SIDEBAR: Transcript of WDEV on-air sale announcement Jan. 11
January 16, 2024 | By Waterbury Roundabout Below is a transcript of the 20-min. on-air announcement of the WDEV sale, broadcast live on Thursday, Jan. 11, 2024, at 12:35 p.m. Find the station’s news release and an audio recording of the on-air announcement interview online at WDEVradio.com. Read Waterbury Roundabout’s coverage here.
WDEV Program Director Lee Kittell introduces the speakers:
Ashley Jane Squier, Radio Vermont Group owner
Steve Cormier, WDEV general manager
M. Myers Mermel, managing partner of Mermel & McLain Management, LLC
Scott Milne, president of Milne Travel
LEE KITTELL: 12:33 on this Thursday afternoon and we’re going to head over to the interview studio where the head of Radio Vermont Ashley Squier joins us. Good afternoon, Ashley.
ASHLEY SQUIER: Good afternoon, Lee. I’m still so surprised to have that title but it has turned out that that is my role right now.
STEVE CORMIER: Good afternoon everybody. I’m Steve Cormier, the general manager of the Radio Vermont Group. Back on November 16 we lost the leader of our group. Ken Squier passed away. And ever since that day people have been asking, what’s next? Well, at about an hour and a half ago, at 11:00 this morning, an announcement was made to the staff of the Radio Vermont Group, and to elaborate on that is the current owner of the Radio Vermont Group, Ashley Squier.
SQUIER: Thank you, Corm. I first of all want to say thank you to all Vermonters and people who have reached out to our family. The outpouring of love since we lost dad has helped us get through a very sad time. We miss him. We will always miss him. But the question of what will now happen to WDEV and WCVT and WLVB has been much on your minds and hearts as in mine.
The truth is that since last summer, we’ve been negotiating with somebody who I feel wonderful about, to take over ownership of these radio stations. And a few years ago, dad and Tom Curley were looking for a buyer for Thunder Road. And all of you race fans know that they did not want to settle for any old buyer. They didn’t want it to be anybody corporate who was going to plow the track under and build condos on our beautiful racetrack up on Quarry Hill in Barre. They wanted somebody who was going to run that place so that we’d have wonderful car counts, wonderful spectator counts, and really enjoy our Thursday nights through the summers.
The search for somebody to move forward with the Radio Vermont Group has been the same. We didn’t want to just turn the station over to anybody who was interested. We wanted buyers who understood the legacy that WDEV has been for all of us in Central Vermont.
My grandfather spoke at the 25th anniversary of WDEV and said that any business, especially a radio business, runs to serve, and that we should judge ourselves on the quality of how well we serve this little corner of our world. And I know that for both my grandfather and my dad, they consider that that kind of service came from giving information everybody needed. So if it’s going to snow, we need to know when is it going to start? How much? Will school be canceled? And they also felt that we serve by giving a forum for voices. And not just one kind of voice, but a voice of people who are interested in the farming in our area, voices of people who are interested in the ski businesses in our area, all the voices of the schools in our areas.
So that is what we were looking for, was buyers who understood that mission and hoped to continue it. So I feel that this is a very good day and a very good development and I want to introduce Mr. Myers Mermel, and Mr. Scott Milne who are our new owners. This will be a few months long process as we transfer ownership but they are prepared to take the Radio Vermont Group into the future to continue serving all of us who love this community radio in Central Vermont. Thank you Myers and Scott.
MYERS MERMEL: Ashley thank you. This is Myers Mermel and we are indebted for all that your family has done over 92 years in knitting the social fabric of Vermont together through community radio. And preserving and protecting and enhancing community radio is something that we very much want to do over the coming years here at the three radio stations. You’ve built a tremendous and enduring legacy. Your father was a giant among men. I mean he was honored in the Hall of Fame of NASCAR, the first broadcaster to be so honored. I mean, I’m sure NASCAR existed but before your father it didn’t become a national pastime that it is today. And he is one in the pantheon of great Vermonters, and that’s an awesome responsibility to be taking and working with these stations but we certainly want to preserve his legacy, and all that he’s built, and all that the viewers have built in terms of a community around the stations.
So from the mechanics, Mermel & McLain Management, LLC is buying the stations and that’s in process of getting FCC approval. And Scott Milne, a well-known businessman is a fellow investor and I’d like to turn the microphone over to Scott for a few comments.
SCOTT MILNE: Sure. Ashley, thank you. For folks listening, I love my opportunities to be in the “Music to Go to the Dump By” studio. It’s something every Vermonter should get to enjoy, and after all the times I’ve been here it’s the first time I’ve been here with a real live Squier. So Ashley, thank you.
