Update: Wis. Broadcaster Reaches Deal to Buy North Shore Station

A Wisconsin-based broadcaster has reached a deal to buy WVVE/95.3 (Grand Marais).

Documents filed with the FCC say Zoe Communications is buying WVVE from Shire & Shore Communications for $30,000. The station had been silent since winter and briefly returned to the air in late June relaying Zoe’s “95 GMO” (WGMO/95.3 Spooner, WI) but has again gone silent.

WVVE had relayed the Classic Rock format of KQDS-FM/94.9 (Duluth) for most of its life as WXXZ. That ended in 2017 when KQDS owner Midwest Communications sold WXXZ and KAOD/106.7 (Babbitt, now KZJZ) to Aurora Media, which later transferred WVVE’s license to co-owned Shire & Shore Communications.

In spring 2018, WVVE and KZJZ launched an Adult Alternative format as “Radio North of Ordinary.” Then over the winter, KZJZ was sold to Catholic broadcaster Real Presence Radio and WVVE went silent due to technical difficulties.

WVVE transmits with 63kW/209m (class C1) from the Lutsen ski hill. The station’s signal also travels across Lake Superior, reaching lakeshore areas of northern Wisconsin and the western Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

It’s the only commercial radio station on the North Shore, which has few year-round residents. The only other full-power signals in the area are “North Shore Community Radio” station WTIP/90.7 (Grand Marais), which carries a large amount of local news and programming, and two Minnesota Public Radio stations.

The area is also served by numerous deep fringe signals from Duluth, northern Wisconsin, and the UP. (Coincidentally, one of those distant signals is WGMO itself, which can be heard fairly consistently along the shore in Lake County when WVVE is off.)

Zoe Communications, headed by Mike Oberg, has nine full-power stations and four FM translators in northwestern Wisconsin. WVVE will be its first station in Minnesota.

This story was originally posted June 23 and updated July 1 to indicate that WVVE has again gone silent.