Colorado noncom buys Denver station – again

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Public Broadcasting of Colorado Inc. bought the 88.1 MHz station in LakewoodCO, a community to the west of and servingDenver, back in 2008, from Educational Media Foundation.  However, shortly thereafter, it signed the right to buy the station – KFDN-FM at the time – to Marc Hand’s Public Radio Capital.  However, it started LMAing the station and now it’s filed to buy it one more time.


The original deal was valued at $8.2M. This time around, PBC will pay $8.364M.

However, it would appear that it will have paid most if not all of that amount by the time it and PRC are ready to go to the closing table. The contract says that LMA payments made since it began 7/3/08 will count toward the purchase price, and any remaining balance that may exist when the parties are ready to close will be paid in immediately available funds.

It has all the appearance of a sort of reverse LMA – it appears that PRC bought the station as a proxy and allowed PBC to run it and pay for it in manageable monthly payments.

PBC has three AMs, eight FMs and seven FM translators at variousColoradolocations. At least three are in theDenverarea, KVOQ-AM and KCFR-FM inDenverand KCFC-AM in satellite cityBoulderjust to the north.

KVOD-FM, which plays Classical music, is a Class C3 on 88.1 MHz with 1.2 kW @ 1,053. Located to the west ofDenverproper and licensed toLakewood, it puts a primary contour over most of the city’s high-population-density map area, and makes it just about toBouldernorth of the city and Castle Rock to the south. TheRocky Mountainsprevent the signal from traveling any appreciable distance to the west.