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John Catsimatidis Will be Acquiring another Station

One important thing to remember is that we used to think "COL" meant "City of License" but, starting decades ago (I think at a license application south of Roswell, NM) the FCC began to use an interpretation as "Community of License" which would include any unincorporated community,

In my "home market" there are stations licensed to Mecca, Bermuda Dunes and Thousand Palms, none of them being incorporated towns or cities.
 
When Cats mentioned in that segment with Sid about a previous station sale that was put on hold. What station would that have been? He didn't explain further, except that this deal is separate from that one.
 
TheBigA said:
There are a lot of AMs on the market.
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But the reference pointed to indicated that Cats was going to be buying a "50,000 watt station". That clears a lot of stations, including all the suburban ones, from consideration.
 
pjc1961 said:
According to Catsimatidis, he had attempted to purchase 880 earlier in 2024 but was thwarted when "the Soros situation came out".
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FYI: That's a made-up story. Soros has no power to make any decisions. That was in the bankruptcy agreement. He doesn't have any seats on the board. He doesn't have any management role. 880 was never on the market for purchase. Cats may have made an offer, but the station was never for sale.

However, him bringing up the Soros name makes me think it's more likely that he's buying WADO, since that station was originally part of the sale to LMN, also financed by Soros.
 
TheBigA said:
FYI: That's a made-up story. Soros has no power to make any decisions. That was in the bankruptcy agreement. He doesn't have any seats on the board. He doesn't have any management role. 880 was never on the market for purchase. Cats may have made an offer, but the station was never for sale.
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Well, he's pushed the conservative/conspiracy theorist narrative that "Soros bought Audacy". No big shock there.

What will be even more shocking is if he actually follows through on something he's been saying ever since he first bought WABC five years ago.
 
Rollo-Smokes said:
Well, he's pushed the conservative/conspiracy theorist narrative that "Soros bought Audacy". No big shock there.
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Correct. There are other investors involved in the bankruptcy, including Manoj Bhargava, but his name doesn't get the same reaction. The time to buy stations from Audacy was before they declared bankruptcy. Once they declared, all possible asset sales are stopped until the bankruptcy agreement is approved. Then the new owners can sell assets. That's where we are now.
 
Rollo-Smokes said:
Well, he's pushed the conservative/conspiracy theorist narrative that "Soros bought Audacy". No big shock there.

What will be even more shocking is if he actually follows through on something he's been saying ever since he first bought WABC five years ago.
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And ironically he'd be doing exactly what he (falsely) accuses Soros of doing: buying a radio station to directly control its programming and push his personal political agenda.
 
TheBigA said:
FYI: That's a made-up story. Soros has no power to make any decisions. That was in the bankruptcy agreement. He doesn't have any seats on the board. He doesn't have any management role. 880 was never on the market for purchase. Cats may have made an offer, but the station was never for sale.

However, him bringing up the Soros name makes me think it's more likely that he's buying WADO, since that station was originally part of the sale to LMN, also financed by Soros.
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That would be tragic if Cats buys WADO. The Spanish language programs will be gone.....the call letters may change as well. Over 50 years of history done and gone. :(
 
RadioGuy1864 said:
If Cats wants to be mindful of history, he could bring back the WOV calls.
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I believe an FCC restriction on returning to former 3-letter calls only allows a licensee who owned the station under those calls to return to them. Since the last WOV licensee is several generations back in history, this can't be done.

(Yes, KKHJ lied to the FCC to get the "KHJ" calls back.)
 


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