Larry Nelson’s Grundy County Broadcasters and Mark Follett’s Sovereign City Radio Services are each kicking in an AM station into a new jointly-owned operation to be called GS Radio of Illinois LLC. The goal – to find a strong perch in the Chicago market for one of the stations.
SCRS’s WZRK-AM Lake Geneva WI will be the lucky station, assuming the new entity is successful in its attempt to gain FCC permission to move to a new location in either Cook, McHenry or Lake County. GCBI’s WCSJ-AM Morris IL will either cut back on power to the extent necessary to enable WZRK to move, or its license will be surrendered.
There is virtually no cash going from one entity to other in the deal. There would be none, if it weren’t for mutual $1 per year leases the two will strike with one another to use the existing equipment to run each station.
There is real money involved, however. Each company will kick in a $10K seed money to get the relocation project for WZRK under way.
WZRK is not currently part of the Chicao market, but WCSJ is, and there are multiple ownership implications in the market. Besides WCSJ-AM, GCBI owns WCSJ-FM Morris, WSPY-AM Geneva, WJDK-FM Seneca and WSPY-FM Plano, all in Illinois.
SCRS owns WNTD-AM Chicago and WWCA-AM Gary IN.
That results in a four AM, three FM superduopoly, leaving room for one more station in either service.
