The sale of a pair of Down East FMs to Educational Media Foundation is now a matter of record, according to brokerage Kalil & Co., which was both the broker and the licensee in the deal. The stations are WGUY-FM & WFZX-FM, and they were officially sold by The Kalil Holding Group LLC on behalf of Blueberry Broadcasting LLC to EMF for $550K.
Blueberry, headed by Louis Vital and Bruce Biette, came to be sellers when they acquired a chunk of Clear Channel last spring. They picked 17 stations all told, serving Maine markets Augusta-Waterville and Bangor. The clusters were assembled under the old contour overlap rules prior to the application of the market-based definition used to determine local ownership cap compliance. And non-compliant clusters may not be transferred (except when going to an eligible buyer, which Blueberry is not).
That meant that two FMs had to be spun off, and Blueberry picked the aforementioned. Instead of applying for a waiver to own the pair until a buyer could be found, the transferred them outright to Kalil’s holding group, and hired Kalil to find a buyer.
Incidentally, EMF’s Mike Novak was just elected to the NAB Radio Board, representing District 23.
