UPDATE: Three Utica Radio Stations Going Sports to be LMA'ed then Sold

Updated 5:00pm -- UTICA-ROME -- There's new information this evening about the three-station format flip we initially reported late Sunday night: WUTQ(AM), WRCK and translator 95.5 FM (W238CA) will eventually be sold for $350,000 to former WKTV executives Frank Abbadessa and Tom Coyne.

The FCC's website says a "voluntary assignment of license" application was just "accepted for filing" today, meaning that the Commission doesn't see any immediate red flags with the sale.  Unless there are any worthy objections to the deal during the usual public comment period, the sale should be closed within the next few weeks.  As of yet, it appears the full "Form 314" hasn't been made available for viewing on the FCC website.

The FCC's website also lists Abbadessa and Coyne as 50/50 partners in "Good Guys Broadcasting Corporation," located at 185 Genesee Street, Suite 1501, in Utica.  Roser Communications Network, selling the three stations to Good Guys, is located in the same building at Suite 1600.

New at 5:00pm -- While we couldn't find any contracts or other detailed documents about the sale on the FCC website this morning and even later today, Radio-Info.com is reporting the deal to be worth $350,000.  Before the sale goes through, Good Guys Broadcasting will LMA (lease) the stations from Roser for $1,750 per month.  That'll allow Abbadessa and Coyne to launch the sports format almost immediately, rather than waiting for final FCC approval on the sale.  Radio-Info reports the sale itself has Good Guys providing "$300,000 cash plus $50,000 in a seller note" to Roser.

Radio-Info.com also reminds us that Roser picked up the two AM stations in 2007, by way of Galaxy Communications, who purchased them as part of the nine-station Clear Channel cluster.  Due to FCC ownership limits, Galaxy immediately spun-off some stations to Roser and EMF.  That deal happened to go down just about five years ago this week -- and Scott Fybush has a chart detailing the station swap in the Five Years Ago section of the "NERW Archives" portion of this week's edition of NorthEast Radio Watch.

Another Call Sign Change Ahead?

This morning, AllAccess.com confirmed one detail we already knew Sunday -- WUTQ(AM) will be changing its call sign to WUSP.  One new piece of information, however, is that the 1480 signal from Remsen will allegedly be reverting from WRCK to its original WADR calls -- but as of 7:30am, the WADR calls are still listed as "available" for any other interested broadcaster to request through the FCC's Call Sign Reservation System.

AllAccess.com reports the change will allow Roser to retain the WRCK calls by parking them elsewhere within the company.  In April, Roser announced it would be willing to sell the WRCK calls, presumably expecting there might be interest from a rock station somewhere.

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