Federated Media COO gets an FM side gig

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Tony Richards, the Chief Operating Officer of Federated Media, has announced his intention to acquire WFGZ-FM in Tennessee. He will operate his new license company, Kensington Digital Media, while continuing to add time to the 34 years he has already put in at Federated.


According to Ed Henson, who brokered the deal, Richards will pay $1.825M for the station. It has been licensed to Lobelville TN with a 22 kW, 715’ HAAT signal on 94.5 MHz. It holds a CP to drop to 5.1 kW and 358’ in Bellevue TN, which will get it into the Nashville market. Although the FCC database currently shows the station as a Bellevue facility, the underlying engineering information still lists Lobelville as the licensed station and Bellevue as the CP.

The seller is Lacy Ennis’ Grace Broadcasting Services, which will retain nine other Tennessee radio stations.

Richards said, “I’ve wanted to own some of my own stations for quite some time but the right opportunity never presented itself, until now. John and Alec Dille have been supportive of this project.  They encouraged me to pursue something that makes sense for me, while continuing my commitment to Federated Media, a company I’ve dedicated 34 years of my life to help build.”

The Lobelville configuration covers an area to the southwest of Nashville, and puts only a fringe signal over the urban portion of the market. The Bellevue signal will originate on the western edge of the urbanized area and will provide primary coverage of the western half of the population zone with a secondary signal available elsewhere in the market.