Quote:
Univision Buying WLIR
October 2, 2003, 6:55 AM EDT
The Morey Organization has sold the rights to the 92.7 FM frequency, home to the WLIR radio station, to Spanish-language media giant Univision for $60 million in cash, the companies said yesterday.
Under terms of the deal, Garden City-based Morey will retain the WLIR call letters, the station's staff and its modern rock format, and it plans to transfer everything to a new frequency by January, said company spokeswoman Gina DeGregorio.
Univision, the largest owner of U.S.-based Spanish-language TV and radio stations, will convert the frequency to a "Hispanic-targeted format," a company spokeswoman said. Long Island has no FM Spanish-language stations.
Although Morey owns other stations - WXXP/105.3 FM, WDRE/98.5 FM and the 107.1 FM frequency, which it uses to simulcast WLIR to East End listeners - it's looking for a new frequency for WLIR, DeGregorio said.
"Our die-hard listeners on Long Island are still going to have their heritage radio station," she said.
The deal is scheduled to be completed early next year and is probably not subject to the Federal Communications Commission's media ownership rules because Univision owns just two other New York stations, WCAA/105.9 FM and WADO/1280 AM, said Tom Taylor, who follows the industry for New Hampshire-based Web site InsideRadio.com.
Although Morey sold the Vanderbilt catering hall in Plainview earlier this year, that sale has nothing to do with unloading the frequency, DeGregorio said. In fact, the frequency wasn't even on the block. Asked how it came about, DeGregorio said, "Things happen.
"They've been approached to sell the station before, but they didn't want to," she said. Keeping the WLIR format "was the whole point of the deal."
Although based on Long Island, the frequency is valuable because it reaches Nassau County, parts of Suffolk County, the five boroughs and parts of Westchester, New Jersey and Connecticut. Last month, Morey filed an application with the FCC for a low-power booster, or same-frequency transmitter, near Lincoln Center in Manhattan, allowing the station to be heard in areas of the city where the signal was obstructed by skyscrapers.
It made sense to sell the frequency because Morey wants WLIR to be more Long Island-oriented, but the frequency reached large numbers of non-Long Island listeners, DeGregorio said.
For Univision, the deal allows it to compete with Spanish Broadcasting System, owner of two Manhattan-based Spanish-language FM stations. The two are fierce rivals and the two dominant players in Spanish-language radio, said Taylor of InsideRadio.
Oh, wonderful...like we need ANOTHER fucking Spanish radio station. For as long as I can remember WLIR was at 92.7...this sucks.