Stephen King’s Radio Station Gets Last-Minute Investment to Keep It on the Air

December 26, 2024 11:47 am

Stephen King’s mastery of horror fiction made him a household name. His constant readers know that he’s also a passionate music lover. Music appears in pivotal moments throughout his novels and he hand-picked the soundtracks for some of the best film adaptations of his books. However, many may not know that the horror maestro also owns multiple radio stations in his home state of Maine.

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King acquired his first radio station in 1983. He rebranded the station WZON, a reference to The Dead Zone. The station later shut down but King reacquired it in 1990, according to WCVB. He currently owns WZON-AM Retro Radio, the adult alternative station WZLO, and WKIT-FM billed as “Stephen King’s Rock n’ Roll Radio Station.”

All of King’s stations were set to shut down at the end of the year. However, a Bangor, Maine-based businessman stepped up to save WKIT-FM just before Christmas. The act gave hope to the station’s listeners and employees.

“Well, we all kind of resolved that it was just gonna end, and I think we all kind of made peace with that,” Scotty More, a WKIT employee said. “And then we found out, like, it’s really gonna continue, it’s really gonna happen, and it’s totally like a Hallmark movie,” he added.

Unfortunately, King’s other two stations are still slated to go silent at the end of the year.

Why Stephen King’s Radio Stations Are Going Silent

Earlier this month, WCVB reported that Stephen King’s Maine-based radio stations would go silent at the end of 2024. After decades of upkeep, the stations are now too expensive to keep afloat. King announced that he would let the stations go into the clearings at the ends of their paths in a statement.

“While radio across the country has been overtaken by giant corporate broadcasting groups, I’ve loved being a local, independent owner all these years,” he wrote. “I’ve loved the people who’ve gone to these stations every day and entertained folks, kept the equipment running, and given local advertisers a way to connect with their customers,” he added.

“Independent, locally owned radio stations used to be the norm. There are only a few left in Maine, and we’re lucky we had these as long as we did,” said the stations’ general manager Ken Wood.

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