A Veteran Country PD Becomes A Licensee

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It’s known for “your favorite Country and Honky-Tonk artists” and on Thursday morning could be heard playing Dale Keys into a 1978 take of “Black Mountain Rag” Merle Travis and Joe Maphis and, after that, a Sara Evans song.


For listeners in rural Lompoc, Calif., sandwiched between the Five Cities of southern San Luis Obispo County and the city of Santa Barbara on California’s Central Coast, that’s been the appeal of KTNK.

Now, this AM with an FM translator has been sold. And, if you’re a Country radio veteran, you may recognize the owner.

Class D KTNK-AM 1410 in Lompoc and K279CY at 103.7 MHz in Lompoc are being spun by Cross & Crown Broadcasting Corporation.

The buyer is Sticks Media, which is led by Todd Nixon and based in Missouri.

A $150,000 purchase price has been agreed upon, with a $5,000 escrow payment made to the seller; serving as escrow payment is Craig Ruark. Ruark and his Broadcast License Store served as the seller’s broker of record.

At closing, a $30,000 cash payment will be made by Nixon. The remaining $115,000 will be honored by a Promissory Note bearing interest of 4% per annum. The Note will be fully amortized over a 10-year term, with a three-year balloon payment.

Sticks Media will pay Ruark’s broker fee of $10,500 in full at closing. The buyer’s legal counsel in this transaction is Anthony T. Lepore of Radiotvlaw Associates.

Nixon, owner of Kansas City-based Sticks Media, labels himself “a seasoned audio expert” with three decades of industry experience in both radio and the recording industry. He’s been Program Director of Country KBEQ “Q104” in Kansas City under Steel City Media; PD of WNCB/Raleigh and WTQR/Greensboro and, before that, PD of WCKT/Fort Myers-Naples and WCTQ/Sarasota-Bradenton for iHeartMedia; and from September 2003-September 2010 PD of WYZB/Fort Walton Beach, Fla., and PD of KRMD/Shreveport, La., for Cumulus Media.

Speaking of his first radio station acquisition, Nixon said, “This is an extraordinary milestone into my radio broadcasting career of nearly 30 years as my fiancé, Liz Hallam, and I venture into ownership for the first time. We believe in the immense power of radio to connect with local communities, and we are committed to upholding the legacy of this station in Lompoc while fostering innovation and growth in the digital age.”

Nixon expects to close the transaction in the fourth quarter, and says Sticks Media “aims to amplify” KTNK’s local reach “and create new opportunities that engage the Lompoc Valley community.”

Back home, Nixon serves as Media Advisor for Park University, in Parkville, Mo. He’s also on the Amber Alert Oversight Committee for the State of Missouri.

This community involvement will likely fuel Nixon’s investment in the Golden State, in an area of California enjoying new growth thanks to Vandenberg Air Force Base to the west and world-class wineries to the east.

— With reporting from RBR+TVBR in Los Osos-Baywood Park, Calif.