Wikipedia
WXRV (The River 92.5 FM) is an adult album alternative radio station based in Andover, Massachusetts, with a signal covering most of northeast Massachusetts and southern New Hampshire, and audible as far away as Plymouth, Massachusetts. Originating in 1947 as WHAV, an AM station in Haverhill, an FM station was founded in 1948, but went dark in the early 1950s. The FM station was restored on its current frequency in 1959; it became WLYT (Lite 92.5) in 1983, and gained its current identity as WXRV in 1995, presumably taking the River moniker from the nearby Merrimack River (though with its wider reach, it uses Boston's Charles River for publicity purposes), but some say that the "river" moniker is for its diverse format of music that winds back and forth flowing like a river. Despite the station's transmitter location, WXRV attempts to primarily serve the Greater Boston area; its signal also reaches into the nearby Manchester and Portsmouth markets. To overcome signal issues near Boston, the station applied for four on-channel booster stations in the Boston and metro-west areas in August 2015. The studios are still located in Haverhill, in the original WHAV art deco building. The current station inherited a facility on the top floor of its studio now called the River Music Hall, which was designed for broadcasting live performances in the pre-rock era, and is used today to broadcast live performances and to record performances for later broadcast.
The station's slogan is " Independent Radio", proclaiming its status as being a single station separate from the large mass-media conglomerates such as Clear Channel Communications and CBS Radio with freedom from the idea of corporate playlists and national content. This enables WXRV to play a very wide variety of music, ranging from blues and folk to contemporary alternative and classic rock, as well as songs from numerous local musicians and lesser-known musical acts.
In 2007, their studio location began using photo-voltaic solar power for a portion of the station's power consumption, making it one of the few such solar-powered radio stations in the world at the time.
Starting in 2001 the River began its Riverfest Festival each summer. It is held in Newburyport, Massachusetts and has had performers such as Matt Nathanson, Eric Hutchinson, Fastball and the Sam Roberts Band appear.