Lima’s two Gray Media television stations are getting a new leader with four decades in the business. Gray Media announced on Monday, November 9, that Richard Haddox will serve as general manager of WLIO and WOHL in Lima, effective November 16, Gray Media announced via Globe Newswire, in a release also reported by TheDesk.net.
WLIO is Channel 8, Lima’s NBC affiliate, and WOHL is Channel 35, carrying ABC and CBS programming — together, the pair forms Gray’s duopoly in the Lima market, TheDesk.net reported. The general manager oversees the stations’ operations, advertising sales and administration, the role Haddox most recently held in Texas, TheDesk.net reported.
Haddox brings 42 years of experience in the television broadcast industry to Lima, Gray Media said via Globe Newswire, a figure TheDesk.net also reported. Few station-group appointments come with a résumé that long, and his stretches across nearly every side of a local station: news, production, marketing, sales and, for the last decade, the general manager’s office.
He arrives from KAUZ News Channel 6, the CBS affiliate in Wichita Falls, Texas, where he has been general manager for 11 years, serving since November 2015, Gray Media said via Globe Newswire. At KAUZ he held the title of vice president and general manager, overseeing station operations, advertising sales and administrative management, TheDesk.net reported.
His career began in the same Texas market where it most recently peaked. Haddox started in broadcasting in 1984 at KFDX, Channel 3, the NBC affiliate in Wichita Falls, spending 11 years as production manager with responsibilities in news production and creative services, TheDesk.net reported — a production-first grounding from an era when local stations built far more of their own programming in-house.
The stops between Wichita Falls and Lima map the industry’s own transformation. Before KAUZ, Haddox was local sales manager at WISE, Channel 33, the NBC affiliate in Fort Wayne, Indiana, from 2013 to 2015, TheDesk.net reported. Earlier, he held several roles at KSEE, Channel 24, in Fresno, California, including new media manager and local sales manager; served as web sales manager at WHBQ, Channel 13, in Memphis, Tennessee, from 2008 to 2010; spent more than 11 years at WTWO, Channel 2, in Terre Haute, Indiana, in station operations and new media management; and worked as operations manager at WHTM, Channel 27, in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, TheDesk.net reported.
Read in sequence, the résumé follows local television’s center of gravity as it moved: production manager in the 1980s and 1990s, then a run of new-media and web-sales posts in the 2000s as stations learned to sell the internet, then sales management, and finally the general manager’s chair. Gray’s Lima stations are hiring the version of that career that has already made each of those transitions once.
The Lima move is also a return to the region. Haddox’s 2013–2015 posting in Fort Wayne is the closest stop on his résumé to northwest Ohio, TheDesk.net reported, and he attended Indiana State University, where he studied marketing, as well as Midwestern State University in Texas, Gray Media said via Globe Newswire and TheDesk.net reported.
His new employer is the largest local broadcaster in the country. Gray Media, Inc. (NYSE: GTN), headquartered in Atlanta, describes itself as the nation’s largest owner of top-rated local television stations and digital assets, serving 117 full-power television markets reaching approximately 37% of U.S. television households, Gray Media said via Globe Newswire. TheDesk.net put the portfolio at 180 local TV stations across more than 110 markets. Gray’s holdings include 78 markets with the top-rated television station, the largest Telemundo affiliate group at 46 markets, Gray Digital Media, and production properties Raycom Sports, Tupelo Media Group and PowerNation Studios, Gray Media said via Globe Newswire.
Haddox takes over a two-station operation in a market where local television remains the dominant news source for Allen County and the surrounding counties WLIO and WOHL reach — the stations viewers in Lima, Delphos, Wapakoneta and the smaller communities between them turn on for weather, high school sports and county news.
What we know — and what we’re still waiting on
What we know: the appointment is official, announced November 9 by Gray Media via Globe Newswire and reported by TheDesk.net, and it takes effect November 16. What we’re still waiting on: neither Gray’s announcement nor TheDesk.net’s report named the outgoing Lima general manager or any interim arrangement for the week before Haddox starts, and no statement from Haddox himself was included in the announcement.
What happens next: Haddox assumes the general manager’s role at WLIO and WOHL on Monday, November 16, 2026. His first ratings book in Lima will be an early measure of the transition, and any changes to the stations’ news or sales leadership would follow from the new general manager’s first weeks in the building.