The saga around Ed Stolz and the court ordered receivership of his Golden State Broadcasting CHR “Rev 92.7” KREV Alameda/San Francisco, Major Market Radio LLC’s 97.7 KRCK-FM Mecca/Palm Springs, and Silver State Broadcasting’s “104.3 Now” KFRH North Las Vegas continues to play out like a soap opera.
Stolz avoided being jailed by turning over the stations and the required deeds, leases, and contracts to receiver Larry Patrick on September 10 ahead of the deadline on the 11th. However, Stolz is also seeking to have the stations taken out of receivership and given back to him by offering to pay the $1.3 million owed to ASCAP and the other music companies that brought the legal action against Stolz that led to the stations being placed in receivership.
California U.S. District Judge Jesus G. Bernal has granted receiver/broker Larry Patrick permission to accept an all-cash offer made for the stations and to work “expeditiously with an aim to close the transaction before the close of the calendar year.” Despite that offer, Stolz is arguing that if he paid the money owed, the stations should be returned to him.
Both Patrick and the music companies have argued against Stolz’ latest gambit. The receivership attorneys stated that Stolz’s willingness to now pay goes against previous filings stating he did not have the money to pay back the money owed. The ASCAP led consortium believed the new filing was a ploy to interfere in the conclusion of the case and ask the court to demand explanation for his previous false claims of compliance in order to avoid further jailings for contempt of court.
Update 9/4: California U.S. District Judge Jesus G. Bernal has found Ed Stolz in contempt of court and ordered him to be jailed for failing to comply with the court ordered receivership of Golden State Broadcasting CHR “Rev 92.7” KREV Alameda/San Francisco, Major Market Radio LLC’s 97.7 KRCK-FM Mecca/Palm Springs, and Silver State Broadcasting’s “104.3 Now” KFRH North Las Vegas.
Stolz has until Friday, September 11 to turn himself in or face a bench warrant for his arrest. To be freed from jailing, Stolz must turn over all deeds, leases, and any contracts governing office, studio or transmitter towers connected to the operating of the station and supply receiver Larry Patrick with programming and advertising contracts, bank statements from the past three months, recent station payroll records, and any keys he may have to any of the stations and their facilities. He must also pay a $5000 penalty to cover additional expenses incurred by Patrick.
Original Report 7/12: The three FM stations owned by companies controlled by Ed Stolz’s Royce International Broadcasting are being transferred into a court ordered receivership controlled by broker Larry Patrick after a lawsuit brought on by ASCAP and sixteen other music copyright holders.
The stations involved in the transfer are Golden State Broadcasting CHR “Rev 92.7” KREV Alameda/San Francisco, Major Market Radio LLC’s 97.7 KRCK-FM Mecca/Palm Springs, and Silver State Broadcasting’s “104.3 Now” KFRH North Las Vegas.
California U.S. District Judge Jesus G. Bernal ordered the appointment of Patrick as receiver on July 6 authorizing him to solicit offers to sell the stations and manage the licenses in the interim. Patrick will receive a commission of five percent on the first $3.0 million and two percent on the consideration paid above that threshold.
Bernal had awarded ASCAP and its members $900,000 in attorney’s fees and costs and $330,000 in statutory damages in July 2018 for failing to pay ASCAP licensing fees for several years. A separate court ruling that month by New York U.S. District Judge Denise Cote rejected Royce’s application for ASCAP licenses under a previous Consent Decree stating they were not entitled to licenses until they paid ASCAP over $319,000 in back fees claiming that they were trying to use the consent decree as a loophole to avoid Bernal’s injunction preventing the stations from playing ASCAP members music. ASCAP had terminate the licenses for the stations in August 2012 with the lawsuit noting that they previously sued Stolz for similar infractions when he owned 106.5 KWOD Sacramento.
The companies represented by ASCAP in the court cases include WB Music Corp., But Father, I Just Want to Sing Music, Hunterboro Music, Universal Polygram International Publishing, Inc., Sony/ATV Tunes LLC, Obverse Creation Music, Nice Hair Publishing, Party Rock Music, Yeah Baby Music, ESKAYWHY Publishing, Uh Oh Entertainment, Divine Mill Music, Fingaz Goal Music, EMI April Music Inc., Hi Mom I Did It, Chebra Music, and Universal Music Corp.
Patrick’s release notes that the companies debts now exceed $2 million.
Stolz will retain Conservative Talk 790 KBET/104.7 K284CW Winchester/Las Vegas and KRCK-FM’s two translators in Palm Springs: 95.5 K238AK Palm Desert and “98.1 Talk Now” K251BX Palm Desert. Those stations were not included in the lawsuit.
dudefromva 
markrobt 
donobrian 
Isn’t this the guy who is always filing petitions to deny and such against Entercom?
Good riddance, I say, to the man who killed off Energy 92.7. Not to mention that the station is, from a technical standpoint, one of the worst-sounding FM stations that I’ve ever heard.
Who knows what will eventually happen to it? Good San Francisco and inner-bay signal, but it can’t make its way past the East Bay hills, the coverage is limited elsewhere in much of the Bay Area sprawl, and it’s short-spaced to KRZZ (93.3).
I’ll be watching the STA filings….
The big guys have billions in debt and they keep trucking along. Be a small business owner of a single station or a few and you are targeted immediately, they are relentless in their attacks to take away your stations and destroy you personally. I’ve witnessed it first-hand, if that is again the case here then it really is a shame but in 2020 hey join the gang!
Notice how this year has been all about destroying small businesses, and while the little guy has been shut down or severely limited in operating, all the big corporations not only have been left alone but have actually been profiting from the destruction of our small businesses.
What does this has to do with big business versus small owners or 2020? Stolz was found guilty in court of not paying music royalties and now he has failed follow a federal judge’s order. How is that about being relentless?
Plus this is the same man that sued Entercom and the FCC and pled with the FCC for over two decades after having sellers remorse and being unable to back out of a $25 million deal that he agreed to. Which he took all the way to the Supreme Court and lost: https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/18/18-23/51926/20180629215140571_2018-06-18%20Stolz%20Petition%20FINAL.pdf
Saturday morning, 9/12: still on and overmodulating as usual.
Using streaming (I’m in Virginia), KFRH is still doing something as they ID top-of-the-hour at 9p EDT. KRCK’s stream starts and then stops. So, maybe that station is being transfered over to the court ordered receiver. KREV doesn’t stream (that I can find), so Markrobt is best to tell if they are still on-air.
Regardless, Mr. Stolz is in BIG trouble come Monday Morning.
KREV’s still on today (9/28), still appearing to overmodulate. I wonder if anyone’s minding the store.
With Ed Stolz near the helm, it ain’t lookin’ likely.
Stolz is no longer involved. He handed over control to the trustee as ordered by the court. The trustee isn’t going to magically fix all the issues the stations had overnight. His responsibility is to get them able to be sold in whatever form that takes.
I’d say the chances are better than 80% that EMF ends up with KREV. They’ve got the cash and, while a marginal facility, it fills holes in coverage for them. Probably not the highest and best use, but a facility is worth whatever someone wants to pay for it at the time.