• Get involved.
    We want your input!
    Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.

    After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
    If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.

    After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
    https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/

    Thanks in advance and have fun!
    RadioDiscussions Administrators

Forever Media Sells 34 Stations to Seven Mountains

A

atthestars

According to RadioInsight, Forever sells their Altoona, Johnstown, Lebanon, Meadville/Franklin, and State College clusters to Seven Mountains. Details below.

radioinsight.com

Seven Mountains Media To Acquire 34 Stations From Forever Media - RadioInsight

Kristin Cantrell’s Seven Mountains Media is acquiring Forever Media Inc. from her father Kerby Confer, Donald Alt, and Lynn Deppen. Forever currently owns 62 stations and 23 translators across Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware and New Jersey. The partners in Forever Media Seven Mountains owns 48...
radioinsight.com radioinsight.com
 
I assume things will remain mostly the same at these clusters. Westwood One formats with some live/local morning shows. Ideally they'd rebrand some of the Froggy or Rocky outlets back to their heritage branding.
 
Will they actually bring in some local jocks? Or will they just have locally programmed jukeboxes and tracking?
 
Radioinsight has a rundown of the likely changes. It said there's a website that explains what is happening, but I haven’t been able to find it. Didn’t find any clues on any of the station webpages.
 
Why would they move B94.5's format to AM and a translator?! What station in the area will flip to CHR?
 
MVB13 said:
Why would they move B94.5's format to AM and a translator?! What station in the area will flip to CHR?
Click to expand...
None. They believe with the CHR on the smaller signal and Hot AC/AC on the bigger signal, they'll cover the demographic fine.
Plus, who else is there in market at this point to flip a station? Loud? Qwik Rock? That's about it.
 
MVB13 said:
CHR and Hot A/C are two totally different formats. Not sure how they cover the whole demographic.
Click to expand...

Hot AC will be on the larger 93.7 signal, and it's a more mass appeal format. Most of the CHR listeners are in State College proper and will be able to get the CHR just fine.

A former employer of mine did the same thing not quite 24 years ago. It had a AAA on a 50,000 watt FM that covered two markets and an oldies station on a Class A FM that only covered one of the two markets, which also happened to be a college town. The AAA had most of its listeners in the college town. So, it got jettisoned to the Class A stick while the oldies station got the 50,000 watt stick.
 
MVB13 said:
CHR and Hot A/C are two totally different formats. Not sure how they cover the whole demographic.
Click to expand...
As someone that’s worked both formats, they’re actually very, very similar, other than a few playlist differences and minor audience differences. In Seven Mountains’ case, the CHR will complement the Hot AC, even on a smaller signal.
 
ksradiogeek said:
As someone that’s worked both formats, they’re actually very, very similar, other than a few playlist differences and minor audience differences. In Seven Mountains’ case, the CHR will complement the Hot AC, even on a smaller signal.
Click to expand...
And let's remember that this deal looks more like estate planning by the senior owners as the deal was "Family and Friends". Perhaps Scott knows more about the inside workings.
 
As far as I can tell, all of the Forever stations are still running Westwood One and the Froggy stations are all still Frog-a-fied. Nothing has changed in any of the Forever to Seven Mountains markets.
 
MVB13 said:
Any updates on 94.5 or the other stations that the other company took over?
Click to expand...
As mentioned before, this sale is within the ownership family, and looks to be motivated by tax and estate planning concerns, not station operation matters. I'd expect zero changes.
 
DavidEduardo said:
As mentioned before, this sale is within the ownership family, and looks to be motivated by tax and estate planning concerns, not station operation matters. I'd expect zero changes.
Click to expand...
Not at all. The four licenses that were owned by Seven Mountains were placed in a holding company owned by Seven Mountains CEO Jim Loftus for divestment. 95.3 will be swapped to Lightner Communications for their 1260/104.3 WPHB. 95.3 has assumed the WRSC News/Talk brand that was previously on 1390/93.3 via LMA. The other three FMs on 94.5, 97.1 and 98.7 are all still currently running a stunt loop of David Bowie's "Changes" and redirecting listeners to the Seven Mountains website to find where all their brands are going.

It is expected that two of those stations will shortly convert to non-commercial status joining Christian networks ahead of sales/swaps.
 
lanceventa said:
Not at all. The four licenses that were owned by Seven Mountains were placed in a holding company owned by Seven Mountains CEO Jim Loftus for divestment. 95.3 will be swapped to Lightner Communications for their 1260/104.3 WPHB. 95.3 has assumed the WRSC News/Talk brand that was previously on 1390/93.3 via LMA. The other three FMs on 94.5, 97.1 and 98.7 are all still currently running a stunt loop of David Bowie's "Changes" and redirecting listeners to the Seven Mountains website to find where all their brands are going.
Click to expand...
Ah, I was referring to the prior question about the inter-afamily transfers and forgot about the spin-offs.

With those stations stunting, I'd assume that the other stations were sold because they were not "worth keeping". It still looks like estate planning overall... get rid of the marginal or "endangered" stations or formats before you get tax valuations put on weak facilities that might be burdensome... and reserve cash for estate taxes as the total value likely well exceeds the nontaxable limit.
 
DavidEduardo said:
Ah, I was referring to the prior question about the inter-afamily transfers and forgot about the spin-offs.

With those stations stunting, I'd assume that the other stations were sold because they were not "worth keeping". It still looks like estate planning overall... get rid of the marginal or "endangered" stations or formats before you get tax valuations put on weak facilities that might be burdensome... and reserve cash for estate taxes as the total value likely well exceeds the nontaxable limit.
Click to expand...
It was partially estate planning and partially creating a near monopoly in State College. Seven Mountains now operates all but two commercial music stations in the market albeit one of those is a translator being fed via a Seven Mountains HD2. The three stations still stunting will all go to operators who will not program a secular music format on them to eliminate competition.

The estate planning was to give Kerby Confer's percentage in Forever to his daughter's company. Kerby was a partner in Forever, whereas his daughter runs Seven Mountains financed by a trust led by Kerby's wife. The deal transferred Kerby's stake in Forever in exchange for Seven Mountains getting the five markets to add to their holdings. Was probably done that way for tax purposes, but it was done to expand the family holdings.
 
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.


Back
Top Bottom