Annapolis radio station going off the air at midnight

WRNR, a popular Annapolis adult alternative station, will go off the air for good at midnight Friday and become a Christian radio station, the station’s longtime owner confirmed.

“We are just going to go off quietly and see what they do at midnight,” said Steve Kingston, who has owned the station since 1998.

The Federal Communications Commission approved the transfer of 103.1 FM from WRNR to Peter & John Radio Fellowship on Jan. 25. Leaders of the nonprofit, which oversees Maryland’s largest evangelical Christian broadcasting network, including the flagship Christian news station WRBS, did not respond to requests for comment.

News of the $1.5 million sale became public in November when WRNR submitted an application to the FCC to transfer its frequency to WRBS, the official FCC designation for Peter & John Radio Fellowship.

WRNR was founded in the early 1980s as WAQA. Kingston, a Maryland native and career radio broadcaster, purchased the station as part of a $2.4 million deal in 1998. Those were peak days of alternative rock in the mid-Atlantic. Counting Crows, fronted by Marylander Adam Duritz, and the Dave Matthews Band, which coalesced at the University of Virginia, ruled the airwaves.

But as pop music tastes shifted, WRNR became the destination for listeners who didn’t buy Britney Spears’ toxic bubble gum or gravitate toward R&B. The station, with a transmitter in Grasonville and a rented studio in Annapolis, evolved into a Gen-X haven, slightly more mainstream than WTMD-FM, the indie public radio station in Towson, but more alternative than anything else on the dial, especially after WHFS switched formats.

In recent years, WRNR helped launch Easton native Maggie Rogers, a local favorite who once sang in the WRNR studio, to a gold-certified “Saturday Night Live” musical guest.

But the 2010s also ushered in a raft of departures, with DJs Alex Cortright and Carrie Evans leaving for hosting jobs at WTMD. Longtime programming director Bob Waugh retired in February 2022. Rob Timm became WTMD’s production manager last fall. Those still left at WRNR knew the end was near. DJ Mike Ondayko received a job offer from 98 Rock in November, the same day Kingston announced the sale.

“I loved WRNR,” Ondayko said this week. “It was such a great station, and I’m sad to see it leave.”

Kingston said the only staffers left at the studio are part-timers with other gigs.

“No one is losing their job as the result of this sale,” he said.

He described the sales deal as “a business decision” made because WRBS “made an offer I couldn’t refuse.”

Unlike donor-supported WTMD, WRNR produced commercial radio. The station never recovered from the loss of pandemic advertising, Kingston said. The deal allows Kingston to retain the trademark and call letters WRNR, but after exploring his options, Kingston said it’s unlikely the station will resurface online or at lower-wattage format.

“It just isn’t feasible,” he said.

It’s unclear what the radio dial will gain when WRBS takes over.

Kingston said the Christian broadcasters have been working on the transmission tower.

Steve Lawhon, general manager of Brighter Media Group, and Jon Bisset, president of Peter & John Radio Fellowship, did not return calls and emails. Dan J. Alpert, an attorney for WRBS, said he could not discuss the sale.

Brighter Media Group’s portfolio now includes contemporary Christian station Bright-FM, the Christian talk radio station WRBS-AM, several HD radio stations and a concert promotion platform, all based in Halethorpe. The media group functions as a nonprofit under Peter & John Radio Fellowship, founded in 1948 by Scottish immigrant radio hosts obsessed with the American frontier.

In a promotional video from the 1950s, brothers Peter and John Bisset dress in Western shirts, neckerchiefs and cowboy hats to croon “Every Day with Jesus,” the gospel hymn that would greet Maryland listeners every weekday morning until Peter’s death in 1995.

Over the course of five decades, the brothers established a small empire of Maryland-based

ministries, most notably River Valley Ranch, billed at its 1953 founding as the “first Christian dude ranch in the East.” The Carroll County destination continues as a summer camp and retreat center, attracting 20,000 visitors each year, according to its website.

The Bissets acquired WRBS 95.1 FM in 1964. In 2009, the call letters changed to SHINE-FM, reflecting a switch from gospel to contemporary Christian music. Last year, at the request of a pre-existing Christian station in Illinois, the station rebranded again, trademarking the name BRIGHT-FM.

The call letters WRBS, meanwhile, continue to designate 1230 AM, a station broadcasting evangelical Christian news, sermons and political programming.

The Christian nonprofit has tried broadcasting at 103.1 once before. In 2016, the FCC issued a license for WRBS to operate a low-power, 1,000-watt station in Baltimore as an FM repeater for its AM station. WRNR successfully petitioned the FCC to reconsider, however, and federal regulators agreed that the WRBS repeater threatened WRNR’s listeners in Baltimore and Harford counties.

Now that the agency has allowed WRBS to take over the 6,000-watt 103.1 frequency based in Queen Anne’s County, Peter & John Fellowship has the greater reach it has wanted.

For Kingston, however, packing up all his mementos from WRNR is bittersweet.

“We were successful. We had a great run,” he said.