ELY— WELY Radio is once again changing hands, less than two years after Zoe Communications of Shell Lake, Wis. bought the radio station but never returned it to the air. Now, the company has sold the radio station to Civic Media Inc. of Madison, Wis.
The new owner gave the Ely area a pleasant surprise when WELY-FM, located at 94.5, went back on the air this week. Local radio personality “Trader Craig” Loughery shared the news on Tuesday evening on the “What’s Up, Ely” Facebook page. “The new owner brought in a crack engineering staff with the right ‘help’ that is up to the task.”
WELY was broadcasting a mix of music programming on Wednesday morning.
Selling WELY
Civic signed a purchase agreement for the station back on Jan. 2, and Zoe applied to the Federal Communications Commission this past week to transfer WELY’s broadcast license. The sale represents an unadjusted loss for Zoe, which bought the station from the Bois Forte Band on Dec. 23, 2022, for $130,000. According to the purchase agreement, Civic is paying $70,000 for the station.
Zoe had also invested some funds in an effort to get the station back on air. In the two years since the business bought WELY, Zoe repaired the station’s antenna on Beacon Hill on the south side of Ely. Because the repair required both an available repair crew and favorable weather, fixing the antenna took eight months
After the repair was complete, WELY went live for a few hours on Nov. 17, 2023, with “Trader Craig” Loughery behind the microphone. Other than Loughery’s brief on-air appearance, the station was off the airwaves between Dec. 1, 2022 —when the Bois Forte Band made the decision to shutter what had proved to be a money-losing venture — and this Tuesday morning.
Loughery, acting as a spokesperson for Zoe, said that the November 2023 broadcast revealed problems with the station’s transmitter. The old transmitter, originally rated between 20-25 kilowatts, was producing less than six kilowatts and was no longer reliable. “It was breaking down like crazy,” Loughery told the Timberjay in February 2024.
After the November 2023 broadcast, Zoe applied to increase the size of WELY’s FM transmitter to 35 kilowatts and after it obtained FCC approval, the company began shopping for a larger transmitter according to Loughery. Loughery posted an update on the “What’s Up Ely” Facebook group last September, noting that he was still waiting to hear from the owner on the last few details. “He has hands full with seven stations, so we have to wait. Once he does get back, we can be up and running almost overnight. But for now, we wait,” he posted.
Deaths a possible factor
Progress towards WELY’s return appeared to be back on track late last year. On Nov. 20, 2024, the company filed an FCC application to resume broadcasting on WELY. The FCC approved the request three days later, but less than two weeks after that, the company filed another request, this one to put WELY on “silent station” status, listing staffing as the reason.
An attachment to the status change request added, “Due to two unexpected managerial deaths at our company, we are unable to keep the stations on the air and will be filing an application for transfer of control to another entity forthcoming. The stations will resume broadcasting after transfer of control has been granted.”
About Civic Media
Civic Media Inc., created just three years ago, currently owns 20 radio stations in 17 Wisconsin communities and, in addition to music, emphasizes state and local news and building democracy as part of its mission. In that sense, Civic Media may be a response to the growing consolidation of media in the hands of wealthy, right-leaning individuals and businesses across the country. Talk shows advertised on the station’s website appear to be left-leaning and critical of the early moves by the Trump administration.
WELY is Civic’s first station outside of Wisconsin.
The Timberjay reached out to Craig Loughery and to Civic Media but did not receive a response from either before the Timberjay went to press.