Though there’s absolutely no word (or even strong rumor) about the fate of a big Northeast Ohio Clear Channel station spun off into the “Aloha Station Trust”, another of the company’s stations in Western Ohio is indeed headed for a new owner.
That would be WBUK/106.3 Ottawa, the Findlay-Lima market rimshot that picked up the oldies “Buck” format from the Lima market’s 107.5 (now rock WZRX/107.5 Fort Shawnee “X107-5”).
But WBUK has most recently been classic rock “The Fox”, a moniker and format it picked up from another Clear Channel spinoff in the region, WPFX/107.7 North Baltimore. (At last check, after a brief time as AC “My 107.7” and a sale to BAS Broadcasting, the latter is still silent, pending its takeover by Toledo Radio’s Dan Dudley and company.)
Your winning buyer for WBUK is Blanchard River Broadcasting, which owns Findlay’s talk WFIN/1330 and rock WKXA/100.5, and is an arm of Findlay Publishing, which owns the city’s daily newspaper “The Findlay Courier”.
That sounds like a media monopoly. But the company’s radio stations do get competition from places like Fostoria, where AC WBVI/96.7 “Mix 96.7” aims at Findlay, or Tiffin, where country powerhouse WCKY/103.7 “103-7 CKY” booms into Findlay.
Whew. More than you ever wanted to know about the Findlay media scene, in just two sentences!
WBUK was an early station tabbed for sale by Clear Channel, an early entrant into the Aloha Trust list. And in fact, it was actually one of those stations that was supposed to go to former PAX TV executive Dean Goodman’s “GoodRadio.TV”, then was to be spun off from there into its own trust for supposed future sale.
None of that ever happened, as “GoodRadio.TV”‘s planned acquisition of a boatload of small market Clear Channel stations fell apart. So, WBUK remained with Clear Channel, until it was flipped into Aloha recently.
Speaking of that Aloha Station Trust, of course, the station we mention at the top of this item is still “in there” – top 40 WAKS/96.5 Akron, otherwise known as Clear Channel’s Cleveland market “Kiss FM” outlet. No word on any possible buyers, or the future disposition of 96.5, at this time…and it continues to operate as usual from Clear Channel’s cluster on Oak Tree…
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