Thanks to Connie Thiessen of Broadcast Dialogue for sharing this story
August 12, 2020
Paul Larsen, the former co-owner and President of Clear Sky Radio, has made a bid to take over the broadcast licence for Kelowna’s CKOO-FM.
Up until this past March, Avenue Radio-owned CKOO-FM had been operating as Soft 103.9. One of the early pandemic media casualties, it filed for bankruptcy on Mar. 31. Glacier Media had been set to acquire the station for $2 million, pending CRTC approval, as part of the assets of the Castanet digital news sites (founded by Avenue owner Nick Frost), however the commission had yet to issue a decision prior to the insolvency filing.
CRTC Hearing…
https://crtc.gc.ca/eng/archive/2020/2020-262.htm#bm4
I wish Paul the best.
Hope Paul gets it.
No question that Paul is a smart radio business person. Even at $500K though…..that is a tough market. You have 8 stations with 3 combo’s (Bell, Stingray & Pattison) and this one single license all splitting barely $8M in revenue. That number is admittedly a little off as Stingray’s country FM would report revenue in the Penticton market where we don’t get to see the number. Even still….going from dead air to a place where you can draw your share of what little revenue there is will be a long haul.