Salem Media Group is selling two of their Christian AC “Fish” brands to Educational Media Foundation for $7 million.
EMF will acquire Nashville trimulcast “94 The Fish” 93.7 WFFI Kingston Springs, 94.1 WFFH Smyrna, and 104.9 WBOZ Woodbury. The organization, which is in the process of relocating all of its operations from Rocklin CA to the Nashville suburb of Franklin, currently owns “K-Love” 97.1 WLVU Belle Meade, while their “Air 1” network is on translator 92.5 W223BV Brentwood/WLVU-HD2. The deal will mark Salem’s exit from the Nashville market.
EMF will also add “95.5 The Fish” KAIM-FM Honolulu. “K-Love” is currently heard on the island of Oahu on 103.5 KLUU Wahiawa, while “Air 1” is on 105.5 K288FB Honolulu/KLUU-HD2. Salem will continue to operate four other stations in Honolulu: Conservative Talk “The Answer” 690 KHNR/94.3 K232FL, “Hawaii Sports Radio Network” 760 KGU/95.1 K236CR, “Country 97.5” KHCM-FM, and Classic Hits “Decades 107.9” KKOL-FM.
“We are grateful for the opportunity to grow and keep Christian music flowing over these frequencies,” said Todd Woods, EMF Chief Executive Officer. “These additions increase our coverage in our home market of Nashville and extend to a new audience in Hawaii, aligning with our mission to use media to reach people for Christ.”
Salem Media CEO David Santrella stated, “Salem remains steadfast in our commitment to paying down debt and reducing our overall leverage. The sale of these radio stations helps achieve those goals. At the same time, we are focused on the stations staying in mission format. We are happy to be working with our good friends at EMF to continue impacting lives through music. We are grateful for our staff at these stations that have worked tirelessly over the years.” He also added, “With this change, Mike Blakemore, Salem’s VP of CCM Programming, will provide focus and leadership to programming TCM, which remains an important part of Salem’s content offerings.”
A Network Affiliation Agreement will take effect on May 1 ahead of closing with WFFH/WFFI and KAIM joining EMF’s Contemporary Worship “Air 1” network and WBOZ joining the Christian AC “K-Love“.
The deal also includes the tower sites of WFFI and WBOZ owned by Salem.
