Following the FCC’s approval of its necessary divestments yesterday, iHeartMedia has begun operating the remainder of the stations it acquired from Entercom.
Talk 680 WRKO Boston and Variety Hits 96.5 Jack-FM” KJAQ and Classic Rock 102.5 KZOK Seattle officially began being operated by iHeartMedia at 12:01am this morning.
At the same time Talk 1430 WKOX Everett MA, Smooth Jazz 102.9 KFNY Centralia (formerly Alternative “Alt 102.9” KFOO) and Christian CHR 104.9 KTDD Eatonville WA (formerly Rhythmic CHR KUBE) are now being operated by the Jeanette Tully led Ocean States Trust until divested. iHeart dropped the former formats on the two Washington stations last week in order to retain the intellectual property. KUBE’s format is now housed on 93.3 KPWK-HD2 Seattle, while the Alternative format relaunched today on 96.5 KJAQ-HD2.
iHeart has also announced it has placed News/Talk 1030 WBZ Boston on 107.9 WXKS-HD2 while Dance “Evolution 101.7” moves from WXKS-HD2 to 101.7 WBWL-HD2. WRKO will be heard on 100.7 WZLX-HD2.
Original Report 11/3: To complete its swap with Entercom to acquire Talk 680 WRKO, News/Talk 1030 WBZ, Urban AC “The New 97.7” WKAF, and Classic Rock 100.7 WZLX in Boston along with Variety Hits 96.5 Jack-FM” KJAQ, Classic Rock 102.5 KZOK, Sports “CBS Sports 1090” KFNQ in Seattle, iHeartMedia is placing three stations in a divestment trust.
The Ocean States Trust is being created to operate Conservative Talk 1430 WKOX Everett MA, Alternative “Alt 102.9” KFOO Centralia WA and Rhythmic CHR 104.9 KUBE Eatonville WA. The trust will be managed by Jeanette Tully, who also oversees iHeart’s Aloha Stations Trust which holds fourteen stations across nine markets.
Due to the need for the divestment trusts, iHeartMedia will not be able to begin operating WRKO, KFNQ, KJAQ, or KZOK until the divestment of these three stations to the trust is completed. iHeart will begin to operate WBZ, WKAF, and WZLX via LMA the day Entercom closes on its merger with CBS Radio.
Joseph_Gallant 
Nathan Obral
Is this a typo, or is iHeart actually barred from running WRKO-680 here in Boston until the “divestment to the trust” is complete, even if it’s after the date the CBS Radio/Entercom deal closes (which should be on or around November 15th)??
Me Bad!
I made a typo of my own: The sentence in my post above should have read “which should be on or around November 17th”.
iHeart CANNOT operate WRKO or the Seattle stations until the divestment of WKOX, KFOO, and KUBE closes (most likely in early 2018).
That does pose a question of what happens to WKRO for the interregnum. Obviously neither Entercom or iHeart can operate it. I’m assuming it will be placed in a trust?
The licenses will be held by the Entercom Divestiture Trust that will hold the licenses for all the stations in Sacramento and San Francisco that Bonneville will be LMA’ing.
The trustee will technically be operating those three stations in the interim.
How soon will it be before iHeart purges most (or all) of WRKO-680’s programming to bring over shows syndicated by sister company Premiere Networks over from WKOX-1430??