Peconic Public Broadcasting has been attempting to come up with the necessary funding to acquire 88.3 WLIU-FM from Long Island University.
After getting a third extension to find funding, it appears the group of former employees has enough of the $800K price tag in place to proceed with the deal.
According to the Southampton Press, fans of the station have been kicking in small donations, but the key has been a large loan of front money from a lone benefactor and a bank loan described by SP as being less than $300K. The upshot is that PPB will have $637K by the latest deadline, 9/28/10, enough to bring it to the $800K total.
SP notes that there are still issues on the table requiring attention, and of course the FCC will still need to approve the sale.
The original deal for the station, licensed to Southampton and serving eastern Long Island, now known as the Hampton-Riverhead NY market by Arbitron, was filed with the FCC 3/17/10, and called for an $850K compensation package. According to the terms of that contract, Peconic was to enter into a Programming and Engineering Services Agreement with L.I.U., proving management, technical and engineering services to the school’s WCPW-FM Brookville NY in the adjacent Nassau-Suffolk NY market located on the western side of Long Island.
RBR-TVBR observation: Over the years, it seems that happy endings when a beloved station is threatened are few and far between, regardless of prevailing economic or broadcast business conditions. It’s good to see a happy ending in progress for a change, and here are our best wishes that the process moves forward to a positive conclusion.
