The FCC auction that will restore VHF television to New Jersey and introduce it to Delaware is in the books, and the winner is Western Pacific Broadcast LLC, which prevailed in both auctions. Virtually all of the auction action was directed at the New Jersey station.
Despite its name, Western Pacific is said to be based in Tampa FL.
In the end, only three bidders participated. WPB picked the CP for Channel 4 in Atlantic City MJ for $3.838M, and grabbed the Seaford DE Channel 5 CP for $210K, only $10K above the starting point in the bidding.
Thanks to a 35% bidding credit as a new owner, WPB will only have to pay $2.494.7M for the New Jersey CP and $136.5K for the Delaware CP.
Also-rans in the proceeding were Avinash C. Ahuja and Loop Media LLC.
Atlantic City NJ is in the Philadelphia PA DMA, and Seaford DE is in the much smaller Salisbury-Ocean City MD DMA.
WPB is now on an FCC treadmill that specifies payment and construction deadlines. It has three years to get the stations built and operational.
David Denton, and executive with the successful bidder, told AtlanticCity.com that the company was excited about its win, but that it was just beginning to put its plans for the stations in place. Discussing the Atlantic City station in particular, he said no siting or programming decisions have been made as yet. “It’s just very early for us. We think it’s a great market. It’s got a large number of people to be reached.”
