NEW YORK:
It’s the end of an era for WVIP 93.5 FM, New York, the station that served the diaspora community for almost 40 years. Jamaican and Caribbean programmes on the dial went silent on Thursday, August 31, when the last programme ended at midnight. Hope Media Group, owners of the Christian AC Way FM network and Spanish language Christian Vida Unida, signed on soon after.
Purchasing time on WVIP was not cheap. Independent broadcasters paid between US$500 to US$1,000 per hour and upwards of US$4 million annually to purchase time. Despite this, some of the independent broadcasters said that they were not informed that the station was going off air.
Bobby Clarke, chief executive officer of the Queens-based Irie Jam Media Group, which brokered time on WVIP for more than 30 years, openly shared his displeasure at how things unfolded. “The O’Shaughnessys [owners]…
