FLA Radio: Cumulus Sells Two Stations As MARC Media Grows

Cumulus Media is selling its Melbourne, Florida, cluster — Top 40 “107.1 A1A” WAOA, Classic Rock “95.9 The Rocket” WROK-FM and Country “102.7 The Hitkicker” WHKR — to Roger Holler’s MARC Media for $2.073 million, exiting that Space Coast market as the company works through a Chapter 11 reorganization. 

An LMA took effect Tuesday, Sept. 1, so MARC is already operating the three FMs. 

They will sit alongside MARC’s existing Space Coast pair, Classic Hits “98.5 The Beach” WSBH and Classic Country “I Am Country” WIXC/W288DZ. Holler, a Florida automotive-group principal who has been buying radio assets across the peninsula, is using the deal to stitch together a larger Central Florida footprint. 

MARC Chief Operating Officer Scott Miller said the company’s signals now cover most of the central Florida peninsula and that MARC will keep adding stations only when they fit a formula built around local programming and profit. 

In the past year the group also bought Treasure Coast Radio’s five Vero Beach stations and most of Hall Communications’ Lakeland cluster. It already owns a Gainesville cluster and standalone Christian AMs in Orlando and Dallas. Zayne Rose, formerly director of sales for Stephens Media Group in Tulsa, has been named market manager for the combined Melbourne-Titusville operation. 

For Cumulus, the sale is another non-core divestiture as it emerges from a prepackaged bankruptcy filed in March. A Houston court confirmed a plan in April that would cut about $592 million in debt and transfer ownership to lenders, pending FCC transfer-of-control approval granted in August. The company has been selling stations in smaller and midsize markets while it resets its balance sheet and heads toward going private. Closing still requires standard FCC assignment approval. Until then, Cumulus remains the licensee; MARC runs the stations under the LMA and has signaled it intends to keep the current formats while investing in local sales and programming.