Re: NorthEast Radio Watch 4/30: Fuller-Jeffrey Sells Out

[SteveOrdinetz <steveord@xtdl.com>]

At 08:00 PM 4/30/99 -0400, Scott D Fybush wrote:
>*One of the last big locally-owned radio groups in New England is
>succumbing to the pressures of corporate consolidation.
>Fuller-Jeffrey announced late Friday afternoon that it has agreed to a
>$63 million buyout by Citadel Communications.
> WBLM has never known another owner in
>its 26-year history.  
>



I'm not sure this is true.  While I'm pretty sure it was F-J's first
purchase, the station was progressive rock when they bought it.  I read
somewhere once that Bob & JJ were not terribly fond of "underground" radio,
but didn't want to mess with it because it seemed to have a following and
they didn't want to annoy anyone right off.



>Can the market be served as well by a company from Nevada, whose
>owners know nothing about WBLM's beginnings in the little transmitter
>shack in Litchfield, or about the mighty reach of WHOM's mountaintop
>transmitter, or about the historical reasons for returning the WJBQ
>calls to 97.9? 


There is nothing tremendously unique about either of these stations today
that would imply that a corporate owner couldn't do as well as a local
owner.  WBCN's heritage goes back further than the Blimp's, and they've
done all right with a corporate owner (the same one, more or less) for 20+
years.

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