Re: tv on radio

["Dan Billings" <dib9@gwi.net>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Cooper Fox" <fox893@yahoo.com>
To: "Dan Billings" <dib9@gwi.net>; <bri@bostonradio.org>
Sent: Tuesday, January 22, 2002 7:50 PM
Subject: Re: tv on radio

> Who currently owns WOXO?  And who owned it priot to
> them?  Just curious because i had a friend who claimed
> that his uncle owned the station and several others in
> that area.

Dick Gleason.  He's only the stations back into the early 1980's, maybe
earlier.  Local owner, at the station on a daily basis.  I worked there on
and off on a part-time basis from 1994 to 1997.  I was working at the
station when the WOXO tower fell down during an ice storm.  Dick was insured
and put up a new tower that improved the station's signal.  Dick is a good
guy and one of the few local owners that has not cashed in on his
investment.  Maybe there's isn't that much interest in small signals in one
of the poorer areas of the state.

Dick owns 92.7 WOXO Norway, which has a country format and simulcasts with
100.7 WTBM Mexico.  Gleason also owns 780 WTME Rumford, 1450 WKTQ South
Paris, and 1240 WCNM Lewiston, which all simulcast and broadcast a mix of
paid religion, news, talk and sports.

Gleason has collected his stations in an interesting way over the years.  He
originally owned WOXO and WKTQ.  In 1986, he got into the Lewiston/Auburn
market by purchasing a daytime station in Auburn that I believe was on 1530.
A few years later the owners of the 1240 frequency wanted to get rid of the
station and cash in on the tower site.  Dick picked up the station, dropped
the 1530 license, and upgraded to a full-time station at 1240.  The Mexico
FM was one of those misguided licenses issued in the 1980's.  Dick got the
station after a couple of owners couldn't make a go of it.  Simulcasting
with WOXO provides good station of most of Oxford County and makes the
signals economically viable.  Just recently, he got the Rumford AM from J.J.
Jeffrey after J.J. had done the work to move the station to 780 and increase
the daytime power to 10K.  It's an interesting little group and Dick has
made a go of it in a poor area through good times and bad.

-- Dan Billings, Bowdoinham, Maine