SQUIER: Glad to be here with you, Scott.
MILNE: Your dad was an inspirational guy. I was remembering, I was in a conversation recently where somebody was retiring and their advice to the couple hundred people on the call was to find somebody to be a mentor for them. Even if you don’t realize you have the opportunity to be a mentor, you can be. And it’s just the most important and rewarding part of a career. And your dad was a great mentor. Your family’s not only been great mentors for individuals in radio, and NASCAR and other things, but just a great mentor for how communities thrive and survive and evolve. And I think in such a different world with the way communication has changed over the last decade, the future is really bright for WDEV. I don’t at all take lightly that you and your consigliere Glen Wright picked us to be the people to represent your family as we go forward.
I’m very focused on my Milne Travel business and that’s where my time is spent. I built a great team of people there and that business is doing well and I’m looking forward to supporting Myers Mermel. And I think Myers is putting his personal life on hold, putting his business, other interests on hold to really learn this business. We’ve got a lot to learn, obviously I think the way we can learn the best is by hearing from – I think Steve Cormier hit the nail on the head right – the owners of the radio station are the people listening right now so we’re here to have you folks feel like we’re trying to run a good business that’s going to be an important part of Vermont. There’s a lot of opportunity I think to become an even more important part of Vermont. And be vocal, let us know what we’re doing right, what we need to do differently, and we’ve got a great opportunity to be here and I had a good meeting with staff so I think we’re looking forward to success. And thank you, Ashley, again.
SQUIER: Thank you Scott, thank you Myers. I want to bring to mind the history of this radio station. We began 92 years ago on a July day in 1931 and they worked and worked and worked to get ready for that big one-hour broadcast day. And the radio station was founded by Harry Whitehill who owned the Waterbury Record. And the famous story that dad told so many times was that he said to my grandfather Lloyd, “I think more people can hear than can read. We better look into this radio business.” My grandfather was going to be the engineer and failed the exams to be an engineer miserably. He became the announcer despite his debilitating stutter which apparently miraculously melted in front of a microphone. Seems to be a Squier thing that we are most at home in front of microphones.
Harry Whitehill died in 1935 and he left this radio station 88 years ago, the year of my dad’s birth, to two people, Bill Ricker and Lloyd Squier. And Bill Ricker and Lloyd Squier were friends and partners, ran it together until Bill Ricker was tragically killed in the Battle of the Bulge in World War II. And from that time on my grandfather ran it by himself until he died. Well, he didn’t run it by himself. He owned it. He ran it with the wonderful likes of Rusty Parker and my dad who grew up here and started working early and Brian Harwood. And he died in 1979 and at that point my dad became the owner of the Radio Vermont Group. And they, both of them, father and son, were the owners of this group of radio stations for 44 years. So I think it’s quite something that in their 88 years they split it right down the middle.
What I want to say about that, is with all that history, obviously there were changes along the way. And change is hard. We just can recognize that as human beings things that stay the same are very comforting and we look for comfort in hard times and in good times. So what I know is that Myers and Scott are looking to run this radio station with a lot of sameness but of course there will be changes just as there were all through the years of dad and grandpa’s time here. You know dad brought this place from one radio station to many, and transmitter strengths have changed and gone to different places. So I hope and I ask for Vermonters to stay with us, to stay listening, to accept that some changes you will probably love, some you will not love but there’s still enough to love, and some things will stay the same. So that’s what I invite and ask from everybody who has loved this radio station.
These years, well, most of the years of my life, no matter where I was with dad, people were coming to say thank you for WDEV. Often it was thank you for the “Music to Go to the Dump By” show, but for all of WDEV people were grateful. And that was gratifying to him. His gift that he, the way he wanted to give a gift to Vermonters, was to keep this radio station.
I think of our governor’s recent State of the State speech in which he talked about somebody who waters flowers in one of our good Vermont towns and that person is getting older now and needs to hang up his watering can. And dad hung up his watering can two months ago when we lost him. And so I am looking forward to embracing the changes and embracing the fact that we still get to have our treasure.
