Radio and Television Transactions

In an announcement released following the Closing Bell on Wall Street Tuesday (9/26) and minutes after the distribution of RBR+TVBR's afternoon news headlines, Entercom Communications announced that it has agreed to sell KSWD-FM 100.3 "The Sound" in Los Angeles -- in addition to KSOQ-FM 92.1 in the San Diego market and WGGI-FM 95.9 in the Scranton-Wilkes Barre market -- to Educational Media Foundation. This transaction marks the first required divestitures related to Entercom’s pending merger with CBS Radio.

RBR+TVBR's TRANSACTIONS TODAY on Friday and on Monday featured a series of station donations made by Cochise Media Licenses as a result of a pair of May 2017 Consent Decrees with the FCC for failing to operate the stations for more than a handful of days over a period of several years. Three more donations were filed with the FCC today.

Cochise Media Licenses is shedding more stations as a result of a pair of May 2017 Consent Decrees with the FCC for failing to keep the lights on at a group of stations scattered across the Mountain West. Also in TRANSACTIONS TODAY: A big NPR member station in Central Florida will soon be getting a boost in a big retirement city and its surrounding communities to the northwest of the Mouse House. 

On Guthrie Peak to the far Northeast of Tucson, near Arizona's border with New Mexico, lies the tower for a noncommercial radio station that's presently dark. This facility has been owned by Cochise Community Radio Corporation, a company that the FCC has been less than pleased with in recent months. Now, Cochise is shedding a station that's received its fair share of troubles.

Childer’s Media Group, LLC, (“Seller”), and Woof Boom Radio of Lima, LLC, (“Buyer”) have agreed on the sale of radio stations WCIT (AM) Lima, Ohio; WDOH (FM) Delphos, Ohio; WEGE (FM) Lima, Ohio; WFGF (FM) Wapakoneta, Ohio; and WWSR (FM) Lima, Ohio for $2,425,000. The agreement date was September 21, 2017.

From fall 1980 through the mid-1990s, WLLZ meant "Detroit's Wheels," and were the call letters of a famous Album-Oriented Rock (AOR) station in the Motor City. Today, the WLLZ calls are associated with a low-powered TV station in another Michigan market, and this LPTV facility has just been sold. It's the deal of the day for RBR+TVBR's TRANSACTIONS TODAY for Wednesday, Sept. 20, 2017.

The sale of a Class B AM station that once served as the National Capital Region's home for Classical music — much to the lament of one of Top 40 radio's legendary figures — from an entity controlled by the owner of the Washington Redskins is now complete. Meanwhile, the sale of a Wisconsin broadcast tower by a newly pure-play publicly traded radio company has closed.

A Class C2 FM serving a wide area of the Texas Panhandle region northwest of Amarillo is trading hands. It comes as a resolution tied to a Petition to Deny the sale of another radio station from Tejas Broadcasting to the other company involved in this deal. It's the lone radio sale under the spotlight today for RBR+TVBR's TRANSACTIONS TODAY.

An Idaho "kid" has gained a way to reach listeners who enjoy skiing at a Montana winter resort near Yellowstone National Park. To the west, near Sacramento, an independent community-based noncomm has snagged a translator. These are the deals in detail in  RBR+TVBR's TRANSACTIONS TODAY for Friday, Sept. 15.

The cities of Cleveland and Greenville, Miss., have been in the news as of late thanks to a must-carry dispute between MVPD Cable One and local TV broadcaster Ellington Broadcasting. Now, the Deep South municipalities are making headlines as the latest locale where Educational Media Foundation (EMF) is scooping up a station.

Latrobe, Pa., to the east of Pittsburgh's metropolitan area, was made famous by Rolling Rock beer, now an Anheuser-Busch InBev brand. That's the home to a pair of AMs owned by LHTC Media. One of these stations had a translator. The one that didn't just bought one. It's the top story on another quiet day for deals in RBR+TVBR's TRANSACTIONS TODAY for Thursday, Sept. 14.

In a quiet day for deals, an AM from Washington State serving a multicultural community in the Vancouver metropolitan area is exchanging hands. Meanwhile, in a part of the Sunshine State mostly recovered from the impact of Hurricane Irma, a noncommercial FM is being traded by two entities dedicated to "God's word." These are the deals under the microscope in RBR+TVBR's TRANSACTIONS TODAY for Wednesday, Sept. 13.

Norman Shapiro’s Chicago-based Weigel Broadcasting Co. isn't just gaining a channel-sharing agreement for the Azteca América affiliate in Los Angeles. The company's TV-49 Inc. has just snagged a full-power TV station in the Gateway City from a not-for-profit entity that's been using it for religious programming. It's the top deal for RBR+TVBR's TRANSACTIONS TODAY for Tuesday, Sept. 12, which also sees Larry Fuss make a deal in the Deep South and Art Agnotti make an "artistic" move in Indiana.

The TV station airing the Spanish-language Azteca América broadcast network in the nation's No. 1 Hispanic DMA — Los Angeles — is trading hands. How is this possible, as the station participated in the FCC's Spectrum Auction? The party that holds its Channel-Sharing Agreement just sold the CSA to a Wisconsin-based player, making this a "zombie" deal that sees the transfer of programming rights, and not an actual broadcast TV facility.

A noncommercial TV station operated by a community college district in the San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose DMA could have earned millions of dollars from participating in the FCC's Spectrum Auction. That didn't happen, and now the facility is being sold for a fraction of what it could have fetched — allegedly due to one person's error. Who's the buyer? It's a player north of the Golden Gate Bridge that's now salivating at an opportunity to challenge PBS giant KQED.