Stephen King’s Rock Radio Station Won’t Go Silent After All

Maine radio station purchased by local business duo

Tourists pose outside Stephen King's Bangor home in 2016.
Tourists pose outside Stephen King’s Bangor home in 2016.
Jennifer Mitchell/Maine Public file
1 min read
Share
Tourists pose outside Stephen King's Bangor home in 2016.
Tourists pose outside Stephen King’s Bangor home in 2016.
Jennifer Mitchell/Maine Public file
Stephen King’s Rock Radio Station Won’t Go Silent After All
Copy

Horror author Stephen King’s rock ‘n’ roll radio station is going to continue rocking around the clock and into the new year.

Two businessmen purchased WKIT-FM from the best-selling writer after he announced that the station and two others would go silent after New Year’s Eve. The buyers are the Maine-based duo Greg Hawes and Jeff Solari, who formed Rock Lobster Radio Group to run the station.

“WKIT is the most legendary station in the region. It has tremendous history. We couldn’t let it die,” they said in a statement.

King is a lifelong rocker and performed with the Rock Bottom Remainders, a band that featured literary icons performing for charity. He announced earlier this month that at age 77 he thought it was time to say goodbye to the radio stations.

“I’m sorry as hell to be closing down WKIT and its sister stations,” King posted earlier this month on social media. “I held off the suits for as long as I could.”

King’s foray into radio began in 1983 with the purchase of a radio station that was rebranded WZON in a nod to his book, “The Dead Zone.” That station closed before being acquired again by King in 1990.

This article was originally published by the Associated Press.

Whether it’s national, local, new or an encore, here’s what to watch this April on Rhode Island PBS
Advocates for immigrants in New Bedford spoke out against an increase in reported ICE operations on the South Coast
‘His work was brilliant and I think, like so many artists, that was the most comfortable way he knew how to interface with the world’
As charitable giving priorities shift with new political climate, nonprofits revise appeals or return to old ones
Opponents argue bill is myopic of youth’s online needs. Regulators are worried about the heavy lifting involved
Survey respondents unhappy with his handling of economy, Ukraine and undermining democracy
Summer electric rates to decrease, but gas bills are going up