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Published on Friday, 02 April 2010 12:06
As detailed out on
this website in early February, NextMedia had sought a waiver from the FCC's order that NM sell off two stations from its Chicago cluster and one station from its Greenville-New Bern-Jacksonville, NC cluster. This had to do with NM's entering bankruptcy and changing the official ownership of the company by doing so. They then lost their grandfathered status and had to comply with current ownership limits. NextMedia petitioned the FCC to allow them to keep all their stations for two reasons: that some of their stations are too far suburban to be considered part of a major market and that the ownership change is just a temporary formality. The FCC rejected those claims, which has forced NextMedia to make some changes this week.
NM has placed three of their radio stations into a trust this week. The two from the Chicago market are WZSR-FM/Star 105.5 in Woodstock and WWYW-FM/Y 103.9 in Dundee/Crystal Lake. They also placed their Havelock, NC station WSSM-FM/SAM 105.1 into the trust. The spinning off of these three stations will bring NM into compliance with the FCC regulations.
Taking care of these three stations now will be Media Venture Partners broker Elliot Evers, operating as Trustee with The Mile High Station Trust LLC.
NextMedia now gets to continue to operate the following five FM and two AM radio stations in the Chicago suburbs: WERV-FM/95.9 The River in Aurora, WRXQ-FM/100.7 RXQ in Coal City, WCCQ-FM/98.3-WCCQ in Crest Hill, WSSR-FM/Star 96.7 in Crest Hill/Joliet, WJOL-AM/1340 WJOL in Joliet/Crest Hill, WKRS-AM/1220 WKRS in Waukegan, and WXLC-FM/102.3 XLC in Waukegan. NextMedia's Chicago branch also operates WIIL-FM/95WIILRock and WLIP-AM/AM 1050 both in in Pleasant Prairie, WI, but was able to convince the FCC that these stations, which are mostly heard throughout north/northeastern Illinois, were not part of the Chicago market.
