Updated at 5:32 p.m.
After 88 years of ownership, the Squier family is selling WDEV-AM and its sister stations to a pair of business leaders who have both run for public office.
Ashley Jane Squier, the third member of her family to own the storied independent broadcaster, announced the sale on-air Thursday afternoon. She was accompanied by the buyers, Myers Mermel and Scott Milne, as well as WDEV’s general manager, Steve Cormier.
Squier said her father, the late Ken Squier, had sought for years to find a local buyer for the Waterbury-based station, which has bucked industry trends for decades by remaining relentlessly focused on local news, talk, sports and community.
“The way he wanted to give a gift to Vermonters was to keep this radio station as a community treasure, and he did that,” Squier said of her father, who died in November. “We still get to have our treasure.”
The two buyers may be best known to Vermonters for their forays into state politics.
Mermel, of Manchester, has spent much of his career in investment banking and commercial real estate in New York City. A graduate of the University of Vermont, he bought a house in Manchester in 2015 and ran for the U.S. Senate in 2022, only to lose the Republican nomination. He then served briefly as president and executive director of the Ethan Allen Institute, a conservative think tank, until his ouster last September.
Milne, of Pomfret, is the president of Milne Travel, a Vermont-based travel agency founded by his parents. He has run unsuccessfully for the Vermont House, governor, U.S. Senate and lieutenant governor — all as a Republican.
In a joint interview Thursday, Mermel and Milne said they had both begun separate negotiations with the Squier family last year when they learned that the other was interested.
“It just turned out that it was appropriate that we join forces,” Mermel said.
He said that he and Milne had reached a deal with the family two weeks before Ken Squier’s death but held off on announcing it to keep the focus on Squier’s legacy. Shortly thereafter, Glen Wright, who had overseen Squier’s assets in recent years and negotiated the sale, also died.
Radio Vermont Group’s holdings — which, in addition to WDEV, also include WCVT-FM and WLVB-FM — are being acquired by Mermel & McLain Management, the commercial real estate investment firm Mermel co-owns. Mermel characterized Milne as an investor in the entity that will control the radio assets and called Milne a key adviser. Mermel will serve as owner and operator.
“Myers is the boss,” Milne added.
The men declined to disclose the sale price. Though the deal is binding and money has exchanged hands, they said, the radio licenses will not be transferred until the Federal Communications Commission signs off, a process that could take six months.
During Thursday’s on-air announcement, Ashley Jane Squier expressed confidence that Mermel and Milne would preserve much of what has defined WDEV over the years.
“Change is hard,” she said. “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.”
Mermel added, “Many more things are going to stay the same than change.”
In the interview, he elaborated. “Our plans are to preserve community radio and enhance and grow DEV and its sister stations,” he said. “We’re going to try to improve operational efficiencies behind the scenes, to make things more efficient. We want to maintain the people we hear on the radio every day. And we have some ideas of how to enhance our local presence in more meaningful ways. We realize Vermonters want local news.”
Mermel said he expected to maintain current staffing levels and said he did not anticipate layoffs.
The buyers said they also did not intend for their political views to influence WDEV’s programming.
“Absolutely not. What Ken Squier built was a neutral platform for even-handed discussion across the spectrum,” Mermel said. “There’s no one in Vermont that is perfectly neutral, but you’ll have to take our word that that’s the way we want the station to be — and you can do a follow-up.”
He added, “We want to preserve local voices, local news, local talk, local sports. We’re not creating MSNBC and we’re not creating Fox News. We’re carrying the torch of Ken Squier and DEV.”
Cormier, the general manager, said he planned to remain in that role under the new owners. In 2017, he had reached his own agreement with Ken Squier to buy the station, but the deal eventually fizzled when he could not line up the financing.
“I just couldn’t figure out how to do it, sadly,” Cormier said. “I was given my chance and it didn’t work out. … And after listening to both Myers and Scott, I’m in.”
WDEV was founded in 1931 by Waterbury Record publisher Henry Whitehill and Lloyd Squier, Ken’s father and Ashley Jane’s grandfather. After Whitehill’s death four years later, Squier became co-owner — running the station until his death in 1979, when Ken took over.
Through the years, it has maintained an eclectic lineup of shows, including “Music to Go to the Dump By” and an array of public affairs and local sports programming, as well as paid commentary. It airs “The Vermont Conversation,” an interview show hosted by the journalist David Goodman and produced by VTDigger.
Veteran Vermont journalist Mark Johnson, who hosted a daily news program on WDEV for 17 years, said the station was worth preserving.
“I think what’s really made DEV important and relevant is how Ken Squier looked at it, which is not as a printing press or a money-making vehicle, but as a community resource — and he really felt quite deeply about that,” said Johnson, who has also worked for VTDigger and now hosts a podcast for WCAX-TV.
“I’m glad to hear it’s being bought by a local group,” Johnson said. “There are a lot of these situations where somebody — a national chain — might come in and buy up a station and put on a music format that runs in Albuquerque, Scranton and Waterbury simultaneously and has local-drop-ins but really is not a local radio station. That would’ve been a shame.”
Correction: Earlier versions of this story misspelled Myers Mermel’s and Glen Wright’s names.
