Bonneville International Corporation has announced it will pay $141 million for the eight stations in Sacramento and San Francisco it has been operating via LMA from Entercom’s divestiture trust since the closing of its merger with CBS Radio.
The stations involved in the sale are AC “Mix 96” 96.1 KYMX, Hot AC “Now 100.5” KZZO, “New Country 105.1” KNCI, and “Sports 1140” KHTK in the Sacramento market AC 96.5 KOIT, Classic Rock “98.5 K-Fox” KUFX, CHR “99.7 Now” KMVQ and Urban AC 102.9 KBLX in the San Francisco market.
Bonneville began operating the eight stations in November 2017 following the closing of the Entercom/CBS Radio merger.
Entercom Communications Corp. a leading media and entertainment company and one of the two largest radio broadcasters in the U.S., today announced a definitive agreement to sell certain radio stations in San Francisco and Sacramento to Bonneville International Corporation (“Bonneville”) for $141 million in cash. The stations being disposed have been held in an FCC disposition Trust and have been operated by Bonneville under Local Marketing Agreements (“LMA”) since the closing of the Company’s merger with CBS Radio, Inc. These stations are:
Market Station Format San Francisco KMVQ-FM Top 40 San Francisco KBLX-FM Urban Adult Contemporary San Francisco KOIT-FM Adult Contemporary San Francisco KUFX-FM Classic Rock Sacramento KHTK-AM Sports Sacramento KNCI-FM Country Sacramento KYMX-FM Adult Contemporary Sacramento KZZO-FM Hot Adult Contemporary This transaction, which is expected to close this year either late in the 3 [rd] quarter or early in the 4 [th] quarter, will complete the dispositions required by the U.S. Department of Justice in connection with the Company’s merger with CBS Radio, Inc.
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Eric Jon Magnuson 
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I wonder if Bonneville has a game plan of possibility fipping formats on 99.7 KMVQ switching to country music?
Why would Bonneville flip one of the most successful and profitable stations in the market to a format that has failed multiple times in the market?
I disagree country music can work in the Bay Area…it all depends on signal strength…after KYLD moved from 107.7 to a stronger signal strength 94.9 back in the 90’s…Country music bounced around alot…from AM 1510 (weak signal) doesn’t reach to South Bay to 95.7 “weak FM signal” and at least with 99.7 there is hope for Country music to try again and its even stronger signal strength then of 94.9 too…
A lot of the SF metro is already well-served by Country stations in San Jose, Santa Rosa, Sacramento, and Stockton/Modesto. (The first two are within the metro–although San Jose is also still an embedded metro –while the others are definitely nearby.) I don’t think that anyone right now is willing to take a chance on Country on a core-metro signal; the format definitely works in a lot of the suburbs, but hasn’t really worked in the central cities.
KMVQ has a format that’s admittedly almost totally out of Bonneville’s normal wheelhouse, but it works. Why fix what ain’t broke?
Same thing for KBLX, and this can possibly be the first time Bonneville owns any urban-related station long term. It also would not be the first time a radio group with a religious background owns an urban. Another example would be Crawford Broadcasting; they own Chicago urban stations WSRB, WPWX and WYCA.
Awesome!! Bonneville does a great job with their stations. I wish they were more widely available across the country though.
True I agree about why fix if its not broken but if there is no flipping formats there is also a possiblity there could be a signal swap too especially since San Francisco is the only Bonneville market which doesn’t have an AM signal…
The only way that I can see Bonneville picking up at least one AM here is if Cumulus needs to spin something off (as part of, say, the rumored deal with Univision). Even in SF, these FMs are more valuable than the AMs.