Mariner Broadcasting buys new radio station

ROCKLAND – The company that broadcasts classical music from four FM stations along the Maine coast has bought another radio station.

Last week, Mariner Broadcasting bought WBYA-FM (105.5), which bills itself as “The Bay,” from Gopher Hill Communications of Bangor.

The station’s operations have been relocated to the offices of Mariner’s other midcoast station, WBQX-FM (106.9) in Rockland. WBQX is part of Mariner’s “WBACH” group of stations that simulcast classical music at four FM frequencies: 99.3 in Kennebunk, 106.3 in Portland, 106.9 in Rockland, and 107.7 in Bar Harbor.

WBYA had been broadcasting big band music from the 1930s and 1940s, WBACH station manager Gordon Page said Tuesday.

With Mariner’s acquisition, the big band sounds will remain, but they will be augmented with vocal pop standards from the 1950s to the 1970s, he said. The emphasis will be on romantic ballads. The format is called “music of your life,” Page said.