Atlanta Radio: WMLB Set To Go Silent This Month

Radio owner Joe Weber has decided to shut down his sublimely eclectic AM music station WMLB before the end of the month after 21 years on the air.

According to Rodney Ho at ajc.com, the lease for his studios is up later this month so he decided this was a good time to close the doors on the station he dubbed “The Voice of the Arts.” He didn’t cite a specific shut-down date but on-air personalities said it will probably be mid May.

WMLB started at 1190 in 1997 before moving up the dial in 2006 to 1690, a signal which he purchased for $12 million. Weber, 73, who was a successful bakery supply company owner in his younger days, said the media world shifted around him and made it impossible for him to make any money on the AM dial with two stations.

“The stations,” he said in an interview today, “were never profitable. My timing was akin to a man who bought two state-of-the-art buggy whip manufacturing facilities in 1914… Once the iPod and the iPhone were out, people had so many other ways to get music and entertainment.”

Weber recently sold his second news/talk station 1160/WCFO-AM for $750,000 to a religious broadcaster but is holding onto 1690. He still owns the tower (which has two other tenants) and will keep the radio license for now though the station will effectively go dark the studios are closed.

WMLB 1690 AM (10 kw-D, 1 Kw-N, DA2

Weber left Atlanta for Beverly Hills three years ago after his wife passed. “After she died,” he said, “I didn’t have much appetite to do a show anymore or invest emotion or energy into the station.”