It’s a Class B radio station licensed for 50kw during daylight hours and 1.2kw at night that’s been silenced since mid-January under Special Temporary Authority with the FCC, after iHeartMedia concluded its lease of the AM and declined to acquire it.
Now the licensee of this Northern Virginia facility that signed on as WAGE-AM is poised to have a new owner.
WTSD-AM 1190 in Leesburg, Va., with a broadcast tower site just west of Dulles Town Center, has been sold by Brian Lane-led Potomac Radio Group.
If his name sounds familiar, it is because it is the same individual who, along with Patricia Lane, owns and operates 13-year-old Marquee Broadcasting.
The buyer is Faith & Values Media Group, which is paying $450,000 for a signal that, once reborn, will cover much of the Washington, D.C., DMA. A 10% deposit has been made to Lane.
Serving as the buyer’s legal counsel is Davina Sashkin of Wilkinson Barker Knauer; the seller’s legal counsel is Dan Kirkpatrick of BakerHostetler.
WTSD has been at 1190 kHz since 2011 and after dark must protect both WLIB-AM in New York and WOWO-AM in Fort Wayne, Ind. Before that it was at 1200 kHz and had the WAGE calls. With the shift in dial position came new call letters WCRW, and programming from China Radio International. In January 2022, programming provided by the People’s Republic Of China-funded operation ceased. With brokered programming in place for a year, iHeartMedia in January 2023 began leasing what became WTSD as a home for Fox Sports Radio and VSiN sports talk programming.
Now, WTSD is poised to adopt a non-secular format, bringing a company known for original digital media content into the broadcast sphere.
