WRYM (840 AM; "Viva Radio") is a

radio station Radio broadcasting is transmission 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 radio ...

broadcasting a

Spanish-language Spanish ( or , Castilian) is a Romance languages, Romance language of the Indo-European language family that evolved from colloquial Latin spoken on the Iberian peninsula. Today, it is a world language, global language with more than 500 millio ...

tropical music format. Licensed to

New Britain, Connecticut New Britain is a city in Hartford County, Connecticut, United States. It is located approximately southwest of Hartford. According to 2020 Census, the population of the city is 74,135. Among the southernmost of the communities encompassed wit ...

, United States, it serves the Hartford area. The station is owned by licensee Trignition Media, LLC. WRYM's studios are located in Newington, Connecticut, in front of its radio towers.

History

The station signed on August 18, 1946 as WKNB (for

Kensington Kensington is a district in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in the West End of London, West of Central London. The district's commercial heart is Kensington High Street, running on an east–west axis. The north-east is taken up b ...

-New Britain), under the ownership of the New Britain Broadcasting Company. NBC bought the station in 1956; however, its main purpose in acquiring WKNB was to obtain its sister television station, WKNB-TV (which it renamed WNBC; it is now

WVIT WVIT (channel 30) is a television station licensed to New Britain, Connecticut, United States, broadcasting NBC programming to the Hartford–New Haven market. It is owned and operated by the network's NBC Owned Television Stations division alo ...

). Attempts were soon made to divest WKNB, supposedly because NBC was embarrassed to own a

daytimer A clear-channel station is an AM radio station in North America that has the highest protection from interference from other stations, particularly concerning night-time skywave propagation. The system exists to ensure the viability of cross-coun ...

in the same market as WTIC, one of

NBC Radio The National Broadcasting Company's NBC Radio Network (known as the NBC Red Network prior to 1942) was an American commercial radio network which was in operation from 1926 through 2004. Along with the NBC Blue Network it was one of the first t ...

's first affiliates; however, the station was not sold until 1960, when both WKNB and WNBC were transferred to Plains Television, which then sold the radio station to the Beacon Broadcasting Company, controlled by Louis Sodokoff, the following year."Changing Hands." ''Broadcasting'', September 28, 1959, pp. 98-100
In 1962, the station took its present WRYM callsign to reflect its conversion to a

beautiful music Beautiful music (sometimes abbreviated as BM, B/EZ or BM/EZ for "beautiful music/easy listening") is a mostly instrumental music format that was prominent in North American radio from the late 1950s through the 1980s. Easy listening, elevator musi ...

format — the first in Connecticut. By 1970, it had a middle-of-the-road format; however, WRYM had also gradually increased its ethnic programming, culminating by 1975 with a move to a full-time ethnic and religious format. Ownership was transferred to Hartford City Broadcasting in 1984 after the death of Louis Sodokoff. WRYM added nighttime service in 1998 upon the construction of a second tower. Six years later, the station was sold to Eight Forty Broadcasting. Eight Forty Broadcasting sold WRYM to Trignition Media, LLC effective June 29, 2017. In February 2018, WRYM began simulcasting its programming on

WWCO WWCO (1240 AM; "Viva") is a radio station licensed in Waterbury, Connecticut, broadcasting a Spanish-language tropical music format. WWCO is a simulcast of WRYM (840 AM) in New Britain. The station is owned by Trignition Media. History WWCO ...

(1240 AM) in Waterbury, which Trignition acquired from

Connoisseur Media Connoisseur Media LLC is an American media company. It is based in Westport, Connecticut and led by Jeff Warshaw. Connoisseur operates radio stations and digital assets in markets across the U.S. cities of Billings, Fredrick, Maryland; Bay Shore, H ...

Translators

References

External links

* * * {{Spanish Radio Stations in Connecticut New Britain, Connecticut Mass media in Hartford County, Connecticut RYM Radio stations established in 1946 1946 establishments in Connecticut RYM