WERI The station, then called WERI, began broadcasting on 1230 kHz on July 1, 1949, using a daytime and nighttime power of 250 watts, non-directional. The station still uses its original 185-foot,
Blaw-Knox, self-supporting tower, on Margin Street, beside the
Pawcatuck River. In the 1960s, the
Federal Communications Commission (FCC) increased the daytime power of all Class IV AM stations to 1,000 watts. WERI still had to reduce power to 250 watts at night, as did all other stations on the same frequency. In 1966, WERI added FM service with WERI-FM 103.7 (now
WPVD-FM). The FM antenna is initially mounted to the side of the AM tower on Margin Street in downtown Westerly. The FM station broadcasts for only a few days from this location before it is shut down due to harmonic interference to
TV channel 12. In 1968, WERI-FM moved its transmitter to a new location on
Route 3 in Ashaway, and begins regular broadcasting. In the 1970s, the FCC increased the nighttime power of all Class IV stations from 250 to 1,000 watts, including WERI. In the 1980s, WERI-FM moved its transmitter closer to
Providence, changed callsign to WWRX, and effectively became a Providence station. In the 1990s, WWRX was sold to an independent owner from WERI.
WXNI In 1999, WERI was sold to
Boston University, and the callsign was changed to WXNI on January 4. As WXNI, it aired a format of
news and
talk from
National Public Radio. It was a repeater of
WRNI in Providence, and the two stations combined to provide a locally focused NPR member for Rhode Island–the forerunner of what evolved into Rhode Island Public Radio and then the radio service of
Ocean State Media.
WBLQ In December 2007, BU reached an agreement to sell WXNI to Diponti Communications for a reported $350,000. The move came after a local group took control of WRNI and acquired WAKX (later WRNI-FM, now
WNPE) in
Narragansett Pier to serve as its southern satellite. Diponti Communications announced its intention to move the local news and variety programming of
WBLQ-LP (96.7
FM,
Ashaway, Rhode Island) to WXNI's more powerful AM signal. This came shortly after the station had settled with the city of Westerly on a five-year lease extension. In May 2025, Turn Up Your Radio LLC filed to acquire WBLQ, translator W276DF, along with
West Warwick sister station
WWRI and translator W288EE on 105.5 MHz, in a $250,000 deal. The sale was completed in October 2025; principal Rick W. Schmidt vowed to continue the stations' local programming. ==Translator==