NorthEast Radio Watch 8/14/2023: A Rare iHeart Buy

In this week’s issue… Equity sells in Atlantic City – Evanov shuts down Canadian AM – NYSBA Hall of Famers named – Remembering Maine’s Snyder, BZ’s Coop – Tower down in Philly

By SCOTT FYBUSH

Jump to: ME – NH – VT – MA – RI – CT – NY – NJ – PA – Canada

*It’s a rare headline these days: iHeart Media entering a new radio market with the acquisition of an entire station cluster. But it happened this past week in Atlantic City, NEW JERSEY, where the company is paying just $2 million to enter the market with the purchase of Equity Communications’ FM stations.

Gary Fisher’s company has been in selling mode lately, spinning off two of its FM signals to the south in Cape May County in recent months even as rumors swirled of a bigger deal. But few of those rumors locked in on iHeart as the buyer, in part because the company has been so reluctant to add stations in recent years.

In this case, however, Equity’s stations appear to represent a bargain that iHeart couldn’t pass up. The Atlantic City market is tightly linked to nearby Philadelphia, where the company is a dominant player with formats that closely match what it’s buying in Atlantic City.

That’s top-40 WAYV (95.1) and classic rock WZXL (100.7 Wildwood), both class B signals, along with two class A signals, adult R&B “Touch” WTTH (96.1 Margate City) and rhythmic CHR “Buzz” WZBZ (99.3 Pleasantville). The deal comes with only a few air personalities on WAYV and WZXL, making it easy to import iHeart’s own voices in what has become the company’s small-market model.

As for Fisher and Equity, the company is left with two stations after the iHeart sale: oldies WMID (1340) in Atlantic City and WCMC (1230) in Wildwood. There’s no word yet on what will become of those stations.