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RADIO
STATION SALE HERE -- Joe Shanely (center), president and CEO of the
Wells County Radio Corporation, is flanked by John D. Dube (left), the
new chief operator, and Rick Holden of Fort Wayne, the new owner of
WADM-AM Radio Station, Decatur, serving Adams and Wells Counties and
beyond. They are seen here at the Rittenhouse Restaurant this week,
meeting on transition details. The Wells County Radio Corporation sale
of Bluffton FM radio station WNUY-100 to a Dallas, Texas firm, as
announced in August, remains pending licensing clearances.By JIM BARBIERI
Back on August 18, the News-Banner reported that the Wells County Radio Corp. had a tentative agreement to sell Bluffton FM radio station WNUY-100 to Independence Media Partners of Dallas, Texas.
The sale completion and new ownership steps for the Bluffton Y-100 station and Bluffton properties of Wells County Radio Corporation were pending license requirements.
That’s still the case.
Station president-CEO Joe Shanley said then that the tentative buyers were able to take active management of the station right then last August by agreement with the Wells County Radio Corp. firm.
Added was that Brian Winslow was the station manager for the Independent Media Partners firm and already was on the job here in that capacity.
Stated by Shanley this week that this remains the status, amid the known waiting periods for licenses and other clearances.
His estimate of when the deal can be completed was any time from December of about March.
However, Shanley this week disclosed that Wells County Radio Corporation’s AM radio station, WADM of Decatur, serving all of Adams and Wells Counties and considerable ranges beyond, has been sold.
The WADM buyer is Rick Holden of Fort Wayne.
Holden was in Bluffton just before the Thanksgiving holiday, along with John D. Dube, who is the new chief operator, heading the technical side for WADM.
Wells County Radio Corporation, as established originally in 1962 here, has been owned since 1993 by former Anderson Radio Station WLHN executives Shanely and Mark Lamey, along with Mick Cupp and Robert Troxel of Wells County.
Shanely and Lamey in 1993 purchased 66 percent of the Bluffton-based radio corporation, with Cupp and Troxel retaining 34 percent. (Cupp and Troxel had bought into the company in 1989 and had full ownership by 1992, prior to the 1993 sale of majority interest to Shanely and Lamey.
Shanley, still the president and CEO and now in his 60s, suffered a severe stroke last year. While he has undergone much therapy and his speech and mind remain sharp, he is acting for selling the radio enterprises to spare his wife the daily trips driving here and also so that they can have some family time.
The good news is that even since August, Shanley has shown considerable further improvement.
The other good news is that the sale to Holden of WADM is not pending or tentative but has gone forward.
Holden said here Tuesday that owning a radio station has been a dream of his since he was 12 years old. A brother did record hops for WOWO in the 1960s, and Holden enjoyed hanging around, talking with disc jockeys.
But there were not many jobs with good pay prospects in the area radio field then, and he moved on into other endeavors.
Holden currently is part owner of CreditMax in Fort Wayne and will continue in that role and endeavor, he said.
Now, however, he will be realizing that boyhood dream about radio.
Holden announced that WADM, 1540 on your AM dial, will become a County Classic music station, featuring five decades of titles from the 50s through the 90s.
“Our music library has over 1,500 song titles,’’ he related.
Holden elaborated that the county music aimed for WADM is not “mainstream.” It will sound more like Nashville rather than Hollywood, as Holden noted much in the more recent county music to resemble.
He amplified that in studies of 27 radio stations serving in this general area only two are playing county music as their predominant format and neither of those two are playing a lot of county classics.
Holden spoke of developing what he feels will be a significant niche type audience.
Although the sale deal has been made, the changes will be showing up on the air waves probably in the first week of December, Holden indicated.
He and Dube also discussed the decision for an AM station.
One of the advantages is that an AM station can be acquired for substantially less. But they disagree with some who have likened AM radio to black and while television.
Holden said satellite radio is more of a threat, but country music listeners are more loyal to the AM dial.
Dube, who originally was from Washington state, went to work for Holden in Fort Wayne.
Yes, said Dube, WADM has a web site and you can click on listen to hear music.
As for other broadcast content on WADM-AM, Holden wants to get involved with the schools after getting under way and enhance broadcasts of community events and church programs. Weather and news, although with more attention to local information than national, is the aim.
Holden emphasized that WADM wants to succeed as an independently-owned station and help serve other independent business interests here too.
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