UTICA/ROME -- An unexpected sale of a non-commercial station appeared in some of the national trades this week. Bible Broadcasting Network is selling WYFY/Rome (1450AM) to Tune In Broadcasting. The price tag: $90,000 total for the station itself and for the land at the corner of Muck Road and South Jay Street, where transmitter building sits.
According to Radio & Television Business Report, the buyer is Tune In Broadcasting, who is "contractually obligated to come up with a new set of calls," as Bible Broadcasting Network intends to retain and re-assign WYFY elsewhere.
The website says Tune In Broadcasting, owned by Coreen Frisch, has put down $10,000 for the station, with another $10,000 due at closing. That $20,000 is just for the station itself -- the remaining $70,000, for the land, is being handled in a separate deal.
WYFY is a class C station licensed by the FCC to run at 1kW around the clock.
Both RBR and today's edition of Taylor on Radio-Info say that Tune In Broadcasting already owns one other station, WQMS in Quitman, MS. The FCC's AM Query site says WQMS is owned by Matadors, LLC, which is owned by Coreen and Ron Frisch of Santa Clarita, California. Both sites say that Tune In Broadcasting intends to make 1450 in Rome a commercial station, but no other details have been released about the format as of yet.
The sale is pending FCC approval, but with Tune In Broadcasting owning no other stations in the market, there aren't likely to be any problems that would hold up the deal.
Our thanks to CNYRadio.com reader Bob Carter, who alerted us via Facebook of this news. Anytime there's news at your station -- or news at someone else's station that we haven't heard about yet -- the best way to let us know is by emailing cnyradio@cnyradio.com or by using the Contact Form. Requests for anonymity are always honored -- and if you don't even want us to know who you are, leave the name and email fields blank on the contact form.