Updated at 10:50 a.m. on Nov. 29 to reflect an additional transaction involving Glenn Cherry, in the Greenville, S.C. market. Details may be found, for subscribers only, at the bottom of this article.
An AM radio station in the Sunshine State is going back under the control of Glenn Cherry, thanks to an arrangement that sees it leave a trust created for family matriarch Julia Cherry some 18 months after a company Cherry once owned dealt this station to the trust to absolve debt issues.
For $25,000, Glenn Cherry is once again taking full possession of WPUL-AM 1590 in South Daytona, Fla.
WPUL is presently silent and authorized to broadcast from 1 tower with 1kw daytime and 32 watts at night.
WPUL had been airing Gospel music alongside Progressive Talk programming until signing off in February 2014; a new tower site is under consideration.
Prior to April 2015, WPUL was owned by a company Glenn Cherry headed, PSI Communications. At that time, PSI sold WPUL to the trust helmed by Julia Cherry as a “cancellation of debt.”
According to an asset purchase agreement dated Nov. 10, 2016 and filed Monday (11/28) at the FCC, Glenn Cherry is paying the Julia T. Cherry Revocable Living Trust for the full rights to WPUL.
The trust dates to November 2004, when Charles W. Cherry died. At the time, Julia Cherry and the remaining family members decided to continue Charles’ legacy as an African-American-targeted media owner. The family also owns the Daytona Times weekly newspaper, serving the African-American community.
WPUL represents one of two radio stations associated with the Cherry family. The Cherrys were principals of various stations in the Southeast that ran afoul of lender D.B. Zwirn. As RBR + TVBR reported in 2011, they lost the licenses due to loan defaults. Various efforts to get them back via FCC and courtroom action have failed to bear fruit.
In a concurrent transaction that filed with an FCC Form 315 at the same time as the WPUL deal, Glenn Cherry is also acquiring Class B WCSZ-AM 1070 in Sans Souci, S.C. This involves a $25,000 purchase of the Cherry Trust interest in Redemption Strategies Broadcasting. WCSZ operates with 50kw during daylight hours from 1 tower, and with 1.5kw at night from a three-tower array with a directional after-dark signal pattern. WCSZ presently airs a regional Mexican format and serves the Greenville-Spartanburg, S.C. market, which has seen a surge in Mexican and Central American immigrants in recent years for farming and agricultural industry jobs.
