Noncommercial Educational Media Foundation is not particularly concerned which side of the commercial-noncommercial divide provides dial space for its O&O stations. It’s getting another outlet on the commercial side in a deal with a trust formed to spin off Clear Channel overstock stations.
The station is WZCH-FM Warner Robins GA. It’s being sold by Jeanette Tully’s Aloha Station Trust, which was formed as a holding company for Clear Channel stations that in most cases lost grandfathered status and had to leave oversized local clusters when the company was transferred to the Bain/Lee partnership.
EMF operates Christian radio networks such as K-LOVE, and is headed by Mike Novak. It will pay $365K for WZCH.
The buyer signaled its intentions on the application, writing, “EMF will be filing an FCC Form 302-FM application to convert WZCH(FM) to noncommercial educational status, as it habitually does with all the commercial stations that it acquires.”
The station is Class A located south of Macon on 102.5 MHz. Its primary 4 kW signal off a 328’ HAAT antenna doesn’t quite reach Macon, but it does put a secondary signal there. Aloha is currently using the station to simulcast the Country format of Clear Channel’s WPCH-FM 96.5.
