Rocking M Media and its associated companies that own 21 stations in central and western Kansas has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
In the petition Rocking M claims $1,307,696.75 in assets and $22,365,886.40 in liabilities owed between its four holding companies. Bankruptcy attorney Sharon Stolte of Sandberg Phoenix & von Gontard, who is representing the company, told the Wichita Eagle that “We filed on Saturday, and we are hoping to reorganize. We will sell some of the stations that we find are not profitable, and we will reorganize the debt with the remaining stations.”
The company is owned 1/3 each by Monte and Doris Miller and their son Christopher Miller. In its declaration the company blamed Christopher Miller for rapid expansion. He was removed from his position as company president in 2019, at which time he acquired four stations in its Salina cluster for the assumption of a $1,755,917.55 note.
Rocking M sold 92.3 KKGQ Newton/Wichita to Chad Boeger’s Pinnacle Media for $623,000 last year as part of a deal to settle the legal battle between it and Envision Broadcast Network. That sale was approved by the FCC, but only after issuing a $7000 fine to Rocking M Media and granting conditional one year license renewals to the company’s five other Wichita area stations after Rocking M admitted in its license renewal applications that all six stations were silent for periods of time without STA’s filed or granted by the FCC.
The legal battles between Rocking M and Envision dated back to the merger of KKGQ into Rocking M’s Wichita cluster in April 2017. Rocking M agreed to sell its entire Wichita cluster in 2019 to Allied Media Partners for $6,188,645, however liens placed on the stations by Envision were unable to be cleared and Envision locked Rocking M Media out of their studios located at Envision’s headquarters leading to the sale collapsing. Both companies sued each other over the failed deal, which will go to trial in June.
