I’m very, very, sad to report that WOXY has gone off the air again. It’s been only six months since the station moved from Cincinnati to Texas. Now the plug has been pulled. This was the message that you will get when you head over the the site:
Due to current economic realities and the lack of ongoing funding for WOXY’s operations, we’ve been forced to suspend our live broadcasts as of March 23rd. We’re continuing to explore options to keep The Future of Rock and Roll alive.
I’m only 19 years old. I grew up during the era where the radio went to shit. I can’t listen to the public radio stations, they just don’t play them like they used to. However, as a young 13-14 year old I discovered a radio station called WOXY. It was an online radio station from Cincinatti that played all the best modern music. It changed my life. I heard so many influential bands from Shivvy, Mike, and Joe, I can’t thank them enough. My enjoyment of WOXY was short lasted, when it shut down back in 2004.
However, it found its way back onto the air and continued to do its thing. I continued to listen to WOXY through my high school years. In many ways, the station deserves many thanks for this blog. Without them, I may not have developed the same love for music that I have now. It moved to Texas after being bought by a company called Future Sounds. It seemed like the station was finally safe for good. Apparently, we were all wrong.
This is a really bad situation considering that all the staffers moved out from Cincinnati to Texas in order to suit the move that Future Sounds set up for them. Now, they are stuck in Texas with no job. What the fuck, that’s not right Future Sounds!
Shivvy sent out the following letter to the WOXY listeners:
It is absolutely mindboggling to me that I have to sit down and write these words: WOXY.com is being shut down today by our owners at Future Sounds.
Mike, Joe, Brian, and I uprooted our lives to Austin under the belief that we were finally under ownership that would take things at the station to the next level. We also brought on Paige Maguire from here in Austin to help us do things on a promotional and marketing level that hadn’t really been in place for years. Yes, we have been dubbed “zombie radio†in the past after ownership shutdowns and resurrections, but it will take a pretty incredible company/plan coming around now to make me want to stick around at this point (although I guess we have to wait to see if anything shakes out in the days ahead). This time around, we no longer own WOXY and the entire situation is completely out of our hands.
The WOXY staff continued working last week during SXSW under good faith because a deal was “in motion†to continue funding for our operation. We were informed yesterday that that the deal fell through and now it is time for us all to walk away. There will be no farewell shows or weepy goodbyes. Our listeners deserve more than this, but I don’t think any of us on staff have it to give right now. It is, to be perfectly honest, quite a kick in the dick to have this occur again right on the heels of our most successful SXSW ever. But, I guess it would pretty much be a kick in the dick no matter what since we’ve only been living in Austin for *6 MONTHS* and have already had the rug pulled out from underneath us.
Thanks to everybody who has been SO amazing to me and this station over the years. I’ve been on this wild ride now for 12 years. I am thrilled that I have had a part in helping to program this station since 1998 and am incredibly proud of WOXY’s legacy
This is just heartbreaking to here. I hold WOXY dear to my heart, and truly feel for all of their hardworking staff. Hopefully someone else can fall from the sky and save the wonderful station from becoming extinct. They really played a big role helping shape my taste in music, and I can’t thank all of them enough.
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