Sunday, October 05, 2008

Peoria radio stations go dark

Man, how bad is the economy? So bad that now you even have radio stations shutting down. Two Peoria stations threw in the towel on Friday: Adult standards-formatted WOAM 1350 and Oldies WPMJ-FM, both owned by local businessman Bob Kelly due to "financial reasons".

The stations had been up for sale, but the current credit crunch had scared off many buyers.

WOAM played "Adult standards" music, generally from the '40's to the '60's. WPMJ aired Scott Shannon's True Oldies Channel, which can be found here in Chicago on WLS-FM (94.7).

As a result of the stations closing, ten people who worked at the station were laid off.

It is rare a radio or television station literally goes off the air. For the record, the last time a television station went off the air for good was on August 30, 1983, when WKBS-TV in Philadelphia went dark after then-owner Field Broadcasting (which also owned WFLD-TV in Chicago until 1982) could not find a buyer and instead shut down the station and returned the license to the FCC.

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