The University of Southern California is a driving force behind license companies bringing Classical music to San Francisco in the wake of Entercom’s departure from the format. So far it has one station a deal for a second, and now it’s filing to buy a 3rd.
The new deal is for KCNL-FM Sunnyvale CA, part of the San Jose part of the market. The seller is Principle Broadcasting Network San Jose LLC, headed by Charles W. Banta.
The price for the Class A on 104.9 MHz will be $7.5M cash. The station has 6 kW of power off an -153’ HAAT tower.
Banta’s group just recently acquired the station in its own right, picking it up from Aloha Station Trust, the warehouse for Clear Channel’s overstock stations when it was acquired by equity capital groups. The 11/13/09 contract for the previous deal specified a $5M acquisition price.
USC has an interest in Classical Public Radio Networks, which bought KDFC-FM Angwin CA, serving Santa Rosa to the north of San Francisco. That station, a Class B on 89.9 MHz with 800 W @ 3,035’, was acquired from Howell Mountain Broadcasting for $2.725M. It’s calls were KNDL at the time.
Both San Jose and Santa Rosa are Arbitron markets embedded in the greater San Francisco Arbitron market.
A deal for KUSF-FM from the University of San Francisco is still pending. The 1/12/11 contract for its acquisition calls for a $3.75M purchase price. The sale was protested since it would eliminate a student-run station, but the FCC was looking at an LMA-like agreement between buyer and seller that allowed CPRN/USC to start operating the station in advance of closing.
