Radio One deal under attack
Robin M. Rothschild has challenged the license renewals of several Radio One properties in Ohio, and while that challenge is lending, is further challenging the group's qualifications as a suitable assignee of WABZ-FM Albemarle NC, which it has filed to acquire from Susquehanna and move into the Charlotte market.
Rotchshild, though counsel Lee Shubert of Katten Muchin Zavis Rosenman, charges that license subsidiaries of Radio One "...have lacked candor and misrepresented facts in connection with the License Renewal Applications" of a quartet of stations in the Dayton market. The stations in question are WDHT-FM Springfield, WGTZ-FM Eaton, WING-AM Dayton and WRNB-FM West Carrollton. Rothschild's charges Radio One with violating the public file requirement. She says that on three separate visits to the stations, the files were either incomplete or entirely unavailable. Then, "...just three days after the License Renewal Applications were filed, Mr. Rothschild discovered the Local Public Files for all the Dayton Stations to essentially be reconstituted."
"Given that for months preceding the filing...the Local Public Files were in a shambles, and then, almost miraculously, were reformed, demonstrates that [Radio One] knew that the Local Public Files..." had not been maintained per regulation.
The objection to the WABZ deal is that Radio One cannot receive the new license until it has been cleared in the Dayton case; and if it is not cleared in the Dayton case, it cannot receive WABZ period.
Radio One has filed to acquire the station from Susquehanna for $11.5M (7/30/04 TVBR Daily Epaper #148). Licensed to Albemarle NC, it holds a CP to move to Indian Trail NC, reducing its distance from Charlotte from 45 miles to 15 miles.
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