In an era when radio stations across the country save and make millions of dollars pretending to be locally based, a new local AM station is almost an anachronism. The new WARL-AM (1320) has set out to prove that local radio is still vital media.
Formerly WARA in Attleboro, the station has recently moved to downtown Providence and brought in radio veteran Norm Jagolinzer to attract loyal local listeners.
Jagolinzer, who is most frequently associated with WLKW-AM, has been in radio for about 30 years. He said he loves every aspect of being back on the air.
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“I even like getting up at quarter past three every morning,” he said. “I know this music is just so satisfying to so many people, and there is a market for it.”
His new program includes news, weather, traffic, and financial reports as well as what station manager Michael Lyons refers to as “beautiful music.”
“What we call beautiful music is the sort of stuff like Manilow, Streisand and Sinatra, that people over 50 can get into,” he said. “We’re grabbing at a niche that we think exists.”
The station also broadcasts local sports events including boxing matches and Brown University basketball. Inside the Dorrance Street headquarters is also a television production studio, a Web development unit and a videoconferencing room.
WARL is owned by East Greenwich-based ADD Radio Group. ADD President Peter Arpin joked that the company’s way of doing business is similar to the psychological condition his company’s acronym represents.
“I think we invented the phrase ‘attention deficit disorder,’” he said. “We have so many things going on here.”
The company’s initials in fact reflect Arpin’s name and two of his one-time business associates. Arpin owns the 30,000-square-foot space where WARL is broadcasting. If the name Arpin sounds familiar it is because he is the son of Paul Arpin, who heads Paul Arpin Van Lines in West Warwick.
He said WARL has been having difficulty getting permission to put up a satellite dish on the roof of its headquarters.
“We’ve been butting our heads up against the wall a little bit,” he said. “We’re trying to get a satellite dish on the roof so we can use some of the programming we’re running on our Hartford station.”
Arpin said the radio programming is a very important component of his goal, but the other projects that go on inside 127 Dorrance St., also play a big part.
“Our goal on radio is to carve out a particular niche and to use it as a promotional vehicle to that audience,” he said. “The radio station is not a standalone. We want to have some density in the audience and promote the other sides of our business with this.”
