William H. Binnie was one of the buyers in the Nassau bankruptcy auction earlier this year – and now one of the stations he bought is being sold again. Local group Blueberry Broadcasting is picking up WBQI-FM Bar Harbor ME.
The station is one of the platoon of commercial Classical stations that Nassau was running in various New England locations.
The price is $100K cash. An LMA will begin shortly after Binnie’s license company, WBIN Media Company Inc. closes on the station. There will be no snooping about the premises by the buyer looking for faults in an attempt to adjust the price downward – the station is being sold as is, where is and with all faults.
As for the buyer, it is headed by Louis Vitali. It has four other FMs in the area, including WLKE-FM, which is also located in Bar Harbor. WBQI will be moving into WLKE’s studios as soon as possible, providing that the seller retains access to it until the sale to Blueberry closes.
Blueberry’s other stations in the vicinity include WKSQ-FM Ellsworth ME, WTUX-FM Gouldsboro ME and WVOM-FM Howland ME. WKSQ and WVOM are both considered to be in the Bangor ME market, but the other three are in unrated territory. Under the contour overlap method, two distinct local clusters of four FMs each are formed.
