When the Feds decided to destroy Howard Hughes, the Buckley family of Connecticut lucked out that WOR-AM had to be divested, but none of the big guys were allowed to buy it because they already owned an AM station in New York City.
About two years ago, old man Buckley died. In fairly short order, WOR was sold to Clear Channel. Today’s news is that all the Buckley stations in Connecticut have been sold to another Connecticut based radio company.
That leaves only a handful of stations in California that I think were being run by one of the Buckley daughters. More than likely, they’ll be sold soon and the third generation will be rid of their legacy. Since it is a public company, we won’t know – but likely most of the proceeds are going to banks to pay off debt
There is an announcement today that one of the stations in Fresno is being sold. Jaz McKay better be getting prepared for change.
Wonder if they got enough to cover all their debt obligations? What format were they before the sale? And, what is your best guess for the new owner?
Since its privately held, there is no way to know. it’s also very likely if they didn’t do clever tax planning, this is to pay off the IRS Estate tax.
The buyer operates other stations in Fresno, but I don’t know much about them. Their corporate web site was not very helpful last time I looked. I’ll post a link to the sales contract if I find it.
KSEQ-FM is the Fresno station. Here is the FCC application
https://licensing.fcc.gov/cgi-bin/ws.exe/prod/cdbs/forms/prod/cdbsmenu.hts?context=25&appn=101628878&formid=314&fac_num=7717
Sales price is $2.4 million at closing. There doesn’t appear to be any real property involved, and buyer is not obligated to retain the current employees. There is no mention of the seller taking back a note.
The buyer (Lotus) owns two TV stations and a group of not terribly influential radio stations in the Southwest US
http://streamingradioguide.com/licensee.php?namefilter=lotus
Most of the stations Air syndicated sports talk or Spanish language programming. My perception is they were one of the companies that bought up stations in the radio land rush with the inten of “flipping” them – but got stuck when the music stopped and there were no chairs. Their formats suggest they don’t intend to build an audience. They own KLAV-Aam, which airs brokered programming.