BREAKING NEWS: WABQ Sale Approved

Just up on the FCC's Daily Digest today: the sale of Cleveland gospel daytimer WABQ/1540 to Good Karma Broadcasting has been officially approved by the FCC.

OMW sources wearing large cheesehead foam hats tell us that the transfer from D&E Communications to the company owned by Craig Karmazin could take place as soon as September 15th, but is expected to happen no later than October 1st.

If you're looking at the calendar for timing, our first report on Salem sports talk WKNR/850 losing ESPN Radio was July 11th, where we reported that a 90 day notice had been given to WKNR by the network on the previous day.

That would put the earliest possible date for ESPN Radio on WABQ somewhere in the second week of October, just days after Karmazin is expected to take control. We don't know if this early timing for the station's expected launch as a sports outlet is in the works or not, or if Good Karma has nailed down the rumored nighttime LMA/broker of 7 PM-6 AM on Radio One talk WERE/1300 yet.

We assume that ESPN would not like to be off in Cleveland for long, but don't have confirmation of the back end of this just yet.

In a semi-related item, since WKNR has been shopping for a replacement for ESPN Radio, Sporting News Radio and its sister publication is being sold to American City Business Journals, the business and sports newspaper arm of Advance/Newhouse...which owns business-oriented newspapers in Columbus and Cincinnati.

That's right, the network will, at least as part of the sale, be a sister entity to the Cleveland Plain Dealer.

But we have no idea if Advance/Newhouse is even interested in hanging onto the radio network. Trade publications report that the company is not buying SNR's owned-and-operated radio stations in markets like New York and Los Angeles, which Paul Allen's Vulcan Ventures will sell separately...