Dick Greene has been an owner of a Western New York AM, today with an FM translator, for more than 40 years.
He’s now selling the properties. Who’s the buyer? It happens to be another individual who possesses an AM property in the region.
Paperwork is being filed with the FCC that proposes the sale of 1kw Class C WLVL-AM 1340 in Lockport, N.Y., and its FM translator, W287CV at 105.3 MHz.
Combined, they offer Niagara County, N.Y., and, via WLVL-AM nearly all of the Buffalo market, hyperlocal programming billed as “Hometown Radio.” It’s the home of New York Yankees play-by-play, and has a mix of shows including Premiere Network’s Clay Travis & Buck Sexton in the Noon-3pm slot and a local morning show.
Soon, Greene will no longer be the owner, as the AM and FM translator are being sold from his Culver Communications to Kenmore Broadcasting Communications.
That’s the licensee led by Bill Yuhnke that owns WEBR-AM 1440, a Class D facility with a signal covering Niagara County and Buffalo in addition to Niagara Falls, Ont.
WEBR airs a unique Adult Standards format with ABC News Radio top-of-the-hour reports and $1,000 “winning word” nationwide contest participation, which likely meshes well with WLVL’s conservative Talk programming.
“I am very excited to have this opportunity to broaden my radio footprint and continue to deliver for the people of Western New York, my home,” says Yuhnke, who is known in the region for his Liberty Taxi business.
Greene, a 2017 Buffalo Broadcasters Hall of Fame inductee, was hired in summer 1969 by then-Top 40 WYSL-AM 1400 (today WWWS) as an account executive. In 1975, he exited for a short role at WGR-AM before taking on sales positions at WBEN-AM and, later, WBEN-FM “Rock 102.”
In 1981, Greene purchased WLVL-AM; in 1989, in the “Docket 80/90” era of new FM sign-ons, he built WGMM-FM 98.7 in the Corning-Elmira, N.Y., selling it in 1995.
Greene is also the individual who owned WECK-AM in Buffalo, today the most-listened-to music radio station in North America, from 2008-2017, at which time he sold it to Buddy Shula.
Now, at the age of 78, Greene says it is simply time to retire and perhaps travel to see his out-of-town children.
“I’ve been talking to Bill [Yuhnke] for some time about selling and the talks got serious last January,” says Greene, who adds that the asset purchase agreement was signed by Yuhnke on September 9; a filing had not yet been made as of Sept. 19. Greene adds, “We currently serve between 20,000 and 25,000 listeners a week with our News/Talk and community radio programming and it has served the people well over all these years. I think that kind of radio is still valued by many people in our market.”
Greene also considers Yuhnke “the perfect fit” to take over the reins of WLVL and thinks he will “improve the signal” and keep offering listeners what they want to hear at the stations he has operated for over 40 years. “I think Bill is a great person and is committed to this area,” Greene says.
The Buffalo-Niagara region is one of the few remaining locales in the U.S. where a wide variety of AM radio stations are consumed for their spoken word and music programming.
