ELY—KELY, Ely’s radio station for 63 years is going back to some familiar ownership and a familiar format.
A new company headed by former owner Fred Weinberg is purchasing the station from its current owners and Weinberg, now running the station for the old company while waiting for FCC approval of the transaction, has changed the station from oldies to a talk format.
“My first move was to hire Ken Kliewer as the new General Manager,” said Weinberg. “If there’s anyone in the media who knows Ely better than Ken I’ve never met that person and nobody is as well liked and respected in the community as he is.
“Last week, we did a soft launch of the new format.
“We have Glen Beck from six to nine in the morning, Rush Limbaugh from nine to noon, Sean Hannity from noon to three in the afternoon and Hugh Hewitt from three to six.
“Then we go to Fox Sports from six to six in the morning.
“During the day, we take SRN Radio News at the top of each hour.”
Weinberg said he certainly didn’t have anything against the oldies format but he is a believer in giving listeners something to talk about and “that line-up certainly will give almost anybody something to talk about.”
“As time goes on, you’ll hear more and more local stuff on the station. Ken and I think it is our job to sell Ely. Ely is a great place to live, work, go to school and raise a family and I think it’s important that a city’s radio station contributes to that.”
Kliewer will be responsible for the day to day operations of the station. He was previously the Publisher of the Ely Times for many years and he says he wants to “put the “Ely” back in KELY”.
“There’s nobody in Ely who is better prepared to take this job on,” said Weinberg.
“Ken knows everybody and is respected by everybody. Plus, he already retired once and didn’t like it.”
KELY went on the air in 1950 and is one of Nevada’s oldest radio stations. It dates back to the original post World War II Civil Defense days and actually has a fallout shelter on the premises where the Mayor would go to broadcast in the event of a nuclear attack.
“I’m pretty sure the Russians no longer target Ely,” chuckled Weinberg, “but if Rush makes them mad enough, we can take care of (Mayor) Jon Hickman for a couple of days.”
