The nation’s largest purveyor of Christian Contemporary Music has completed its $2 million purchase of a 44kw Class B FM with a coverage area extending south to Salinas and north into the communities surrounding San Francisco and Oakland.
With K-LOVE Inc.‘s purchase of the facility, new call letters KJNV-FM are in place, allowing the seller to place the station’s former call letters elsewhere.
KJNV is the former KBAY-FM 94.5 in Gilroy, Calif. It gained those call letters in September 2004. The Jeff Warshaw-helmed Connoisseur Media inherited the property from its debt assumption-fueled merger with Alpha Media, and before that was owned by a succession of now-defunct companies including Digity LLC, NextMedia Group and Infinity.
As previously reported, the sale of the former home of KBAY-FM was prompted by overtures from K-LOVE.
And, it followed Connoisseur’s $10 million purchase of KOIT-FM, KMVQ-FM and KBLX-FM in the San Francisco market along with their numerous FM boosters, and KUFX “98.5 K-Fox” in the San Jose market from Bonneville International Corp.
That transaction created a group of stations that will include Hot AC KEZR “Mix 106.5” in San Jose plus current ex-KBAY simulcast partner KKDV-FM 92.1 in Walnut Creek and Adult Contemporary pair KUIC-FM 95.3 in Vacaville and KKIQ-FM 101.7 in Livermore, Calif.
Longtime South Bay radio listeners will recall the presence of KUFX on 94.5 MHz from March 1991 through the end of 1997. Before then, KBAY was at 100.3 MHz; that facility is now TelevisaUnivision’s KBRG-FM. Additionally, from early 1983 through March 1991, the 94.5 MHz frequency was home to Top 40 KWSS, which competed against both local and San Francisco stations through a format and economic downturn exacerbated by the Persian Gulf War’s commencement.
Michael Bergner of Bergner & Co. was the exclusive broker on the transaction.
Connoisseur Media had legal representation by Wilkinson Barker Knauer LLP.
