Noncommercial religious broadcaster Educational Media Foundation started out in the West, but it is continuing its steady expansion, this time going all the way to the Atlantic coast and points inland with a deal for a pair of FMs in the Salisbury-Ocean City market. They’re being sold by Clear Channel’s license partner, Aloha Station Trust.
The stations are WDKZ-FM Salisbury MD and WLBW-FM Fenwick Island DE. The seller, Aloha Station Trust, has been holding and spinning off stations left out in the cold when Clear Channel was acquired by a consortium of equity players led by Bain Capital and Thomas Lee, which had the side effect of eliminating the grandfathered status of many oversized local station clusters in the Clear Channel portfolio.
Aloha was represented by Media Venture Partners in the deal. The price is $400K cash.
WDZK Kiss 105.5 is a Top 40 station, a Class A with 2.1 kW @ 3874’. It blankets its city of license, the major inland population center of the market, but does not throw its 60 dBu contour all the way to the ocean communities. Oldies WLBW The Wave 92.1 is located there. It is also a Class A, with 3 kW @ 469’.
RBR-TVBR observation: Essentially, EMF will be getting two smaller signals that between them cover what matters in the market. Although programmed individually by Aloha at the moment, we would not be surprised to see them operated as simulcasts once EMF takes over.
