KDWY and KMER sold

[CAwasinNJ]

KDWY and KMER have been sold, but the conditions of the sale strike me as a little odd.

KDWY is going for what seems like a bargain basement price of $15,000 from the spinoff trust. At the same time there is an agreement for the same buyer to purchase KMER and its new translator on 92.5 from Broadway for $47,000. So KMER is going for more than 3 times the price of KDWY. Also, both transactions are contingent on each other. If one doesn't go through, the other won't either. Maybe that explains the odd pricing structure.

I have to wonder if the new owner will file to move KDWY to Humpy Peak like the original plan in Docket 05-243 had. I didn't see anything in the contract that would bar the upgrade (which would knock the 105.5 translator for The Eagle off the air) or any non-compete language. So it's possible that might happen after all.

[michaeljwyo]

I had heard a little about this up here. I know both are off the air and have been for a while now...maybe a few months. Its been a while since I have been up to Kemmerer. I had a customer tell me that they had gone to the town council and told them the stations were going to leave the air due to financial issues. I haven't seen anything at the FCC about KDWY and humpy for a while now. Heck I didn't even know KMER had a translator. There were no liners mentioning it. I didn't think Broadway really cared about about KMER at all. It appeared they got their money out of it when they sold off KAOX which was moved to Idaho. When this all happened several years ago, we all knew that they bought the Kemmerer cluster so they could move KMER (5000 watts at 950) to 940 and drop power to 240 watts or so, so that it would be out of the way for KOVO to increase it's power...which never happened. I was very much involved at KMER/KAOX/KDWY. I put together the studios for KDWY and KAOX. Hell I even got an AM stereo exciter (which is still sitting in the rack) and put KMER in stereo. I was disappointed when Simmons bought the stations and brought in a BE AM-240a transmitter and didn't spend the lousy $400 for the stereo card that goes with it so KMER could stay in stereo. They didn't care. I haven't done any engineering work for them since Simmons bought them but I have stopped in a few times to talk with the guys over there. Anyways new owner is Dan Dockstader. He is the publisher at the star valley independent in Afton, Wy. He does the news And I think is involved in the combo (KRSV am/fm) over there. So I am pretty sure there is no interest in Humpy. However, KRSV went from a combo that simulcasted satellite country to separate stations, both now music on hard drive and all new images and local content. The FM is hot AC and the AM is still country. They almost sound like a much larger market station. If it's Dan that made all this happen then he could be wanting to do the same in Kemmerer...which would be great. Check out svinews.com and see. It looks like the stations in star valley are part of the paper's family now. I guess what happens in Kemmerer now remains to be seen.

That's the view from up here.

[CAwasinNJ]

Thank you Michael. I do appreciate your local insight from out that way.