The Raese family’s West Virginia Radio group is set to raise its radio profile in its favorite state, and the deal – for WJLS AM-FM Beckley WV – has a historic profile which makes it appear just as if the stations have been operating in a normal station trading market.
The seller is Alex Kolobielski’s First Media Radio LLC.
WVR is headed by John Raese, David Raese and Dale Miller.
The price of the deal is $4.5M cash. The price is notable, because it represents noticeable appreciation in the value of the property over the decade-plus that Kolobielski has owned the combo. He bought the stations pursuant to terms of an 11/15/01 contract that valued them at $3.6M. That works out to a 20% increase in value over 11 years.
Taken out of context, the deal makes it look like there has been normal predictable growth in the radio station trading market over the past decade. Of course, the reality of past decade has been anything but steady.
WJLS-FM is a Country Class B on 99.5 MHz with 34 kW @ 1,050’.
WJLS-AM is a Gospel Class B on 560 kHz with 4.5 kW-D, 470 W-N, DAN.
Buyer WVS owns 25 other radio stations, all in West Virginia, but none are in the Beckley market.
RBR-TVBR observation: WVR’s John Raese is known for much more than simply running a radio group. He has also spent quite a bit of time running for the office, He tried to become governor of West Virginia, but failed to make it out of the Republican primary. More notably, he has run for the US Senate no less than four times, losing to Jay Rockefeller in 1984. to Robert Byrd in 2006 and to Joe Manchin in 2010 and 2012.
