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WRCR-1700-AM Sold to Red Apple Media, a Subsidiary of the The Red Apple Group; Rockland Loses Venerated Institution
By Tina Traster
Rockland County has lost a venerated institution from the airwaves: its only local radio station, WRCR-1700-AM. The new station is broadcasting as talk radio 77ABC.
WRCR-1700 has been sold to Red Apple Media, a subsidiary of the The Red Apple Group, which owns and operates WABC’s 770 am. The price has not been disclosed.
However, according to radiodiscussions.com, WRCR was originally priced for sale at $950,00 in January of 2024. In May of 2024, it was reported that the price had dropped twice to $799,000, then to $599,000. The station was sold by its owner Alex Medakovich.
Red Apple Group, owned by billionaire John Catsimatidis, is a New York City conglomerate that owns and operates assets in energy, real estate, finance, insurance, supermarket and media industries.
Station personalities did not return requests for comment.
The station is airing WABCs programming. It is unclear whether local programming will be integrated into the lineup, or whether WRCR’s local programming will continue to stream live on the web. WABC’s programming includes shows by conservative commentators Mark Levin, Roger Stone, and Bill O’Reilly.
WRCR-1700 has long been a staple in the lives of Rocklanders. The Morning Show has kicked off the day for decades with familiar voices. I have been on the radio show nearly seven year on Monday mornings at 9:15, sharing the week’s business highlights. Other familiar voices include Ken Mahoney, who reported on finances, Naomi Streicher, who spoke about real estate, and Clare Sheridan’s popular Crossroads of Rockland County show on local Rockland history. The platform was also used by town supervisors and government officials for weekly updates. Traffic and weather were a daily feature, along with banter from Morning Show hosts Jeff Lewis and Will Hennessey.
In 2021, the FCC greenlighted WRCR 1700 AM’s graduation to 10,000 watts, which expanded the AM station’s reach beyond Rockland County. At the time, Medakovich said, “the second phase of WRCR’s transmitter facility upgrade, which began in 2019, has been completed. The site is now licensed by the FCC to operate at 10,000 watts at AM 1700, an increase from our former license which only permitted us to broadcast from 1300 AM at 500 watts. The move from AM 1300, which began in 2015, to AM 1700, with its 20-times more powerful signal, was phase one of this journey.”
The station’s history has been rocky. WRCR had operated for 52 years as a commercial AM radio station before it switched to a webcast format in 2017, and then returned to the airwaves in 2019 . The station was broadcasting an adult contemporary format with weekday news talk shows from the station at Palisades Credit Union Park. The station pulled the plug on broadcasting on AM 1700 after its tower landlord in Nanuet unexpectedly cut off the utilities. It launched a GoFundMe campaign in 2018 to raise funds for a return to the airwaves.
The station maintained many of its programs, including talk radio, local and national news programming, traffic, weather and contemporary music. The station has continued to broadcast on AM 1700 during emergencies, including a ten-day stretch during Hurricane Sandy when the station relied on generators.
The sale to Red Apple marks the end of an era for Rockland. WRCR was the lone radio station specifically geared toward the goings-on in the county. The station outlasted WRKL AM 910, which was bought out in 1999 and switched to Polish-interest and Polish-language programming. With the sale of WRCR, Rockland County is left with no local TV station, no local daily print newspaper, and now no radio presence.
Medakovich, a medical doctor who practices internal medicine at a state hospital in Rockland County, told RCBJ in 2019 said radio has always been very sacred to him, particularly during his early years growing up in Serbia.
