A Fargo-based media company that owns WDAY-AM, flagship TV property WDAY-6 and The Forum newspaper serving this South Dakota city and neighboring Moorhead, Minn., has agreed to purchase an NBC affiliate and two low-power television station siblings in Rapid City, S.D., in a transaction that sees Kalil & Co. serve as the exclusive broker.
An asset purchase agreement has been filed for FCC regulatory approval that confirms the sale of KNBN-21 in Rapid City, along with KKRA-LD 24, KWBH-LD 27 and translator stations K22AD-D in Gillette, Wyo., and K35MW-D in Lead, S. Dakota to Forum Communications Company.
The seller is Rapid Broadcasting Company, which has branded the operation as “NewsCenter 1.”
With Daniel Kirkpatrick of Baker Hostetler serving as the seller’s legal counsel, RBC President Steve Mentele signed off on the transaction, valued at $5.9 million.
A $300,00 escrow deposit has been delivered to Citibank.
Once the deal closes, Forum will add to a stable that was first constructed in 1878 and expanded in February 2023 with the purchase of KWSD-36 and presently silent KCWS-LD in Sioux Falls, S.D., from J.F. Broadcasting in Sioux Falls, S.D. for $1.4 million.
And, speaking of J.F., it has agreed to spin the silent KAUN-LD 48, using digital Channel 25, to Forum in a concurrent transaction filed late Wednesday with the FCC for its approval.
KAUN is being purchased by Forum for $100,000. There is no broker associated with this separately arranged deal.
While these transactions are expected to enjoy smooth sailing through the FCC’s Media Bureau regulatory approval process, Forum had no such luck in a planned deal announced in December 2021.
At that time, Kalil & Co. brokered the proposed sale of FOX affiliate KVRR-15 in Fargo and full-time satellites KJRR-7 in Jamestown, N.D.; KBRR-10 in Thief River Falls, Minn.; and FOX-affiliated sibling KQDS-21 in Duluth, Minn.-Superior, Wisc., from Red River Broadcast Co. The transaction never closed, as a “Big Four” waiver request from the FCC was needed to get the deal done. That never came, resulting in Red River finding a different buyer for the properties.
