Yesterday we heard about how the FCC's issue of local and national broadcast ownership caps affects the game (9/25/06 RBR #186).

We're seeing large companies actually divest stations, rather than invest in new additions to their portfolios. ABC packed up its radio group and sent it to Citadel; CBS Radio is following in many of its current markets. Raycom made a major investment in television stations acquired from Liberty, but took the opportunity to execute a number of spin-offs, including many stations which it had prior to the Liberty deal. Many established groups are not putting anything on the block, but neither are they making much effort to add to their portfolios.

Despite all this, new companies are getting into the business.

Perhaps the greatest leap of faith is coming from an outfit called MM Broadcasting LLC, headed by Edward Mule and Robert O'Shea. It is picking up seven full-powered television stations and several more low power sticks from troubled Pegasus Satellite Communications. It'll get two stations in the far-flung Wilkes Barre-Scranton PA DMA, two more in far-flung Portland ME DMA, and one each in Tallahassee FL-Thomasville GA, Gainesville-Ocala FL and Chattanooga TN. There's a Fox affiliate in Wilkes Barre, and most of the others will cast their lot with either CW or My Network TV. All this for less that 42.5M.

One more TV owner is actually achieving grouphood, also thanks to Pegasus (partly).

Stephen C. Brissette's Bluenose Television is getting digital-only WTLH-DT Tallahassee and WSWB-TV Scranton PA from Daniel Duman 's Mystic Television for just over 3M. Duman himself just agreed to pick up the Tallahassee station from Pegasus.

Brissette is already operating in Savannah GA with WTGS-TV.

There's been even more activity on the radio side. One of the biggest buyers in recent times has been Peter Davidson, who, if our internal search engine did not fail us, filed his first contract with the FCC 1/8/04 and has been accumulating frequent buyer miles ever since. Davidson Media Group has been content to buy mostly on the AM side, and although it has yet to make a move further west than Iowa and Oklahoma, it's otherwise geographically diverse.

A big part of the Davidson m.o. is to get into the Hispanic radio business in markets that have not yet hit the radar screen at the bigger Hispanic broadcast companies.

They're doing that throughout the Carolinas, in Virginia's two biggest markets, in Indianapolis, Des Moines, Louisville, Kansas City, Providence and Springfield MA, among other places. And its using various Religious formats in places like Detroit, Raleigh, Nashville, Louisville, Richmond, Greenville SC and the NC-SC shore.

However, the biggest recent buy from a newer radio group came from Joe Schwartz and his Cherry Creek Radio. It recently paid $33.4M to take the small-market radio stations off the hands of Fisher Broadcasting, adding mostly Montana and Washington stations to a group scattered throughout the small-market west (not to mention an outpost just about as far east as one can get, on Long Island NY).

Tomorrow: One of the more intriguing new groups on the scene is Armada Media Corp.