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Thursday, November 7, 2024

Another sad loss for regional local radio, Hornell loses two dominant radio stations

Broadcast Silence of WLEA and correction on misunderstanding of Decision

WLEA and WCKR in     Hornell will go silent on November 11th. It might not be a big deal for you...but it is for me. Here is the updated local statement:

Correction on Silencing of our broadcasts.

A Terrible misunderstanding afoot.

WLEA and WCKR are going silent as we can no longer continue as a business in this economy.

The New Owners have for the record been supporting us for over two years at no interest.

They are at the limit.  They have been extremely generous and patient.

Please do not malign these wonderful people.

We the Doran Family, I Brendan Doran VP and General Manager are not succeeding as a business for some time. We have been supporting the shortfalls in sales from pocket for some years.

We can no longer continue.

At no point has the incoming owners been anything but generous.

Nor do I or the family blame the community or our sponsors. The business just has been unprofitable too long. Simply put the economy has been buffeted and disrupted past the ability of many including us to weather the downturn any longer. Remember we as well are energy intensive as transmitters and board equipment eat a lot of electricity. The price of power rising definitely has eaten all improvements we saw in sales as the recovery from COVID began. We are not alone in this situation.

We blame no one. The community has been extremely supportive.  Something was badly written last night without anger to suggest the community wasn’t supportive, nothing could be further from the truth.

I’m sorry but the money just isn’t there now, I think it will come back, perhaps so will we.

I admit to my own misjudgments of the business although they were honest mistakes.

We will be keeping a web presence on our wlea.net web page. wlea.net

We hope to resume operations soon. I close with a personal apology to the new owners and to any who thought that post written badly but not in anger who were upset. Again, this is a misunderstanding, and the direct opposite of the truth as regards the community and the new owners, who only got involved to help our community and family.

Let’s see what good we can do in the future.  We don’t get anywhere blaming others in particular extraordinarily decent people who have helped us all so long.

Thank you all

Brendan Doran

WLEA WCKR

THIS was the first statement:

From WLEA on Facebook,

This post is very hard to make. I just wanted to say Thank You to all of our listeners and sponsors throughout the years. As you already know the economy has been rough the past couple years and owning a radio station has its own set of challenges. Due to lack of sponsors and support our new owners have decided to shut the station down. As of Monday Nov.11th our stations will go silent. We appreciate the support and most importantly our sponsors. Please support whatever local media there is left.

Thanks, The Doran’s

I’m a radio guy…always have and will be. In or around 2012…I launched Regional News which OFTEN had more than 250,000 views per week. I did battle with a TV network near New York City that took offense to me and filed a copyright lawsuit again me. I agreed to change the name to WELLSVILLE Regional News. Life was good again. For those reading, I AM a trusted source of local news…long before it was cool. Often, I was the only radio guy at public meetings (drove them crazy). Also, I always shoved a mic in front of the newsmaker…ya know, to keep him/her honest!

I enjoyed the experience of being interviewed on the WLEA NEWSMAKER show. Their news team often used my material (with credit). For the record…there are THREE commercial radio stations licensed to Allegany County. They are WLSV-AM (still scoring in the ratings), WQRW -owned by a former Allegany County Legislator and yes, my baby – WJQZ, which I founded in my early 20’s.

This Sunday, in the Village of Wellsville, there will be a total power outage. Enjoy the radio (on battery)!