Sydney L. 'Syd' Small, owner of radio station WWRL, dies at age 72

story by New York Daily News
written by David Hinckley

Sydney L. "Syd" Small, who owned radio station WWRL and struggled for almost three decades to keep it viable as an alternative media voice, died unexpectedly over the weekend.

He was 72.

His death was confirmed by Access 1, the communications company where he was president and CEO. No further details were available late Monday.

Small was one of two minority media owners in the city, alongside the Sutton family of Inner City Broadcasting, and he battled for almost three decades to find a profitable niche for a small AM station with a spotty signal and a remote position, 1600 AM, at the top of the radio dial.

WWRL has a mostly progressive talk format anchored in the morning by Daily News columnist Errol Louis, and at night by Al Sharpton distributed by Syndicaton One. In recent years it has also tried R&B, classic R&B and gospel. It was the last flagship of the late Air America.

Through Access 1, Small was involved in national media. The company owns radio stations in Texas, Shreveport, Pennsylvania and Atlantic City, where it also owns WMGM-TV.

It has a large stake in both the American Urban Radio Network and SuperRadio, which syndicates some 40 programs in a wide range of formats.

Small, a native of Bedford-Stuyvesant, quit an executive job at Time Inc. in 1972 to found the National Black Network, which eventually provided news and other programming to several hundred stations around the country.

In 1982 he bought WWRL for $1.5 million from the United Negro College Fund, to which it had been donated.

Station executives said Monday that he kept a low personal profile over the years but was consistently dedicated to maintaining a viable voice for his radio stations.