SAN LUIS OBISPO, CALIF. — Drive past Paso Robles from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo on U.S. 101, and you’ll reach the agricultural hub of King City.
Here, a big Class B FM with a signal covering northern San Luis Obispo County and southern Monterey County has offered Hot Adult Contemporary music along with Classic Hits as “KC102” since owner Bill Gittler and his wife, Marianne, purchased the station in 1982.
Now, nearly three years after Marianne’s passing, Gittler is selling the station. The buyer has a big group of radio stations in San Luis Obispo.
In an agreement dated Nov. 24, 2020 but not filed with the FCC until now, Gittler’s King City Media Corp. is agreeing to part ways with KRKC-FM 102.1; 1kw Class C KRKC-AM 1490, a Country station; and FM Translators K285FW and K295BZ — along with the Construction Permit for a third FM Translator, K228FT.
The buyer is Dimes Media, created by Eric Dimes Fahnoe, its President/CEO, from the Richard D. Buckley Trust; it is a successor to the former Buckley Broadcasting, which owned stations in California in addition to such properties as WOR-AM in New York.
With David Oxenford of Wilkinson Barker Knauer serving as the legal counsel for Dimes, and Robert Silverman at Womble Bond Dickinson representing Gittler, Dimes is getting the four FM signals and AM for $150,000.
A 10% escrow deposit has been made by Dimes.
Dimes has been an owner in San Luis Obispo since late 2014, when it agreed to purchase Mapleton Communications’ five stations in the market on the Central Coast of California, roughly 90 minutes north of Santa Barbara, for $1 million in cash.
As such, KRKC-AM & FM will be indirectly linked to the following properties:
* KPYG-FM in Cayucos, a Class B1 on 94.9 MHz with 25 kW @ 328’. It is a simulcast partner of famed Monterey-Salinas-Santa Cruz market Americana station KPIG-FM.
* KWWV-FM “Wild 106.1,” a Rhythmic-leaning Top 40 station licensed to Santa Margarita. Calif., with a Class B1 signal boasting 1.1 kW @ 1,447’.
* KXDZ-FM in Templeton, Calif., a Class A on 100.5 MHz serving northern San Luis Obispo County, and Class A KXTZ-FM 95.3 in Pismo Beach, simulcasting with an eclectic Adult Alternative/Classic Hits format as “The Beach.”
* KYNS-AM 1340 in San Luis Obispo, which uses two FM translators to serve the area closest to the university as “ALT 100.9,” airing an Alternative format based on the HD3 signal of KWWV.
The sale of KRKC-AM & FM follows the February 15, 2018 passing of Marianne Gittler from complications of Dementia.
— Reporting by Bryan Sirota in San Luis Obispo, and Adam R Jacobson in Boca Raton, Fla.
