One buyer will bump the ceiling on foreign ownership and the other will be looking to take another commercial FM into the non-profit zone.
The bigger deal is for KVLR-FM, licensed to Elgin. It is being sold by the Border Media Business Trust under W. Lawrence Patrick, and will go to frequent buyer Educational Media Foundation, headed by Mike Novak.
The price will be $750K, but it comes with a kicker. If the station is approved for an already-applied-for city-of-license change, EMF will kick in an additional $250K.
Currently, it is a Class A licensed to Elgin TX, and operating on 92.5 MHz with 3.4 kW @ 440’. The signal is oriented to the east of Austin, the city limits of which are beyond the station’s primary contour.
The CP will move it to Sunset Valley. It will still be a Class A on 92.5, but the power will drop to 3 kW, the antenna height will edge up to 472’ HAAT, and the contour will completely encompass the city of Austin.
As is its habit, EMF has a network affiliation deal, allowing it to put its programming on the station prior to closing – the EMF version of an LMA. It told the FCC it will definitely take the station noncom and is applying for a main studio waiver.
Its call letters, by the way, are brand spanking new – they were KXXS when the application was filed.
The other station is KZNX-AM, which is going to America Telecommunications Group Inc. Cecelia Levine has a 75% stake in the company. The remaining 25% is held by Mexican nationals under the umbrella of Canal Continental S.A. de C.V. The principal of that company is Jose Perez Ramirez. Neither of the buyers have any current US broadcast interests. 25% is the going limit on a foreign ownership interest in a US broadcast license.
The price will be $600K cash. An LMA is said to have begun 6/1/12.
The station is a Class D on 1530 kHz with 10 kW-D, 1 kW-CH and 220 W-N, DA3. It has good market coverage during the day and isn’t half bad at night, although its 220 Watts aren’t enough to get everywhere.
