The NBC affiliate has been purchased by LocusPoint Networks, an investment firm that is acquiring stations with plans to participate in the FCC's incentive auction.
DMA 4 (PHILADELPHIA)
$6M Sale Of WMGM Wildwood, NJ, Closes
The sale by Access.1 Communications of its only TV station, NBC affiliate WMGM Wildwood, N.J. (DMA 4, Philadalphia), to LocusPoint Networks for $6 million has closed.
Headed by William deKay and Ravi Potharlanka, LocusPoint in an investment firm that is acquiring stations with plans to participate in the FCC’s incentive auction. That two-step auction aims to buy spectrum from broadcasters and resell it to wireless carriers.
According to the application, LocusPoint has bought or is in the process of buying 12 low-power TV stations, 11 of which are Class A facilities.
Access.1 is principally owned by Todd Boehly. Although Access.1 has no other TV stations, it owns 13 radio stations in New Jersey, New York, Texas and Louisiana.
Greg Guy of Patrick Communications represented the buyer, while Kalil & Co. represented the seller.
Comments (2)
Dale Godfrey says:
January 29, 2014 at 10:04 am
Boy, does this ever show how the whole concept of having a license to serve the public ‘interest, convenience and necessity’ has changed!! A few decades ago if one could make a court showing that a license was obtained for any reason other than to serve the public, the licensee could face revocation! But now we see a new licensee that flatly states its purpose in owning WMGM(TV) is to cash it in for $$$ in the spectrum auction. Its a brave new world indeed.
Colin MacCourtney says:
January 29, 2014 at 12:03 pm
WMGM is one of the very few (only?) remaining “duplicate” NBC affiliates in a major DMA (Philadelphia). Today, with a majority of viewers receiving the signals of broadcast TV stations from subscription services, NBC could terminate (fail to renew) the station’s contract in a heart beat.
In the last 40 years, several attempts were made to bring local TV to Atlantic City and the surrounding seaside communities, but they all failed. WMGM is the last hold-out. They have done a good job of bringing local news and information to the coastal residents of Southern New Jersey.