Rural Radio Network

Not to be confused with Nebraska Rural Radio Network.
Primary coverage of the six Rural Radio Network stations in late 1948. Each station was originally equipped with a 250 watt General Electric transmitter and four-section RCA Pylon horizontally polarized antenna, providing 1.3 kW ERP.

The Rural Radio Network (RRN) was an interconnected group of six commercial FM radio stations spread across upstate New York and operated from Ithaca, New York -- the first all-radio, no-wireline network in the world.[1] It began operation in 1948 as an innovative broadcast service to the agricultural community, but competition from television—and a lack of affordable, well-performing FM receivers—caused the founders' original business plan to fail. The stations changed ownership, as well as Radio formats, several times in futile attempts to achieve profitability. Perhaps the group's most notable owner was the Christian Broadcasting Network, headed by televangelist Pat Robertson, which acquired the stations through a corporate donation in 1969. A decade later, Robertson decided to sell the stations and the licenses were gradually transferred to individual owners in 1981 and 1982, thus dissolving one of the nation's earliest FM networks.

  1. ^ "Pattern for FM Profits, Part 6, FM and Television, September, 1948" (PDF). Freed Radio Corporation. Page 40, Retrieved March 26, 2015