SYRACUSE — Paperwork for the proposed sale of Galaxy Media’s suite of radio stations to Albany-based Pamal Broadcasting has been officially filed with the Federal Communications Commission. The filings also reveal the sale price and other details behind the deal.
The applications, covering a total of 15 broadcast licenses, were filed with the FCC on October 23 but only appeared in the FCC’s Daily Digest on Tuesday.
According to the Asset Purchase Agreement, which is a matter of public record on the FCC website, the deal carries a base price of exactly one million dollars. The deal says $50,000 has been placed in escrow. The balance is due at closing, which is expected to take place within 15 days of the FCC’s anticipated approval of the sale.
The actual balance may actually wind up being less than $950,000, as the agreement says any of Galaxy’s outstanding obligations (such as taxes, music licensing fees, trade/barter balances, etc.) will be credited against the final balance. Several related documents were legally excluded from the public filings because they include “proprietary” information.
Pending approval, the paperwork says the broadcast licenses will be transferred to “6 Johnson Road Licenses, Inc.,” a holding company owned by Pamal. The name is a reference to the Latham street address of Pamal’s corporate offices and Albany market stations.
The deal includes most — but notably not all — of Galaxy’s station licenses.
The list includes all of Galaxy’s full-power FM stations, but a few AM stations and FM translators are notably absent.
Perhaps the most notable absence is Utica’s WTLB. Near the end of last year, Galaxy notified the FCC that it had taken the ESPN Radio affiliate off the air because the tower site in New Hartford had been sold. Not long after that, the WTLB towers came down. In its application for special temporary authority for WTLB to be silent, Galaxy told the FCC it would be looking for a new transmitter site… but so far, no news on that front. Per FCC regulations, any station that goes silent for 12 months automatically loses its license. Considering we’re just 2 months away from that clock running out, it seems that WTLB’s absence from the sale agreement precludes any chance of the station ever getting back on the air.
Also absent from the Galaxy / Pamal purchase agreement are AM stations WIXT 1230 Little Falls and WZUN (formerly WSCP) 1070 Sandy Creek.
WIXT is a 1,000 watt station that signed on as WLFH in 1952. The WIXT calls arrived in 2005, when the station was owned by Clear Channel.
WZUN runs at 2,500 watts, but is only authorized for daytime operation. For awhile, it was a simulcast of TK99. When Galaxy took over Syracuse’s ESPN Radio affiliation in 2010 on WTLA and WSGO, they had WSCP carry the Spanish-language version, ESPN Deportes Radio. In 2018, the calls changed to WZUN as the station switched to a simulcast of Sunny 102 (WZUN-FM).
To supplement WZUN’s daytimer status, Galaxy launched translator W291BU Fulton at 106.1FM, which allows transmission 24 hours a day. But W291BU was also not listed in the Pamal sale documents.
Lastly, translator W274AT Little Falls, a 102.7 simulcast of Mix 102.5 (WUMX) is not mentioned in the purchase agreement documents.
Knowing that Galaxy founder and CEO Ed Levine is retiring from broadcasting, and not hearing of any other buyers, we can only guess that the exclusion of WIXT, WZUN, W274AT and W291BU might be an indication that these stations could join WTLB in eventually going dark for good.
Covering the happenings at dozens of TV and radio stations in two markets is no easy task! We always appreciate your official station announcements as well as your unofficial insider tips or listener/viewer observations.
David Krause says:
I am surprised Galaxy is leaving two FM translators on the table, plus an Auction 100 translator for WTLB a few years back. (Maybe a separate deal is brewing somewhere).