As the calendar year began, “Arnie the Corsair” — and the decision makers at University of Massachusetts Dartmouth made a decision that would reverberate across campus and into much of the New Bedford-Fall River, Mass., listening area: Class B1 WUMD-FM 89.3 was being sold by UMass Dartmouth to Rhode Island Public Radio.
The $1.5 million deal, which includes a decade’s worth of underwriting announcements, was protested by WUMD volunteers who launched a campaign designed to save the station.
Those efforts were unsuccessful, and on June 26 RIPR said R.I.P. to WUMD.
Now, RIPR is saying adios to its Class B AM operated since Oct. 2011 as a Spanish-language noncomm, and immediately before that as a main NPR outlet for Rhode Island’s biggest city.
