WFAD (1490AM) is aradio station licensed to serveMiddlebury, Vermont, United States. The station is owned by Christian Ministries Inc. and is part ofThe Light, a network of six FM stations and one AM station, as well as five associated FMtranslators, carrying aChristian radio format.

Frank Alvin Delle, Jr., and Donald G. Fisher were initially granted on April 20, 1966, aconstruction permit for a new 1,000-watt radio station on 1490 kHz in Middlebury, for which they had filed more than four years prior.^[3] The station signed on shortly before noon on July 22, 1966, airing afull-service format and became affiliated withCBS.^[1] The studio facilities were so small that theAssociated Press teletype machine was in the bathroom.^[4]

Almost immediately after the station opened, however, a legal problem emerged.WIPS, a radio station on 1250 kHz atTiconderoga, New York, appealed the grant of the permit to Delle and Fisher. WIPS claimed that the new competitor would cause economic harm and make their business economically unviable, and on a 2–1 vote by a three-judge panel,^[5] they won a restraining order from theUnited States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on August 3.^[6] The ruling raised the likelihood that an order would force the brand-new station off the air; WFAD continued to broadcast until it received a telegram from theFederal Communications Commission at 2:35 p.m. on August 5, instructing it to cease operations.^[7]

WFAD launched a legal and public opinion campaign to allow the station to go forward, which included a petition signed by 5,000 residents ofAddison County.^[7] The appeals court found in favor of WFAD and upheld the commission's grant of a construction permit on December 13.^[8] The court's action enabled WFAD to return to the air on Christmas Day.^[9]

Fisher, a 45 percent stockholder in licensee The Voice of Middlebury, Inc.,^[3] sold his stake to Delle in 1970.^[10] After the sale, Delle told people that the WFADcall letters, which had initially been for "Frank and Don", instead represented his initials.^[4] Three years later, Addison Broadcasting, owned by Mark Brady and Timothy Buskey, acquired WFAD for $150,000;^[11] Buskey would sell his stake to Brady in 1976.^[3] Under Brady-Buskey ownership, WFAD launched an FM sister station, oldies-formattedWCVM (100.9 FM), on April 2, 1975,^[12] and moved to larger studio quarters.^[4] Also during this time, in the late 1970s,Jim Douglas, a Vermont state legislator, would join the WFAD announcing staff, working at the station to supplement his legislative salary;^[13][14] he would be electedGovernor of Vermont in 2002, serving for eight years.^[15] New studios onU.S. Route 7 were completed in 1983.^[4]

After 14 years, the Brady family sold WFAD and WCVM to Straus Communications ofNew York City for $1.1 million.^[16] Straus made a series of decisions that alienated listeners of WFAD and WCVM, capped by a 1990 format flip to acountrysimulcast; in part due to a downturn in the Vermont economy, and despite reversing the earlier format change and restoring anadult contemporary music format on WFAD, both stations would gosilent on December 6, 1990, at which time the Bradys reacquired the pair.^[17] As they had bought another FM outlet, WMNM ofPort Henry, New York, they could not retain WCVM, which they put up for sale.^[18]

In its second stint as a Brady-owned station, WFAD became increasinglytalk-oriented, airingThe Rush Limbaugh Show and a local program,The Talk of Vermont, hosted by Timothy Philbin, a Republican politician who had lost in two elections to theHouse of Representatives.^[19] In 1993, Brady put the station on the market; 18 months later, there were still no bidders.^[20] After a $925,000^[21] deal to sell WFAD and WMNM to Pathfinder Communications ofConnecticut collapsed, at the start of 1997, the Bradys' Pro-Radio Inc., and Dynamite Radio Inc, which owned WGTK (the former WCVM), filed forbankruptcy.^[22] Ultimately, the WFAD license was sold to Kate Shermer and her husband,WPTZ-TV meteorologist Tom Messner, while Dynamite Radio operated the station and consolidated its facilities with WGTK.^[23]

The Talk of Vermont in particular grew in the late 1990s, when it was hosted byJeff Kaufman; three additional stations in the state signed up to carry the show, and Kaufman also hosted a weekly show of the same name onVermont Public Television.^[24] Kaufman resigned from the program in 2000 to pursue opportunities in California.^[25]

WFAD was sold in 2001 to Addison Broadcasting Company, owned by Steve Silverberg, for $180,000.^[26] Northeast Broadcasting, the parent of Addison, also acquired other stations, consolidating their operations in Middlebury; by 2002, the station aired anoldies format.^[27] It changed formats again, this time tosports, in 2005; WFAD had already aired local high school and college sports and was the longtime market home ofBoston Red Sox broadcasts.^[28] In 2014, the station was reported to carry the "Today's Comedy" format.^[29]

On December 15, 2014, WFAD went silent due to the need to replace parts on its aging transmitter.^[30]

In February 2016, Northeast Broadcasting acquired severaltranslators fromVermont Public Radio, one of which would be used to give WFAD an FM signal.^[31] On December 22, 2016, WFAD returned to the air—this time with the translator operating, as a simulcast ofsister stationWIXM (102.3 FM) in the Burlington–Plattsburgh area.^[32] For a time in 2020, the station went silent as part of the replacement of its AM broadcastingtower.^[33] By 2022, WFAD had shifted to carryingThe Point, Northeast Broadcasting's network ofadult album alternative radio stations in Vermont.^[34]

In December 2022, Northeast Broadcasting filed to sell WFAD and W266CU to Christian Ministries, Inc., for $85,000.^[34] The sale was consummated on February 16, 2023, with an expectation that Christian Ministries would soon switch the station to theirChristian "The Light Radio Network" format.^[35]

• Facility details for Facility ID 53612 (WFAD) in theFCC Licensing and Management System
• WFAD inNielsen Audio's AM station database
• Facility details for Facility ID 154466 (W266CU) in theFCC Licensing and Management System
• W266CU at FCCdata.org

• Christian radio stations in Vermont
• Radio stations established in 1966
• 1966 establishments in Vermont

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