tape-delay basis on Saturdays.
They didn't really seem to have any news programming of sorts. They hired a
fellow away from WMVU in Nashua to do the weekday afternoon drive-time talk
show, but as far as I remember, they didn't have any other English-language
talk programming, other than LTAR on Sundays. Much of the non-peak period
and weekends was Greek. WKBR was also airing UNH sports. Oh yeah, there were
also some beautiful music thrown in.

Control of the station soon reverted back to Bob (I don't know the details),
who by this time had also bought WNEB and WJTO and apparently wasn't looking
to own four stations at once. Steve Silberman from WXRV bought the station,
and has run several formats on it since, including all One-on-One Sports and
all satellite country. Up until this year, I know WKBR was airing Celtics'
games.

Probably more info than everyone wanted/needed to know...