As RBR+TVBR first reported on January 16, the television broadcasting company led by Patricia and Brian Lane successfully struck a deal to purchase stations in two small West Coast markets from Imagicomm Communications.
With the start of the month of May 2025, that transaction which saw Kalil & Co. serve as the strategic advisor, has now closed.
This puts KIEM-3 and CBS-affiliated sibling KVIQ-17 in Eureka-Arcata, Calif.; and FOX affiliate KMVU-26 and Telemundo-aligned KFBI-48 in Medford-Ashland-Grants Pass, Ore., in the hands of Marquee Broadcasting, led on a day-to-day basis by Chief Operating Officer Gene Steinberg.
How much did Marquee pay for the four stations? That remains an industry secret. Kalil & Co., which officially served as Imagicomm’s broker of record in the transaction, declined to share details regarding the purchase price per the request of the parties involved in the deal. As such, filings submitted with the FCC for its regulatory approval blacked out all pricing details in asset purchase agreement.
KIEM, billed as “The Spirit of the North Coast,” is Eureka’s first TV station and dates to October 1953, when the Smullin family signed it on the air. Pollack/Belz Broadcasting owned it from 1996 through 2017. KVIQ-LD is a reborn version of what had been KVIQ-6, a property whose ownership included Miller Broadcasting, Ackerley Group and Clear Channel Communications.
KMVU was launched in August 1994 by Salmon River Communications and acquired by Brady’s group in 1998. KFBI, a digital low-power facility, was added in 2013; it signed on the air in 2006 under Sainte Partners II ownership.
