UTICA-ROME — Another AM station bites the dust. Locally-owned Roser Communications Network has surrendered its broadcast license for 1570 WVTL Amsterdam. In turn, the Federal Communications Commission announced today that the license has been cancelled, effective July 6, 2026.
WVTL and FM translator W284BZ (104.7 FM) most-recently offered a classic country music format. The signals went dark on January 1. As part of a “request for silent authority” application filed with the FCC in February, RCN President Kenneth Roser told the Commission:
Roser Communications Network, Inc., licensee of WVTL and W284BZ, both licensed to Amsterdam, New York, can no longer justify the costs associated with continued transmission and seeks to sell the stations. It took both stations dark on January 1, 2026. It requests a six month period to remain silent.
Although the STA approved WVTL and W284BZ to remain silent through early August, RCN filed an application to cancel the license on June 29. The FCC approved as of July 6 and announced this approval in its daily list of broadcast license actions today.
WVTL was a Class B signal broadcasting at 1,000 watts during the day, with the FCC requiring a sharp drop to just 204 watts at night to avoid interfering with Mexican clear channel (note the lower case; no relation with the company which has since rebranded as iHeart) station XERF on the same frequency.
According to WVTL’s Wikipedia entry, Roser in 2021 had a tentative deal to sell WVTL to Think Tank Media, the owner of nearby WENT Gloversville, but the deal fell through the following year.
The elimination of WVTL allows Roser to focus on its core stations based in Utica, including Bug Country 99.7/101.1 (WBUG/WBGK), top-40 KISS-FM 97.9/105.5 (WSKS/WSKU) and Talk! 100.7FM (WUTQ). Kenneth Roser is also president and CEO of advertising agency Professional Media Services (ProMedia).
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Craig Knickerbocker says:
WVTL as mentioned debuted in 1961 as WAFS. AFS stood for Amsterdam”s Finest Station. It was put on the air by Irving Segal, a local jeweler. Originally a 2 tower directional station, it became non-directional sometime in the late 60’s or early 70’s. At about that time, its call changed to WKOL. At one point is was approved to be moved to Ballston Spa, but that never happened. That was planned because at the time you could not own two stations on the same band in the same city of license. Joseph Isabel already owned WCSS. The station was sold to Walker Broadcasting who owned a station in the Hudson Valley. He put 1570 back on the air as WBUG,” Bug Country” coupled with his new station in Fort Plain WLKO 101.1 FM later to become WBUG-FM. WBUG AM/FM then became connected with WLFH 1230 in Little Falls as a trimulcast. It later became part of the Roser Communications Network. In December 1977 as WKOL the studio/transmitter site was destroyed by fire. It returned to the air at reduced power with borrowed equipment from several other stations.
I personally helped the consulting engineer and station engineer piece it all together. The station began by using Dave Garroway tapes as part of its programming. It went back and forth with country formats several times. It had a few times with rock music. Its sad to see what has happened to the AM band in general. There have been several stations across the nation and in Canada that have gone dark. I upstate new york alone in the recent past, WDCD originally WPTR a 50,000 watter in Albant is gone. WRUN in Utica, WDOS in Oneonta, and others have been gone dark, and most recently WABH 1380 in Bath has gone silent.