Five radio stations and two translators have become one of many COVID-19 casualties. Maine’s Gleason Media Services is shutting down its operations this Sunday at 7 p.m., the Sun Journal reports.
The group, founded by late Auburn Mayor Dick Gleason in 1975, includes WOXO(FM), WEZR(FM) and WTME(AM), and has been run by his widow Kathy and WOXO manager Vic Hodgkins’ for the past year, while Gleason sought a buyer for the stations. But now time and money have run out.
“The coronavirus was kind of like the last straw as far as finances go,” Kathy Gleason told the Sun Journal, which cited existing problems such as “low receivables and slow payments,” in addition to the “projected drop in advertising” due to the pandemic. However, she noted that the stations are still for sale, so this may not be the final chapter.
