An FM translator covering nearly all of Pinellas County, Fla., has been dealt to an owner who will be helping an AM station that just brought controversial talk host Bubba The Love Sponge back to the Tampa Bay market gain an all-important FM home.
Thank Neal Ardman, President of NIA Broadcasting, for making the many members of the “Bubba Army” joyous.
Ardman is the President of NIA Broadcasting, which owns such stations as WYKB-FM 105.3 in Fernandina Beach, Fla., which serves the Jacksonville market.
NIA is set to become a player in the Tampa-St. Petersburg market, as it just announced that it is acquiring WTMP-AM & FM out of receivership for $500,000.
While NIA will operate those two stations, it is teaming up with Bruce Maduri’s Genesis Communications in its purchase of W248CA, a translator presently licensed to Bradenton, Fla., from Cornerstone Community Radio for $115,000.
W248CA won’t be staying in Manatee County: The FM translator holds a Construction Permit to relocate to St. Petersburg, using a tower that’s in the middle of Pinellas County. This would put the translator’s signal, at 97.5 MHz, at city-grade status from downtown St. Petersburg to the beaches and north to Dunedin.
While no announcement has been made by Genesis Communications, FCC documentation shows that W248CA will rebroadcast News/Talk WWBA-AM 820 in Tampa. The translator dates back to the early 2000s, and at one point in its past rebroadcast now-silent WTIS-AM 1110 in Tampa.
As of Monday (2/13), that is the new home for the syndicated Bubba The Love Sponge Show.
A 10% escrow deposit has been made to the seller’s escrow agent, Putbrese Hunsacker & Trent, by Ardman’s company.
Todd Fowler of Fowler Media Consulting LLC was the exclusive broker in this transaction, and the seller will pay the broker fees associated with the deal.
More on this from Radio Discussions: http://www.radiodiscussions.com/showthread.php?693117-WWBA-has-a-translator-at-97-5-FM
In other TRANSACTIONS TODAY:
- Life Challenge International is donating FM translator K201HW, licensed for 88.1 MHz in El Paso, Tex., to One Ministries Inc. The facility is unbuilt. One Ministries is expected to use the facility to bring Christian Rock programming based at KORB-FM 88.7 in the Mendocino County town of Hopland, Calif.
