and powerful as any in the country". As of 1948, WPTF became an affiliate of the NBC Red Network. That year the station also received permission to install a third, taller, tower, designed to support the antenna for a new FM station. Since the 1960s Bart Ritner went to work at WPTF in 1966, staying for 39 years. He hosted the morning show "Ask Your Neighbor", with people giving advice or recipes. His most popular show was "Open Line", an hour-long call-in-show started in 1966 and expanded to two hours in 1973. Don Curtis, whose company later bought the station called the show "one of the nation's first daily two-way talk programs". Ritner moved to news in 1980. He was the only reporter at a 1982 hostage incident at Central Prison, helping to negotiate and end the standoff. Ritner returned to "Open Line" in 1986 and moved it from evenings to afternoons. By the 1970s, WPTF offered a "full service format with news, talk, and adult contemporary music". Bob Kwesell, whose conservative views offended a number of listeners but attracted many newcomer and increased advertising, was dropped on November 17, 1986. In 1991, Durham Life exited broadcasting in order to focus on its core insurance business. In 1996, the opening images of the music video for the Squirrel Nut Zippers song Hell included still photographs of the WPTF transmitter site in Cary, in order to establish the video's 1940s theme. WPTF served as the flagship station for the NC State Wolfpack sports network for more than 40 years, until in 2008 the Wolfpack Sports Marketing announced it had signed a ten-year deal to move to Capitol Broadcasting Company's WRAL-FM. NC State athletic officials cited their desire to be on an FM signal with a multi-year contract and the ability to collect more local advertising revenue, conditions that Curtis Media was unwilling to provide. Some Wolfpack fans around the East Coast were unhappy with the move because it cut the audience of Wolfpack sports, especially at night, because of the reduced power. As of September 15, 2008, WPTF began streaming its local and syndicated line up. After the September 2008 death of Jack Boston, Scott Fitzgerald took over North Carolina Morning News. Parent company Curtis Media announced in August 2009 the acquisition of The North Carolina News Network from Capitol Broadcasting Company of Raleigh. On November 2, 2009, Curtis Media President