MERMEL: Very much so. And Ashley I’d say probably many more things are going to stay the same than change. Your father pioneered, the friendly pioneer, a tremendous format with deep bench strength in a number of different areas. And one of the things that’s most attractive to us is the fact that the stations, and there are three, WCVT, WLVB, and WDEV, speak across the spectrum to all Vermonters, and we want to especially maintain that discussion and commentary and other areas that the full range of opinion is heard. And that all the voices are heard. And if there is such a thing as a perpetual town meeting, that WDEV is the perpetual town meeting, and as Frank Bryan was big at saying at UVM, you know, that Vermont is distinguished by its democracy by its town meeting. And this is a representation of that town meeting. And our fellow citizens and neighbors are deeply devoted to the cause of democracy and to the cause of doing right. And so we want to see that same, those same impulses reflected in the station from all across the spectrum. And as you know, as you’ve mentioned, I mean this state is undergoing tremendous change, so this is a time, and the nation is undergoing tremendous change, and this is a time where we need people to be able to speak freely to each other, to be heard, and to be understood. And that bonding and building process is integral to the functioning of our communities, the functioning of our towns, villages, state, and of our nation.
CORMIER: If you’re just tuning in, you’re listening to the conversation of Ashley Jane Squier, the owner of the Radio Vermont Group and her announcement that Myers Mermel and Scott Milne will be the new owners of the Radio Vermont Group down the line here. It’s going to take a few months for the FCC to approve this, so in the meantime Ashley will continue to own the Radio Vermont Group until it is approved.
Earlier today we had a meeting with our staff and one of the things I learned about Myers was that he has a varied background, but it does include radio. And the fact that one of your good friends owned a number of radio stations and maybe you can tell that story a little bit to our listeners.
MERMEL: Well I had the occasion when I was working in New York to be the banker to Rick Buckley who owned Buckley Broadcasting, which was I think somewhere between 30 and 40 stations nationwide. And he was very much an independent broadcaster, and like the Squiers refused to sell to the larger radio conglomerates, and ran WOR 710 AM in New York City. And so we did a lot of financial and advisory work with him. And he was, he had a lot of similarities to the way the Squiers run the stations. I see that not all the carpet here is in good shape.
SQUIER: Dad was frugal.
MERMEL: It’s exactly the same. I know some of the staff asked for capital improvements but it seems to be fine. The roof’s in good shape so, it’s a great old building here in Waterbury, and Waterbury radio’s going to continue. And I want to take some of the lessons that I was able to pick up from Buckley Radio. Unfortunately Rick passed away and his #2 Joe Bilotta also passed away but they were tremendous and they were able really, and we helped them, try to make more efficient the things behind the scenes, the operations, the expenses, and also systems and processes, and how to make the sales to radio traffic process move much more quickly. And that’s something that we could certainly do here. So we’re looking to making changes but a lot of those will be invisible to the listeners. The people that you hear from day to day are still going to be here and are still going to be talking directly to Vermonters.
MILNE: One of my travel advisors I was telling about this this morning Myers had the idea that if you gave an African safari to every new advertiser we’d have a lot more advertisers. What do you think the chances are of that?
SQUIER: Again, that’s Scott Milne of Milne Travel.
MERMEL: Is the Antarctica trip full?
MILNE: It is full, thanks to my friend Lee Kittell through the glass here and the music of the studio. Lee you have done a tremendous job of proving the power of radio and it’s actually, it’s funny but it speaks to what the Squier family’s built here, what Vermonters have created by listening to the station, but we’ve been talking about Antarctica for a couple of months. I walked into a store in Manchester, New Hampshire, people asked me about Antarctica. I was at a wake a month ago, and the last half hour of the wake were people standing around talking about Antarctica. And so radio is a great way to bring people together. And the formula of this radio station I think you know on Wall Street people talk about the value of the brand. It’s hard for me to imagine a more valuable brand in the last 100 years in Vermont than WDEV and Radio Vermont, Ashley. So don’t take that at all lightly with what Myers and I are trying to do is not mess this up, and be here in another 88 years with a story that you know follows.
MERMEL: I won’t be here in 88 years, but I’m looking forward to you being here.
MILNE: Well the station will be here and I think it’s up to you and I to make sure we keep it on a good path.
MERMEL: Amen.
SQUIER: I think that we’ve said everything that we need to say for now. And I’m sure there will be questions. And we look forward to hearing your questions, your thoughts about this radio station, because as we said earlier, we know that the listeners are the real investors in this radio station. The listeners and the advertisers, that’s something that my dad always knew. Good radio to him meant relevant radio, essential information, and opinions that we might not share but are important to listen to were integral to what our listeners needed and expected from us. So we turn this over to you and hope that we all do a good job moving forward. It is one of those times where we’ve lost some, you know, wonderful people and I include my grandpa in that who was a big part of my life my first 14 years, and then of course my dad, and we just need to move forward because life goes on. So this is a day of hopefulness for me, and joy, and I thank you all for listening.
CORMIER: Alright thank you. We’re going to turn it back over to Lee Kittell and the mid-day news service. You’re listening to WDEV.