By NAN Staff Writer
News Americas, NEW YORK, NY, Weds. July 5, 2023: In a move that seems like history repeating itself, yet another New York radio station that allowed Caribbean Americans to broker time and present radio programs, has been sold.
WVIP, a Westchester radio station that was founded by the late Bill O’Shaughnessy and which sold time slots to Caribbean American programs, was sold to Hope Media Group for $8.15 million by his descendants.
O’Shaughnessy died in May 2022 at the age of 84.
WVIP had been the station many Caribbean American radio hosts in the New York Tri-state pivoted to after the sale of WNWK 105.9 FM and then WWRL 1600. It has been one of the few places Caribbean programming could be heard and where issues germane to the community were discussed. Independent broadcasters on WVIP spent between US$500 to US$1,000 per hour for airtime on the station.
“This is sad news,” Bobby Clarke, founder of IRIE Jam radio, which had numerous hours of programming on the station for the past 30 years, told the Jamaica Gleaner: “This leaves a major void in the community… . We are hoping that there might be a way to continue our services to our community here, but right now we are not sure,” he shared.
Clement ‘Ras Clem’ Hume, Groovin’ In The Park executive and host of Groovin Radio, added to the Gleaner: “This is shocking news! I still cannot believe it,” he confessed.
