Milwaukee-Market AM Station Proposes Major Downgrade

A Milwaukee-market station is proposing a downgrade to the FCC’s minimum power level for AM stations.

WRRD/1510 (Waukesha) is currently licensed for 23kW day and 20kW critical hours (two hours after sunrise and before sunset) from a three-tower directional array, with no nighttime signal. It proposes removing two of the towers from service and going to 250 Watts non-directional, daytime only, using the current northern tower.

No reason for the proposed change is specified in the FCC application filed Aug. 19. However, the five-acre site on which the transmitter building and two southern towers sit is listed for sale with a $549,900 asking price.

The station is owned by New WRRD, LLC. Majority owner Mike Crute said at the end of his local show Friday that the station was going to vacate its existing Milwaukee studio as soon as the show was done, but that the format would continue after a brief interruption while equipment was moved.

WRRD’s Progressive Talk format is also carried on W269DL/101.7 (Milwaukee) and now identifies as “Talk 101.7.” W269DL would keep its current coverage area, which includes most of the Milwaukee metro area.

Coverage maps submitted as part of the application show that after the downgrade, the AM signal would only be strong in Waukesha and a few eastern suburbs, with fringe coverage of Milwaukee.

WRRD is hardly alone in taking this step. At least eight other Upper Midwest AM stations have downgraded in the past decade or so, and four others have returned their licenses completely this year alone.

The downgrade would represent a return to its roots for AM 1510, which originally signed on as 250-Watt daytimer WAUX in 1947. It upgraded to 10kW daytime directional in 1961 and changed its callsign to WAUK in 1964. The upgrade to the current facility apparently happened in 1995, and the callsign was changed to WRRD in 2008 as part of a swap with then-co-owned AM 540.