It’s known as “The Big One,” and mainly reaches the suburban Chicago cities of Wheaton, Joliet and city of license Aurora via its AM signal at 1280 kHz. There’s also an FM translator at 105.5 MHz in Aurora with a small signal, in order to protect Alpha Media’s WZSR-FM in Woodstock, Ill.
Pending FCC approval, “The Big One” will be under new ownership.
Auril Broadcasting is moving forward with the sale of WBIG-AM in Aurora and FM translator W288EA.
However, it is not being sold to DuPage Radio LLC, as originally conceived. Rather, an amended asset purchase agreement signed on January 4 makes Aurora Naperville Radio LLC the buyer.
It’s just a technicality, however, as both parties are headed by Matt DuBiel.
Auril is headed by William H. Pollack, and he’s agreed to take $50,000 from the sale of the facilities.
A 50% downpayment has been made to Auril by DuBiel, who is widely known for his time as the Executive VP of Class D daytimer WCKG-AM 1530 and FM translator W272DQ at 102.3 MHz in Chicago.
Twenty years ago, DuBiel was Operations Director and Program Director for Newsweb Radio Company’s Adult Hits “9” trimulcast, before spending 17 months between June 2007 and October 2008 as Director of Operations for NextMedia Group’s WERV-FM 95.9 in Aurora, Ill.
Before that, DuBiel was the afternoon host at WLLI “Will Rock” in Joliet, Ill./Kenosha, Wisc., and from the end of 1998 through 2000 was a weekend host for WTMX “The Mix 101.9” in Chicago. He began his career as an intern at WMVP-AM 1000 in Chicago, working on Steve Dahl’s morning show.
Pollack is also the owner of WCGO-AM 1590, which seemingly remains in the process of being sold. As RBR+TVBR reported in August 2023, Jorge Rodriguez‘s Ambiente Clásico LLC, doing business as “WCGO – 1590 AM,” is buying the Evanston, Ill.-based AM and its FM translator for $675,000.
Serving as Pollack’s legal counsel is Barry Wood of Wood & Maines; the legal counsel for DuBiel’s group is John C. Trent of Putbrese, Hunsacker & Trent.
