EMF Goes Fishing In Nashville and Honolulu

Salem Media Group, Inc. has announced it has entered into an agreement to sell its contemporary Christian music stations in Nashville, Tennessee and Honolulu, Hawaii to Educational Media Foundation (EMF). 

EMF operates Christian music stations across the country as K-LOVE and Air1. Salem’s Today’s Christian Music (TCM) network is not affected by these sales.

In Nashville, Salem is selling the “Fish” trimulcast of WFFH (94.1), WBOZ (104.9), and WFFI (93.7). In Honolulu it is dealing “95.5 The Fish” KAIM. The deal is expected to close in late May or early June.

All of the Nashville signals are Class As: WFFH, licensed to Smyrna, TN, broadcasts with 3,200 watts; WBOZ, licensed to Woodbury, TN (6,000 watts), WFFI, licensed to Kingston Springs, TN (1,150 watts).

In Honolulu KAIM is a 100,000-watt Class C.

Salem Media CEO David Santrella stated, “Salem remains steadfast in our commitment to paying down debt and reducing our overall leverage. The sale of these radio stations helps achieve those goals. At the same time, we are focused on the stations staying in mission format. We are happy to be working with our good friends at EMF to continue impacting lives through music. We are grateful for our staff at these stations that have worked tirelessly over the years.”

Santrella continued, “With this change, Mike Blakemore, Salem’s VP of CCM Programming, will provide focus and leadership to programming TCM, which remains an important part of Salem’s content offerings.”

Salem expects to close on the sale of these stations sometime in late May or early June.

Also...EMF's new corporate headquarters is located in the Berry Farms development in Franklin, near Nashville and is slated to be 170,000 square-feet. It will include six floors where broadcast facilities, podcast and video production studios, and a worship center will be housed. The company is scheduled to move into its new facility in July.