| Community: | Lynn | ||
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| Frequency: | 1360 kHz | ||
| Class: | D | ||
| Ownership: | Multicultural Radio Broadcasting Licensee, LLC (Multicultural Radio Broadcasting, Inc./Arthur Liu) |
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| Studio: | 500 West Cummings Park Woburn, MA 01801-6503 |
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| Transmitter: | Rt. 107 Lynn, MA |
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| Phones: |
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| Format: | Leased-time ethnic |
WLYN transmits from a single tower just west of Route 107 in Lynn, just over the line from Saugus and just down the road from the WROL site. WLYN operates with 700 watts daytime and 76 watts at night.
WLYN was another of the many new suburban signals that sprouted just after World War II. The station signed on December 11, 1947, operating as a 1,000-watt daytimer with studios at 156 Broad Street. The original licensee was A.M. “Vic” Morgan, who had been an executive at Shortwave and Television Corp., the operator of an experimental television station in the early 1930s. Morgan only operated the station for a couple of years, selling it to Theodore Feinstein's Puritan Broadcast Service, which also owned WNBP in Newburyport and WOTW AM-FM in Nashua, N.H., in March, 1950.
In August 1963, WLYN added FM service on 101.7, restoring FM to Lynn after the demise of the short-lived WUPI/WUPY on 105.3, which had signed off a year or so earlier.
In the mind-1970s, WLYN moved to 25 Exchange St. in Lynn's Central Square. The FM station, which would become WFNX, was sold to Boston Phoenix publisher Steve Mindich in 1983. WLYN(AM) at one point changed calls to WNSR, “North Shore Radio”, then returned to its original calls.
WLYN's middle-of-the-road music format gradually gave way to leased-time ethnic programming in Spanish and other languages, reflecting the changing demographics of Lynn and surrounding communities. Despite the change in format, the old “Great American Music Machine” jingles continued to be heard on the station for years.
In the late nineties, Peter Arpin's ADD Media began operating WLYN under an LMA, moving the station to the WRCA (1330 Waltham) studios in Central Square, Cambridge. ADD purchased the station from Feinstein in 1999 for $1.06 million, continuing the leased-time operations. ADD turned the station around in 2002 for $1.775 million, to Arthur Liu's Multicultural Radio.
This station profile was written by the editors of The Archives @ BostonRadio.org. We have no relationship with the station; please send any comments or questions about their programming directly to the station. Network connectivity courtesy of MIT CSAIL.