In late July, Threshold Communications partners Jim Bryan and Ron Wulff finally gained the FCC’s approval after more than five years to relocate a new FM radio station from a small town 50 miles east of Portland, Ore., to a tower in Washington where it will serve the Centralia-Chehalis, Wash., region.
With that battle, which commenced in 2019, over, Bryan and Wulff are engineering the sale of what is presently licensed as KVNW-FM.
You’ll never guess who the buyer is.
Now licensed to Napavine, Wash., following its contested move from Clatskanie, Ore. by Premier Broadcasters, KVNW — at 92.9 MHz with 2,650 watts at 999 feet — is being spun to … Premier.
It’s perhaps the ultimate settlement between two parties that sparred for some three years over the station’s entry into the region.
The purchase price for the construction permit is $250,000, with a 10% escrow deposit to be made at this time. The asset purchase agreement was signed and approved on September 2 and submitted in the FCC’s LMS on Friday.
Threshold’s legal counsel in this transaction is Donald E. Martin. Representing the buyer is Lerman Senter‘s Meredith Senter.
Threshold was the winning bidder in Auction 91 for an FM allotment on Channel 225C3 in Clatskanie. It proposed in an amended long-form application to change the allotment’s community to Napavine. This, Threshold argued, demonstrated higher section 307(b) priority.
Premier objected to the community change, claiming that the move-out community of Clatskanie had a greater need for new radio service, and arguing that application of the Commission’s urbanized area service presumption (UASP) demonstrated that moving the proposed station to Napavine did not represent a preferential arrangement of allotments.
In the Commission’s review of the second petition for reconsideration, the Commission ruled that it properly concluded that Premier failed to meet its burden of production. And, it said Threshold properly met its burden of persuasion.
Now, Threshold is poised to pocket some cash from KVNW’s sale, with Premier adding another property along the I-5 corridor between the Columbia River and Tacoma.
