Farmville, Virginia radio station WFLO will go off the air this Friday after serving the community since 1947. The 2008 recession, changes to the national economy and the pandemic all led up to the need to close shop, according to the owners.
The local ABC-TV affiliate interviewed Colonial Broadcasting President Francis Wood who said, “We always say, ‘This is your radio station, WFLO.’ And it is. Our listeners are the heart of Central Virginia. You have a 500-foot tower out here and 50,000 watts so it has always been a real powerhouse.”
Wood tells the TV station he saw this coming for a few years, especially with the economic challenges of small businesses.
Read about the long history of WFLO HERE.
Sale pending, new national owner, new format. Signal may remain, local service won’t.
I work and love the AM broadcast world, but you’ll be seeing more of these kinds of stories in the near future. An AM station without a strong FM translator at the very least, in addition to a strong streaming availability, is just a difficult operation to make “pencil” in many situations. Imagining that just the power bill alone of WFLO’s 50kW is a significant monthly nut to crack.
Not really. It’s 50 kW ERP (FM) which on a tall tower can be derived by a large high gain antenna requiring less than 10 kW transmitter output power. Still a good sized utility bill but should not be a budget breaker for a regional FM station. That said, a class B FM in any nearby community operating from a 1000 foot TV tower would have better coverage than WFLO and the competition could have become too much for a local community station competing with the “big boys.” And yes, a translator high up on the same 500 foot tower would have been an asset, especially for a daytime only AM station.
I am not sure the station is going “dark.” My understanding is that a sale is pending and there are some tower modifications taking place.
Would their be a way to contact them?
Why go dark? Could they not have sold for more than they make turning it off? Could they have donated it to a non profit or some other agency and taken a tax right off?
A tax write off is only worth something if you have income/profit to offset it.
You’re assuming there would be an agreeable non-profit.
As for a sale, that typically requires both a seller and a buyer.
Here’s hoping you don’t actually mean to imply the operator isn’t bright enough to have explored all their options.