Townsquare Takes Trenton Trio From Connoisseur

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There’s a famous bridge spanning the Delaware River in central New Jersey with a slogan designed to cement what the Garden State’s capital represents to the world: “Trenton Makes The World Takes.”


Today, Townsquare Media is taking a heritage CHR/Pop station that covers a big portion the Philadelphia DMA and two AMs based in Trenton.

The seller is Jeffrey Warshaw‘s Connoisseur Media.

The deal, valued at approximately $17 million, is expected to see a Form 314 filing with the Commission on Friday (3/23).

The crown jewel of the three-station deal is WPST-FM 94.5, a Class B 50kw facility that uses a tower just east of Sesame Place in the Pennsylvania city of Langhorne. This gives WPST to cover a wide swath of New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania, reaching such cities on the east bank of the Delaware River as Edison, Toms River, and Cherry Hill — a major suburb of Philadelphia.

In addition to reaching nearly all of Center City, WPST can be heard in Doylestown and areas east of King of Prussia. The signal begins to fade when one nears the Delaware Memorial Bridge.

WPST has been at his current home since February 2005, when it swapped facilities with what is today Beasley Media Group’s WPEN-FM 97.5, licensed to Burlington, N.J.

Along with WPST, Townsquare is acquiring Sports WNJE-AM 920 “The Jersey,” a Class B station in Trenton, and Flemington-licensed WCHR-AM 1040, an inspirational station that carries on a format heard originally on the 94.5 MHz facility.

WCHR has daytime power of 15kw from 3 towers, and nighttime power of 1,500 watts from 4 towers. WNJE is a 1kw facility, using 3 towers.

“This is a bittersweet deal for us,” said Warshaw, who serves as Connoisseur CEO. “We are very proud of our talented team and their accomplishments in New Jersey. I’m confident that these stations will continue to thrive as part of the Townsquare family.”

Townsquare Co-CEO Dhruv Prasad, who spoke exclusively to RBR+TVBR in December 2017 about his company’s thirst for growth,  was “very excited to announce the acquisition of these radio stations, particularly WPST, one of the Northeast’s most respected and highest-performing CHR stations.”

WPST, The Jersey and WCHR will join Townsquare Media’s WKXW-FM “New Jersey 101.5” as Trenton-market stations.

New Jersey 101.5 has been an outperforming News/Talk station serving the Garden State since March 1990, and was launched by veteran radio consultant Walter Sabo. Townsquare acquired WKXW in 2011.

Prasad said, “Combined with our market leading News/Talk radio station based in Trenton and our existing portfolio of 10 other stations in the state of New Jersey, we believe these assets will enhance our ability to deliver high quality, engaging, local content and superior, multi-platform marketing solutions.”

Townsquare owns five stations in Monmouth-Ocean, N.J., and five stations in Atlantic City, N.J.

Prasad also took the opportunity to again note that Townsquare Media is not planning on exiting the radio business anytime soon.

“This is the third strategic acquisition that we have announced within the past nine months, demonstrating our continuing commitment to investing capital at attractive values in our local media business,” he said.

Townsquare announced the acquisition of WOUR-FM in Utica, N.Y. in February, and closed the acquisition of a cluster of radio stations in Pittsfield, Mass., in September 2017.

RBR+TVBR RELATED READ:

Connoisseur Waves Goodbye To Constitution State Quartet

Some 3 1/2 years after Connoisseur Media acquired a group of radio stations in Connecticut from Buckley Radio, the company led by Jeff Warshaw and based in Westport, Conn., is selling them, along with an FM translator in New Haven. The sale price is roughly $75,000 more than what Connoisseur paid for these properties, plus another AM that could be sold in a separate deal soon. In an exclusive interview, Warshaw tells RBR+TVBR why the deal was done.