A notable incident occurred because of this limitation in March 1977, when the Brunswick High School boys' basketball team reached the state championship game for the first time in thirty years.
However, the game was to be played at 6 p.m. at the University of Maryland, College Park, and at that time of year WTRI was required to sign off at 6:15 p.m. Charles Thornton Jr., Bert's son and the station's manager, attempted to secure permission from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to stay on the air for the game, but was flatly told it was impossible as it would violate the 1941 North American Regional Broadcasting Agreement which internationally standardized nighttime operation.
A local car dealership cleared out its showroom to use as a makeshift auditorium, the game was broadcast over its public address system, and the team won the championship.
This stoked controversy as one of the corporation's owners, Allen Salisbury, had ties to the LaRouche movement based in nearby Leesburg, Virginia.
Shortly after the sale closed, Charles Zimmerman, an elderly former Bethlehem Steel executive who was the principal shareholder in the corporation, filed a lawsuit alleging that LaRouche supporters had taken advantage of his failing memory and unduly influenced him to contribute $200,000 that was used to buy the station.
[7][8] After the Federal Bureau of Investigation raided the movement's headquarters in Leesburg on suspicion of credit-card fraud later in 1986, the station began broadcasting controversial LaRouche-inspired news, political and conspiratorial content.
Maniaci quit at the end of the year, calling the LaRouche content "distasteful" in his resignation letter and criticizing an oppressive and secretive environment at the station.
He claimed that Salisbury acted as the de facto manager, surveilled him and prevented him from making any consequential decisions, and that news items were regularly censored to remove negative references to LaRouche supporters.
The Brunswick volunteer fire department, who had a long-standing tradition of running the station for a day as a fundraiser, refused to work with the new ownership.
WTRI was sold at bankruptcy auction to Liz Roberts, a former BBC and NPR reporter, who changed the format to an eclectic variety of music exclusively by local talent.
It was sold to JMK Communications of Los Angeles and returned to the air in January 2001 with Korean-language talk in simulcast with WKDV and WPWC, both based in Prince William County, Virginia.
In March 2005, WTRI was sold to local residents Buddy Rizer, Marty Sheehan, and Taylor Walsh, who spent weeks repairing the station's dilapidated studio building.
[22] WTRI broadcast for the last time on September 22, 2023, after the land housing its studio and transmitter site was sold to the city of Brunswick to expand a neighboring park.