WXRK-LP

WXRK-LP is an Active Rock and Alternative Rock formatted broadcast radio station licensed to Charlottesville, Virginia, serving Charlottesville and Albemarle County in Virginia. WXRK-LP is owned and operated by Blue Ridge Free Media.

History
WXRK-LP signed on the air on September 7, 2015. The callsign for the station was previous held by WXRK-FM in New York City. From its outset, the station has aired a combination of Active Rock and Alternative Rock.

In September 2019, Saga Communications, which operates the Charlottesville Radio Group under the Tidewater Communications licensee, filed a petition with the FCC requesting that WXRK-LP's license not be renewed. Saga claimed the station, along with other Charlottesville-based low-power FMs, were operating as "a de facto cluster". The station's founder Mike Friend called the petition to deny "'legal junk' and a deliberate 'misinterpretation' of FCC rules". Friend pointed to other attempts by Saga to shutter low-power FM stations within Saga markets.

Saga, in 2004, claimed that KFLO-LP in Jonesboro, Arkansas was airing announcements that "sound suspiciously like commercials". Saga also petitioned the FCC to revoke the license of WLCQ-LP, a Christian station in the Springfield, Massachusetts market, "for equipment violations" in 2015. In both cases, the FCC "admonished the station" but denied Saga's complaints.

Jeff Lenert, co-founder of then-Progressive Talk station WPVC-LP, said that "though [the stations] share a building" all of "the stations all operate separately, having only limited and largely incidental contact with each other." Lenert turned in the license for WPVC-LP on June 16, 2020, "As a result of the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic and recent increased costs of station ownership and operation, it has become impossible to operate station WPVC-LP in the manner that I wish." Lenert largely blamed the "legal action by Saga Communications combined with a loss of sponsors during the pandemic" for the signing off of that station.

As of late-March 2024, the FCC has not acted on the Petition from Saga and WXRK-LP continues to broadcast.