Draper Media To Acquire WRDE-LD Salisbury

Draper Media is buying NBC affiliate WRDE-LD Salisbury, Md. (DMA 143), from SagamoreHill Broadcasting. The price for the station, which operates as Coast TV, was not disclosed.

“We’re looking forward to bringing more local news, weather and community information to viewers here on Delmarva,” says Molly Draper Russell, CEO of Draper Holdings Business Trust, parent company of Draper Media. “Coast TV’s NBC lineup reinforces our commitment to serving the Delmarva Peninsula with the absolute best information, entertainment and sports programming available.

“Our family’s history of service through free over-the-air broadcasting goes back more than half a century,” she added. “Along with my sister and brothers we are proud to carry on the legacy of our late father, and company founder, Thomas H. Draper, who was fond of saying we have a moral obligation to serve Delmarva.”

“WBOC is unquestionably one of the great stations in America,” says Louis Wall, president of SagamoreHill. “Tom Draper built what all true broadcasters strive for, a well-resourced television station that could stand up against the competition in a market of any size. The union of Coast TV with WBOC will serve the viewers of the Delmarva Peninsula better than ever. We are delighted with this agreement and the prospects it holds for the station’s future.”

“I began my Delmarva broadcasting career at WBOC so, I am very pleased, and it seems fitting, that WRDE and I rejoin the WBOC family, says Bob Backman, president of WRDE-TV.

Draper Media, based in Salisbury, consists of WBOC-TV, FOX21, Telemundo Delmarva, Antenna TV, WBOC Digital, WBOC-FM, WAAI-FM, WTDK-FM, WCEM-FM and WCEM-AM with satellite offices in Cambridge, Md., and Dover and Milton, Delaware.

The transfer of ownership is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2018 subject to approval by the FCC.