WWHK

[Scott Fybush]

On 4/17/2014 4:01 PM, Nickolas Noseworthy wrote:
> Heard 102.3 from Concord this morning, and it was playing all songs from the river Music Hall, I'm assuming based at WX RV in Boston. Did 92.5 the river purchase 102.3? And will they be planning a simulcast at some point?
> -Nick
>

 From NERW (www.fybush.com) two weeks ago:

"*In central NEW HAMPSHIRE, Steve Silberberg is filling a gap between 
links in his ownership chain.

Silberberg’s biggest station by far is WXRV (92.5 Andover MA), which 
serves not only the northern half of the Boston market but also much of 
the Merrimack Valley; up north in ski country, he simulcasts “The River” 
on WLKC (105.7 Campton). Now he’s adding a simulcast in Concord, right 
where WXRV’s main signal starts to fade out.

Silberberg’s $425,000 purchase of WWHK (102.3 Concord) ends more than 
five years of uncertainty at one of the oldest FM signals in the state 
capital. The former WKXL-FM was part of the cluster that was transferred 
from Vox to Nassau in 2004, but because of ownership caps, the station 
(then WOTX), Nassau couldn’t buy it outright, instead entering into an 
LMA with licensee Capitol Broadcasting.

But when the FCC ruled that LMAs count against ownership caps in radio 
(unlike TV, as noted at the top of the column), Nassau had to stop 
operating the station – and so it dropped its rock format (“the Hawk”) 
and went into a long limbo. Andrew Sumereau’s Birch Broadcasting took 
control of the WWHK license in 2009, agreeing to pay $950,000 for the 
station, with Nassau holding the note.

Ever since, WWHK has been something of a zombie station, never launching 
a full-fledged commercial operation and instead simulcasting talker WTPL 
(107.7 Hillsborough) or, for the last couple of years, running a 
nonstop, commercial-free diet of Vitamin String Quartet instrumental 
covers of contemporary hits.

Silberberg’s purchase of 102.3 includes an LMA that took effect April 1 
(which means a WXRV simulcast could start any day now), as well as a 
$150,000 non-compete deal with Sumereau and whatever’s left of the 
now-bankrupt Nassau, which sold the rest of its cluster to Bill Binnie."