• 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

McCoy and Magic in Panama City

C

cceng1

From this afteroon's RBR (Radio Business Report):

McCoy keeps the Magic in Panama City FL
A five station cluster is going from one Magic Broadcasting to another, the main difference being that Donald G. McCoy will be changing the name of the licensee enough to be different and will have a much bigger stake in the cluster.
 
more info:

A five station cluster is going from one Magic Broadcasting to another, the main difference being that Donald G. McCoy will be changing the name of the licensee enough to be different and will have a much bigger stake in the cluster.

The licensee change breaks down like this: The cluster will be going from Magic Broadcasting Florida Licensing LLC as subsidiary to Magic Broadcasting LLC, to McCoy’s Magic Broadcasting II Inc. McCoy holds 50% of the purchasing entity, along with Elke M. McCoy.

The McCoys will pay $3.15M cash for the cluster, putting the entire amount into escrow. They will face a $500K “liquefied damages” penalty if they are found at fault should the deal fail to consummate.

The stations are CHR 105.9 WILN-FM in Panama City FL, Country 1290 WPCF-AM and Adult CHR 100.1 WVVE-FM, both in Panama City Beach FL, News/Talk 101.1 WYOO-FM Springfield FL and New Rock 97.7 WYYX-FM Bonifay FL.

The contract specifies that the buyers will pursue construction permits for both WILN-FM and WVVE-FM. They will ask that existing CPs be dismissed as unbuilt, and the seller will see to pursuing replacement CPs with the buyers covering any associated expenses.

McCoy holds a 13.3% voting stake in the seller, and has a 26.17% stake in its assets.
 
CCENG ~ This whole cluster of ownership is .... a cluster. Don needs to have a bigger share in the company. Heck, he ought to own it 100%, because small pieces of that pie are not worth the investment. So the facts seem to say the cluster is worth $6M or so. $5 M is probably somewhat reasonable. That means Double Egg is
worth $4M. Well, thats being nice.

It seems like he will have to spend a million just to run the thing properly. No clue what it's billing now. Listened through the stations a few weeks ago, but not throughly. Didnt pay attention to how much were
real spots, etc.

Who are the remaining shareholders?
 
I am sure that info will be available on the paper work filed with the Commission....I would think it will be available on the FCC website soon.

cceng
 
CCENG (or someone) I need a refresher course.What's the story on Don McCoy? I remember his name from the early to mid 1980's, but can't remember which stations he was at over the years in PCB. Was he there with Don C. in the beginning at Island? Ouch. Forgotten memories. I know he was part of the Tom Dibacco/KimStyles deal later on, but way prior to that...it ain't all that clear anymore. Hell.
 
Don McCoy and Fred Lindholm came to Panama City in the early 70s and bought then WGNE-AM/FM .... the owner was killed in a car accident and the family didn't want to keep the stations....the family's name was Collins.....the FM frequency was 98.5

They operated the stations for several years and then divested the AM signal (1480) and gave it to GCCC....it became WKGC-AM....this freed them up to purchase WDLP (590)....they could only own a single AM and a single FM under the FCC rules back then

They ran both stations until around 87 or 88 when they sold the stations to Ken Woodfin who changed 98.5 from automated easy listening (Shulke) to Sunny 98.

McCoy and Doug Grimm (ex GM at WMBB-TV in PC) bought a couple of stations in Montgomery AL, Macon, GA and Salinas CA and sold them several years later to Cumulus and Clear Channel for some pretty good cash (my opinion).

McCoy got involved in Magic several years after that.....

VERY abbreviated history....and I hope I have been accurate...I am sure someone will point it out if I f'd up somewhere....

The Don C you were thinking of is Don Cavilari (not sure about the spelling).....he still lives here....saw him at a wild game dinner last fall...he is into duck hunting and as you know, I am into deer hunting....but I digress..........

one more thing....it is called "Magic" because Don also is a very good magician....no pun intended here....he gave the group the name

cceng
 
You're right on the money, cceng, with a couple of minor things:

McCoy and Lindholm sold WDLP/WGNE to The Woodfin Group in 1986; we launched Sunny on 1/1/87 on 98.5 (from the antenna on the top of 590's tower #1), and moved the format and calls of WGNE to 590. The big tower project in Fountain happened in 1988 with Sunny moving its plant there; WPAP followed on that tower in 1989 after the F-15 took down the WMBB tall tower -- 'PAP was a tenant on that. Then WTBB/WYYX followed a couple of years later on the "Sunny" tower.

The automated beautiful music format on WGNE at the time I was there was Bonneville's "Ultra" format, which worked with two reels of instrumentals (one medium-uptempo, and one down-tempo). I'm not even sure the Shulke format was still around by that time.

IIRC, sometime after Don sold the PC stations, he stepped in to oversee WPFM when Culpepper (?) Broadcasting went belly-up. I recall they got shut down briefly because the owners hadn't submitted payroll tax and withholding payments to the Internal Revenue Service. Am I mistaken that ultimately PFM was sold to SunGroup, or something like that?

I worked for Don and Doug as a PD at the Macon cluster for five years. It wasn't the best operation in the world, but we realized how good we had it as soon as Clueless -- er, um, Cumulus bought the stations for $35 million.

TDO
(David Nolin)
 
You need a damn slide-rule to put Panama City radio history together, don'tcha? Or at least a pile of scorecards!

FWIW, I don't think SunGroup ever had PFM. I managed for them in Pcola & Texas and--though their early years were a mess of revolving stations and markets (and gun shots) until John Biddinger finally took the reins--I don't recall The Great 108 being on the roster.

I managed Island & 97X for Cavaleri & Kingston (Empire Broadcasting) in the mid-nineties. Good to hear Don C is still doing well--great guy. During my tour of duty, IIRC, Kim & Tom had Arrow and Cat Country (and something else?)... and was Jimmy Vineyard running PFM and the World Famous Rock 103/WDRK? Paxson had just passed PAP and Sunny off to Clear Channel, I believe--and they were (then, as now) taking most of the money. The AMs didn't matter, as they haven't since about 1990...
 
thanks for filling in the blanks and for the corrections....hell, I have soldered a lot of wires since then, I guess the fumes made me forget some of those details ;)

cceng
 
Hell, I got lost coming down there a couple a weeks ago. Talk about getting way too old. I have made 200 trips down there in my lifetime. RNR, good stuff. I don't remember Don McCoy having PFM. I remember the "magical" era of Jim Martin (Milback) and then I can't remember who grabbed the reigns between the
"shut down" Tax Liens and eventually Waitt trashing the cluster, before Double Dud overpaid and continued
to offer nothing competitive.
 
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.


Back
Top Bottom