New Owners Keep WLNG Tradition Alive

When WLNG's 2021 Concerts on the Dock series launched on Friday, it resumed a new tradition at the venerable Sag Harbor oldies station that has been broadcasting on the FM airwaves since 1963. 
    
Born during the Covid-19 pandemic, the series, in which performers are situated on the deck outside WLNG's Redwood Road headquarters and people watch from kayaks and other vessels in Sag Harbor Cove, were a way for music fans to attend a concert while ensuring social distancing. It's a new, novel way to present live music, and indicative of the philosophy that has guided the station's owners since they bought WLNG in December 2018. 
    
For Sandra Foschi and her husband, Bill Evans, ownership of WLNG is about "respecting its longevity, its legendary status in the community," the latter said last week. "All we wanted to do is keep that legacy alive, and then push it forward and keep it going forward." 
    
"We've just taken the radio station and injected some more energy to it," said Mr. Evans, a meteorologist who was on WABC-TV in New York City for 30 years as well as radio stations including WPLJ, also in New York. Veteran on-air talent including Gary Sapiane, Chris Buckhout, Brian (the Cannon) Bannon, and Bob Bubka can collectively boast well over a century of broadcasting. 
    
In an email, Ms. Foschi, who is owner of Health SOS, a chain of regional physical therapy businesses that just opened an office in Wainscott next to Levain bakery, listed those and many other staffers. They are "the heroes of the station," she wrote. "It is an honor to work with all of them."
    
"We call the station a cradle-to-grave radio station," Mr. Evans said. "We do births, birthdays, obituaries, lost dogs and cats. We're a local, local radio station, and there are very few of them left in America." 
    
Along with its new-ish owners, the "injection of energy" comes in the form of added staff, both D.J.s and salespeople. But the sound is consistent: oldies, reaching back as far as the 1940s and forward only to 2000. Mr. Evans is formally the program director (and chief meteorologist, and morning D.J.), "but each of our D.J.'s are our music directors," he said. "They have a format, but they pick their own music, which is great. We play lots of requests, and, particularly during the pandemic, we had very long listening periods by the audience. You get to find the D.J.s personalities by the music they pick, but we're generally a classic oldies station."
    
Mr. Evans and Ms. Foschi were longtime visitors to the East End before becoming year-round residents of Sag Harbor. Owning the station was Ms. Foschi's idea, said her husband. "She loves radio and is an outstanding businesswoman. She is just amazing."
    
For his part, Mr. Evans began a career in media at age 13 in Meridian, Miss. "I grew up with my grandparents," he said, "and my grandfather was a minister. He had a 15-minute radio devotional on the local radio station on Sunday morning. I would go down with him to the radio station and just hang out," marveling at the console and turntables. "All I wanted to be was a disk jockey," he said. Odd jobs at the station led to broadcasting on weekends, then during afternoons, "and next thing you know you're off and running in a career in radio." He started in television at 17. 
  
 WLNG's focus on local news and people are key to its continuing popularity in an era of hundreds of satellite radio stations and thousands, if not millions, of streaming options. "All local news, local sports," Mr. Evans observed of WLNG's content. "Even last year, during the pandemic, because people couldn't go to graduations, we broadcast them. We find that 79 percent of people on the East End listen to local radio. The other 21 percent listen to satellite radio. There are still a lot of people that have to have local radio." But listeners can hear WLNG on SiriusXM satellite radio, too: Its "Lunch on the Deck" show is heard on Volume, SiriusXM's channel 106. 
    
Along with the Concerts on the Dock series, featuring a house band led by Lee Skolnick and Bob (the Sheriff) Saidenberg and featuring guest performers, WLNG will sponsor Thursday night concerts in Sag Harbor's Marine Park. 
    
For Ms. Foschi and Mr. Evans, WLNG "was just a perfect fit," Mr. Evans said. "I know the experience of running a radio station, she has a wonderful business background. She's great with people. That made for a good matchup. But mostly, it's that we have love for this radio station. We didn't want to change anything." The couple, in fact, do not refer to themselves as WLNG's owners, but rather its caretakers, "because we're just keeping the WLNG tradition alive."
    
"Our listeners have grown tremendously," he said, "and we are on a roll."