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SUN STAFFJay Hancock
Published on September 17, 1996
© 1996- The Baltimore Sun
Fast-growing Benchmark Communications is adding to its radio-station
collection, agreeing to buy five more stations for $16.9 million,
officials said yesterday, and coming close to cementing several
other deals. In two separate transactions, Benchmark agreed
to buy four urban-format stations in Jackson, Miss., for $15
million, and a country station in Shreveport, La., for $1.9
million.
Once a cable-TV operator, Benchmark since 1991 has seized
on federal radio deregulation by assembling a portfolio of
32 stations in nine markets, counting the Jackson and Shreveport
properties.
It hadn't been in Jackson before.
``The industry's consolidating like crazy,'' said Bruce R.
Spector, general partner of the Baltimore-based firm.
``What's happening to our company is just a small picture
of what's happening to media in general, and many markets
are being reduced from many operators to two or three.''
Before 1992, no company could own more than one AM and one
FM station in each market, and the Federal Communications
Commission limited how many stations one entity could own
nationwide, too.
Now, as the government opens all forms of telecommunica-
tions to more competition, radio operators can own as many
stations as they want nationally and five or more in even
small cities. Buyers have been snapping up stations and consolidating
their ad staffs, engineering staffs and other overhead.
Benchmark, which operated cable-TV systems in Loudon County
and other Northern Virginia areas in the 1980s, has joined
the buying spree, focusing on small and medium-size markets
including Roanoke, Va., Dover, Del., and Winchester, Va.
Benchmark also owns WWFG and WOSC, stations serving Salisbury
and Ocean City in Maryland.
With about $45 million in annual sales, Benchmark ``is not
a very large player, but that doesn't mean there isn't room
for them in smaller markets,'' said Lucia Cobo, editor in
chief of Radio World, a trade newspaper based in Falls Church,
Va. Clear Channel Communications of San Antonio has the most
U.S. stations, with well over 100, she said.
Benchmark contracted to buy the four Jackson stations from
Chrysler Capital, which had foreclosed on previous owners.
The stations are: WJMI-FM, WKXI-FM, WKXI-AM and WOAD-AM. The
FM Shreveport station, with a new license and no assigned
call letters yet, is owned by Port City Communications of
Shreveport.
Both deals require FCC approval and are expected to take
a few months to complete. Each will be financed with Benchmark's
existing line of credit, but the company has been considering
raising capital with a public stock offering, which could
happen later this year or early next, Spector said.
Selling stock ``is something that radio groups have discovered
in the last couple of years,'' Cobo said.
``You've seen a few of them go out and try it, but it hasn't
really taken off.''
Benchmark likes smaller markets because costs are lower,
because they're often growing faster economically and because
under the new rules one player can sometimes own half the
stations in one city, said Spector, a former partner with
Venable Baetjer and Howard, the Baltimore law firm.
Pub Date: 9/17/96
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