For months, Kevin Adell has been fighting for a decision from the Commission regarding his $75 million sale of WADL-38 in Mount Clemens, Mich., to Mission Broadcasting.
To persuade the Commission to approve the transaction, Adell had no less than five sessions with FCC Commissioners to plead his case. The Rev. Jesse Jackson penned two letters to the FCC on Adell’s behalf, noting the importance of the deal’s sale to African American minority shareholders and to the community. At the same time, the termination date for the WADL sale to Mission was pushed to June, in the hopes that the Commission would act before then.
Now, conditional approval of the deal has arrived. Adell couldn’t be more pleased.
“The Chairwoman understood our plight, and like I told her, there hasn’t been a station that has been built up from the ground like this in 32 years,” Adell told RBR+TVBR on Wednesday morning. “It was built from a construction permit, and [Jessica Rosenworcel] understood how difficult it was. Most stations would have been traded six or seven times in the time that I have owned WADL.”
Commenting on WADL’s future ownership under Mission, which appears to be on track, Adell said, ” I built it from the beginning and was in great hands, but I took it as far as I could as an individual. Mission will make it far better than I did, and I built a great foundation for it to stand on.”
Noting that most people “stay in one year too late,” Adell will focus his efforts now on his radio stations and on The Word Network until the time comes where he’s ready to divest those assets, too.
Adell Broadcasting’s holdings included WFDF-AM 910 in Farmington Hills, Mich., which airs a conservative-leaning News/talk format serving the Detroit market. The Word Network is the largest African American-focused religious broadcasting operation in the world. That entity is intertwined with the longstanding ownership mix of WADL.
In 1989, $3.05 million was invested to build WADL, he said. “The tower cost me $300,000 to built. The transmitters were upward of $500,000. I had minority shareholders.”
Horace Sheffield and family members were there from the ground up. And, they’ve done well, Adell says. With roughly $1 million in debt — something rare in today’s environment — Adell is happy that after nearly a year, a closing date is now something he can have conversations with when on the phone with his attorney.
“I didn’t lose the station … I didn’t squander the station,” Adell added. “I had so much programming available for me, with Graham Media Group, FOX and The E.W. Scripps Co. producing so much content that the syndicators helped me build the station.”
Today, WADL is a MyNetwork TV affiliate. The terms of the FCC’s approval of WADL’s sale prohibit Mission from carrying The CW Network — a potential problem, as it was dropped from The E.W. Scripps Co.’s WMYD-20 in Detroit and, in 2023, from CBS News & Stations’ WKBD-50.
Given Adell’s prowess in running WADL, the current model could very well stay in place once its sale to Mission is done. Ultimately, that will be up to the Dennis Thatcher-run group, as Adell prepares to bid farewell to his 35-year-old baby.
