WGEA Geneva license deleted

[tomservo]

Rut roh. 1150 WGEA in Geneva has had its license deleted. Apparently it goes back to 2012 when the renewal couldn't be processed due to outstanding debts owned (Red Light).

I looked on their website and they're still updating their website and the live stream was playing music when I checked around 11 pm.

 

[Poledo]

Was (is?) WGEA 1150 still owned by the folks that owned WRJM-FM 93.7 Geneva and WRJM-TV 67 Troy?

Heck Zach, just write us a story about the history of WRJM dating back to 105.7 Troy and the subsequent downfall.

 

[tomservo]

It's the same guy. I'm not sure I could manage to weave an interesting tale of WRJM with what little I know, but it's available in bits and pieces on my website between the histories of WZHT and WPHH.

Shortly after posting this I actually got an e-mail from the guy who runs (ran) WGEA who explained what has been going on, and he's got a pretty interesting story. Dunno how much he'd want me spilling on a public forum, but it involves some unexpected health issues and trying to get an issue squared away between the FCC and the IRS. Really nothing that the station or ownership has done intentionally wrong as far as I can tell.

The website remains active, as does the live stream. The station will continue online-only for the time being, and they hope to get the red light issue taken care of and the license reinstated at some point in the near future.

If I get permission, I'll share the whole story. I don't quite understand the machinations of it all, but someone here might be able to understand what's going on.

 

[Diamondtwo]

I worked at WRJM/Troy-Montgomery in 1985-1986. "Playing love songs for Central Alabama... 105 point 7 W-R-J-M." Did 7-midnight then moved to afternoons/APD. That was an odd duck of a radio station. HUGE 100kw signal from near the top of the WSFA tall tower in south Montgomery County. We played MOR/Soft AC. We got very little in the way of ratings. There was so much intrusion in programming by the family that owned the station (their right, but they didn't know what they were doing), that we didn't stand a chance. I worked with some good folks there, though: Bill Morgan (Sappenfield) hired me. Holly LaPoint (later Stevie Lange at WKMX) was middays and MD, Mike Lewis (later a reporter at WTVY-TV) was afternoons; he left 'RJM for Channel 4 after graduating from Troy); the late Russ Ragan, Rick Patrick (now middays at WOOF-FM/Dothan), Tom (O'Brien) Smith hosted the Saturday night oldies show - Hubcap Classics.

Jack Mizell owned WRJM and also had the CP for the TV on 67. Shortly after I left for WPAP/Panama City in 1986, he sold the radio station to Eddie Holladay, and the format was updated to a gold-based AC, with the studios moved to Montgomery. That didn't last long, as they flipped to Urban after several months. Mizell then bought the Geneva stations and put the WRJM calls on 93.7FM (The Rose - B/EZ).

One quick story about my last days at WRJM. Jack Mizell and his family vacationed in the Destin area, and about a month before I finally got fed up and left, they came back from a week at the beach with a printout of songs that they LOGGED while listening to the old Format 41 satellite format on a station in Destin. They took shifts monitoring the station and writing down every song (pre-MediaBase). They brought the list back to us and told us we were to play every single one of these songs -- in the order they were listed on their printout. Problem was, we didn't have about a third of the songs in our library, and we were scrambling trying to find them in personal collections, etc., and get them carted up and into the studio, with no budget to buy what we needed. If we had to skip a song because we didn't have it, we would IMMEDIATELY get a stern call from Jack, giving us what-for about not following the format to the letter. This happened to me eight times in one day (6 hour shift), so after initially turning down an offer from Jim Dooley at WPAP, I called him back and begged to be reconsidered. A year of my life I'll never get back, but it was my first full-time radio job.

 

[passtheword]

Jack Mizell owned WRJM and also had the CP for the TV on 67. Shortly after I left for WPAP/Panama City in 1986, he sold the radio station to Eddie Holladay, and the format was updated to a gold-based AC, with the studios moved to Montgomery. That didn't last long, as they flipped to Urban after several months. Mizell then bought the Geneva stations and put the WRJM calls on 93.7FM (The Rose - B/EZ).

The WRJM calls were originally moved to 93.5 in '87 IIRC (this was prior to the station's move to 93.7). Mizell essentially moved 105.7's soft AC format to 93.5 before going to beautiful music at a later time as "The Rose".

 

[tomservo]

The way the story was conveyed to me, 105.7 was sold to keep Mizell's construction company afloat after a "rogue" IRS agent persuaded the Corps of Engineers and clients withold over a million in payments for some project the company was working on… The sale of the station kept the construction business going. The IRS seized money from the sale of the station but later was found to have over collected by $185,000 or thereabouts, and that's money that Mizell has been trying to get back ever since.

He later bought the 93.5/1150 pair and then the TV station license, but some bank shenanigans that I don't quite understand caused the bank to refuse to show debt on the note for the station, so the company filed bankruptcy to force the debt to be revealed. Rather than do that, the bank opted to foreclose. The FM and TV were sold separately and after all the administrative stuff was done, Mizell saw nothing from the sale.

Of interest is he claims the FM upgrade and the TV station were mostly to attract financing for the Country Crossing bingo gambling thingy down near Dothan, and when it failed to materialize, that's when the FM was downgraded and moved to Montgomery to sit dark and the TV went… to whatever the hell WIYC is doing now. Nothing of interest, I'm sure.

Like I said, this is just the way it was told to me, so I dunno how much is truth and how much isn't, but it is certainly an odd story, one I don't fully understand. This being Alabama, land of corruption, it wouldn't surprise me if it were all true, though.

Edit to add: More to the point of this thread, the station manager suffered a medical setback that rendered him unable to talk or function as an employee, which sort of got this whole license revocation thing rolling when they missed the renewal for WGEA. Jack stepped in and then wound up having bypass surgery and later got hospitalized with a C-dif infection so he wasn't around to handle the renewal. The fees the FCC says he owes are tied up in the aforementioned IRS overpayment that they're trying to get back. But now that the license has lapsed he's hoping the IRS will finally come off the money and he can pay the FCC and get the license reinstated.