Stuart Epperson is mainly known as one of the top execs at religious radio leader Salem Communications. But he also has his own smaller group, Truth Broadcasting Corporation, and it has just agreed to take over an AM-FM combo in Boone IA under highly unusual terms. The stations are KFFF AM-FM.
The seller, The Faith & Freedom Network, is simply seeking to stop the bleeding. As for Truth, it will behoove it to close on the deal just as rapidly as possible.
There’s no telling how much Truth will spend for the combo, but it will spend something. For starters, Truth will assume possible liability for up to $20K in FCC Media Bureau fines for undisclosed offenses. (We’d guess public file violations but it could be any number of things). Then Truth will cover monthly operational losses up to $20K, including this month (as of 10/1/09) and running through closing. And that’ll be it.
It marks a major geographical expansion for Truth, which until now has been operating only in Virginia, North Carolina and Florida.
Boone is located about 35-40 miles north of Des Moines.
RBR-TVBR observation: Terms like these are all the evidence you need to support the notion that we are in a troubled economy and that the radio business is in more trouble than most.
