NBC ownership The station
signed on the air on August 18, 1946. The original
call sign was WKNB for
Kensington-New Britain. The station was a
daytimer, required to go off the air at night. Its studios were at 213 Main Street. In 1953, a
UHF television station was added, WKNB-TV Channel 30.
NBC bought the AM and TV stations in 1956. NBC's main purpose was to obtain the TV outlet, which it renamed WNBC-TV (now
WVIT). Attempts were soon made to divest WKNB radio, supposedly because NBC was embarrassed to own a 1,000 watt daytimer in the same market as 50,000-watt powerhouse
WTIC, one of
NBC Radio's first
network affiliates. However, the AM station was not sold until 1960, when both WKNB and WNBC-TV were transferred to Plains Television. Plains sold the radio station to the Beacon Broadcasting Company, controlled by Louis Sodokoff, the following year.
Beautiful music In 1962, the station took its present WRYM call sign to reflect its conversion to a
beautiful music format, the first in Connecticut. WRYM also gradually increased its ethnic programming, including Italian, Spanish and other languages. By 1975, WRYM featured a full-time ethnic and
religious format. Ownership was transferred to Hartford City Broadcasting in 1984 after the death of Louis Sodokoff. Eight Forty Broadcasting sold WRYM to Trignition Media, LLC effective June 29, 2017. The other languages were eliminated and WRYM concentrated on serving Connecticut's growing
Hispanic community. In February 2018, WRYM began
simulcasting its programming on
WWCO 1240 AM in
Waterbury, which Trignition acquired from
Connoisseur Media. Both stations also added translators for listeners who prefer FM radio. ==Translators==