Take Two For AU’s Delmarva Departure

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WASHINGTON, D.C. — On February 18, 2020, RBR+TVBR reported on the departure after a decade of American University from the Salisbury-Ocean City, Md., market. AU’s Board of Trustees on Jan. 31, 2020, signed off on the sale of WRAU-FM 88.3 in Ocean City.


That deal never transpired. Now, it’s found a new buyer.

And, it’s the owner of another big FM in the Nation’s Capital that seeks to do what AU did in 2010.

A new asset purchase agreement, dated March 18, has just been filed with the FCC. It sees WRAU being sold by The American University to Atlantic Gateway Communications.

That’s the licensee of successful non-commercial Christian Contemporary WGTS-FM 91.9 in Washington, D.C.

WGTS is already promoting its expansion to Maryland’s Eastern Shore in a YouTube video seeking listener donations to help fund the acquisition.

The deal is valued at $650,000, with AU contracting Robert H. Branch to serve as its broker.

Matthew McCormick of Fletcher Heald & Hildreth served as the university’s legal counsel in this transaction.

With the sale of WRAU to WGTS’s owner, a simulcast of WGTS is all but inevitable.

It erases a plan from Delaware First Media Corp. to purchase WRAU for $537,500, and expand WDDE-FM in Dover, Del.’s programming to lower Delaware and into Eastern Maryland.


RBR+TVBR Editor-in-Chief Adam R Jacobson is a 1994 graduate of American University’s School of Communication.