Howard Kalmenson’s Lotus Communications Corporation has decided to pull up stakes in the Tampa-St. Petersburg DMA, which means that WTAM-LD is getting a new owner.
The station which operates on digital Channel 28 and Virtual Channel 30, is going to TMA TIG LLC, headed by Andres Isaias.
The price will be a cool $1.2M cash. An LMA will put into effect until closing.
The station is actively exploiting its digital capabilities, actively touting four streams of programming on its website and claiming that there will soon be eight streams available.
As a matter of fact, manager Mark Nolte offers a unique advertising package to any interested advertiser. His special offer is four 30 minute ads running once a week for $1,595 per month, or four commercials (of unspecified length) daily for a month, offered for the same monthly price.
RBR-TVBR observation: Not only does this sound like a station planning to be around after the spectrum auctions, it sounds like a station that has no intention of giving up so much as a single Hz of its assigned swathe of spectrum. Of course, with a new owner coming in that could change. The other question mark, however, is WTAM’s lack of Class A status. The near future of this station will be interesting indeed.
