Alpha Media is cutting its Richmond VA cluster in half with the sale of Country “98.9/100.3 The Wolf” 98.9 WLFV Midlothian/100.3 WARV-FM Petersburg to Educational Media Foundation for $2 million.
The deal will take WLFV/WARV-FM out of competition with SummitMedia’s “K95” 95.3 WKHK leaving them as the only Country station in the market. WKHK held a 6.3 share in the Summer 2016 Nielsen Audio ratings to The Wolf’s 1.5. EMF’s applications requests a main studio waiver rebroadcasting “K-Love” flagship KLVR Middletown CA.
EMF currently owns “K-Love” simulcast 89.7 WLRJ Charles City and 90.1 WKYV Colonial Heights, which will likely shift to the Christian CHR “Air 1” network. EMF also has a pending acquisition of 100.5 WZEZ Goochland, which rimshots parts of Richmond from the west.
The deal leaves Alpha with just Classic Country “93.1 Hank-FM” WWLB Ettrick and Classic Hits 107.3 WBBT-FM Powhatan. It is doubtful the company would sell off half of its Richmond cluster, but retain the other half.
Is it me, or are “K-Love” and “Air 1”, especially the former, spreading around the nation like a virus??