About 40 miles east of Albany, Ga., is the city of Tifton. Here, WTIF-AM 1340 in Tifton (with FM translator W260AT); WFFM-FM “Rock 105”; and Country WTIF-FM in Omega were operating as three respective radio stations that until recently were owned and operated by Plant Broadcasting.
In November 2021, a change in ownership of Plant’s parent company transpired. Now, it appears that the future of the radio stations was placed in doubt with that bigger deal. Why? The new licensee couldn’t access the transmission equipment, leading it to silence the three radio properties under a STA.
As a result, WTIF-AM & FM, W260AT and WFFM are each dark, with a request for silent authority submitted on Tuesday (7/5) for Commission approval.
It’s a blow to Danny Sterling and his Sterling Southern Land, which gained ownership of the stations after the closing of a deal that saw Southern Georgia-based Plant Telephone Company and Plant Telecommunications Sales & Services get acquired by TruVista Communications — a portfolio company of iCON Infrastructure Partners IV LP.
Key to the STA was the fact that tower access ceased once the deal closed.
Sterling isn’t seeking to regain access, and to fire up the stations under his watch.
In his justification statement accompanying the STA request, Sterling says, “The antenna structures … are being disposed of in a separate transaction involving some of the tangible assets used or useful by the stations.”
As a result of this disposition, which is scheduled to occur Wednesday (7/6), the antenna structures will not, in the near term, be available to the stations. This requires a suspension of operations — until they can be divested, subject to Commission approval, to third parties.”
Upon such approval and divestiture, and resumption of the right of access to the antenna structures, the stations propose to resume operations “under the ownership of the third parties.”
WTIF-AM was once the home of Art Sutton. In 1982, he was the News Director and a part-time sales person. With WTIF-FM by its side, James A. Howard, Joseph T. Overton and James Scott — together as Three Trees Broadcasting — agreed to buy the duo in July 2004 for $1.9 million. Eddie Esserman and George R. Reed of Media Services Group represented the seller in that transaction.
Three years later, Three Trees agreed to pay Educational Media Foundation a sum of $150,000 for what is today WFFM.
