Update 9/15: In addition to the four stations being acquired from First Media, Seven Mountains Media is also acquiring the three FM’s owned by Nicholas Galli’s 2510 Licenses.
In both deals the license assets of the stations will be acquired by Judith Confer’s Southern Belle LLC while Seven Mountains Media will receive the property and equipment. The companies are paying $2,075,000 for the First Media stations.
In the second deal with 2510 Licenses, Seven Mountains and Southern Belle will pay $2,050,000 for CHR “B94.5” WBHV-FM State College, Classic Hits 97.1 WOWY University Park, and Rock “Eagle 98.7” WEMR Pleasant Gap.
Original Report 9/8: Kristin Cantrell’s Seven Mountains Media is acquiring stations near State College, PA from First Media LLC for $2.075 million.
The stations involved in the purchase are AC “95.3 3WZ” WZWW Bellefonte, Hot AC simulcast “Merf Radio” 95.7 WMRF-FM Lewistown/103.5 WLAK Huntingdon, and News/Talk 670 WIEZ Lewistown. Cantrell operates four stations in Frankfort, KY owned by her mother Judith Cantrell under the name Southern Belle LLC.
This makes all of State College ownership a family affair. Cantrell’s father Kerby Confer is President of Forever Broadcasting which owns 2 AMs and 4 FMs in the market. Nicholas Galli’s 2510 Licenses owns three FM’s in the market. Galli partners with Confer, and Donald Alt (who owns 40% of Forever) in the ownership of nine West Virginia stations under the name Burbach Broadcasting and have swapped multiple stations in Pennsylvania with each other.
Aaron
I wonder if there will be another swap to put 3WZ, a perennial top biller in the market, under Forever’s control. Right now, Forever owns the strong stations in the market while their
partnerscompetitors own the weaker ones. Will be interesting to see if Forever and friends makes big changes to 3WZ. 3WZ runs kind of a full-service AC with sports and news, while Forever’s stations tend to be pretty music focused and low-budget.This also could mean the end of Majic 99, which runs a similar format to 3WZ. Wouldn’t shock me to see them switch to Sports, which is really the only missing format on FM in the market (Forever currently owns 2 AM Sports talkers).
This leaves First Media’s Clearfield/DuBois cluster as their only remaining PA stations. That market is adjacent to State College so I’m not sure why they were not included in the sale.