Daystar snaps up Orlando TV station

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A noncommercial company in Orlando FL is going to focus on running its FM station, and is selling its television station. The beneficiary of the decision is Daystar Television Network, which is picking up WFME-TV.


The seller is Community Communications Inc. Jose A. Fajardo signed off on the application for the licensee.
Daystar, headed by Marcus Lamb, is buying the station under the licensee name Community Educators of Orlando Inc. It will pay $3M for the station, putting the full amount into escrow to be released to the seller at closing.

“This was a tough decision that no one took lightly,” said WMFE President José A. Fajardo. “But in the end, our trustees and executive team decided to focus our resources on sustaining and building the most viable part of our business, our FM radio station.” That station is NPR-heavy programming of 90.7 WMFE-FM.

“We carefully evaluated a number of different options, including merging with another station or becoming independent, but none would have sustained the TV platform in the long run,” Fajardo said. “There are simply too many things negatively impacting public TV today, from shrinking financial support to steep PBS programming fees that we’ve been told are actually going up over the next two years. Given all of that, at least in our market, we think the model is no longer viable.”