The move also will leave a vacant building for sale on Troy Road, but station management insists listeners will notice nothing else.
“We’ve told people we’re leaving. We’re not trying to hide anything,” said Tracy Figley, general manager. “But, at the same time, it’s not going to affect anything they listen to. We’re committed to the Springfield and Clark County communities.”
The commercial-free Christian station, which broadcasts music and Bible lessons at 100.7 FM, in addition to three HD channels, will retain the same format and announcers, according to Figley.
The station has 14 full- and part-time employees.
“The only ones that will be losing their jobs will be the ones who don’t want to make the commute,” he said. “There is room for everybody.”
The decision to move the WEEC studio comes five years after the station merged corporately with a similar station in Miamisburg, 93.7FM WFCJ.
That station also will move to Xenia next year and maintain its own identity, Figley said.
The 2007 merger created a new nonprofit company, Strong Tower Christian Media, based in Springfield, with Figley as president.
“It’s been tremendous from a cost-savings standpoint,” he said. “The final piece of the puzzle is putting our staff together in one place.”
Neither of the existing facilities in Springfield or Miamisburg would work, he explained, because one station would be too far from its city of license in either location.
Xenia, on the other hand, is within the 25-mile radius required by the FCC to be considered “local” for both stations, he said.
“Our goal is to save so much by coming together that we’re able to do more,” Figley said.
WEEC, which will maintain its tower on Troy Road, began broadcasting from a storefront studio in the Park Shopping Center in December 1961, moving out beyond the Upper Valley Mall in the ’70s.
The 50,000-watt station has a reach as far west as Richmond, Ind.
“We are a Springfield radio station even though we have a huge reach,” Figley said.
In 1994, the station built and moved into its current building.
“Most people who listen to the station,” Figley said, “they’ve never darkened the door of this building.”
The planned move of WEEC is just the latest change to Springfield’s radio landscape.
The city lost its last commercial station, Kiss Country 101.7, in 2011, when that station made the move to Kettering and changed formats.
On the AM dial, 1600 WULM became a repeater station for Radio Maria, a global Catholic network, after its sale in 2008.
Wittenberg University’s student station, WUSO-FM, is set to become the last station with announcers still in Springfield, although the college station remains temporarily off the air after a broken water pipe wreaked havoc on the equipment this spring.
Figley said WEEC will remain involved in promoting local events such as the Summer Arts Festival and Clark County Fair.
“This is all God’s,” he said of the station. “The best way we can use his money is the ideal way to do it.”
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