By the 1970s, WICE had switched to a news/talk format featuring Kurt Oden, who later served as an aide to Mayor Buddy Cianci.

WICE Sports Ace Chris Schenkel would broadcast a 'Feature Race of the Day' from Narragansett Park.

On January 4, 1953, a small fire broke out in a storage closet where the WICE studios were located.

After the fire was extinguished, they found the body of 26-year-old popular local disc jockey, Jay Creedon.

BU agreed to buy WRCP for $1.9 million; the foundation conducted a statewide drive to help raise the funds.

Even though BU doubled WRNI's transmission power from 5,000 to 10,000 watts, its signal was not strong enough to reach the southern and western portion of the state (though it provides a city-grade signal to Newport, southern Rhode Island's biggest city).

It moved WRNI from its longtime studio on Douglas Avenue to a state-of-the-art facility at Union Station.

[5] However, budget problems brought on by the September 11, 2001 attacks forced One Union Station's cancellation.

At that point, WRNI's local operations were significantly cut back, with most of the station's staff either laid off or transferred to Boston.

On September 17, 2004, with no advance warning, WBUR Group general manager Jane Christo announced that WRNI and WXNI were being put on the market.

She wouldn't give any specifics, only saying that it was time for Rhode Islanders to buy the stations if they wanted to keep NPR programming in the state.

[6] The announcement led state attorney general Patrick Lynch to open an investigation into WBUR and WRNI.

[7] On September 27, BU interim president Aram Chobanian delayed the sale of WRNI and WXNI, citing concerns raised by both Lynch and Rhode Island Governor Don Carcieri.

It promised to hire a full-time general manager based in Providence, and also stepped up local news coverage.

As part of the sale agreement, BU would continue to provide engineering and programming assistance to RIPR for five years.

The addition of WRNI-FM made WXNI redundant, and BU sold that station separately to Diponti Communications, which renamed it WBLQ.