The LMA between Blarney Stone Broadcasting and Mitten News has ended leaving four stations without a programming source since March 31.
94.5 WYPV Mackinaw City/Petoskey and 106.3 WWMN Thompsonville/Traverse City had been simulcasting Blarney Stone’s Rock “Q100” 100.3 WQON Grayling, while 1210 WJNL Kingsley/101.1 W266CS Traverse City and 960 WHAK Rogers City were simulcasting “Up North Sports Radio” 101.1 WGRY-FM Roscommon.
In an STA filing with the FCC, Mitten News states the reason for the stations going silent were due to financial constraints and ongoing attempts to assign the licenses to another entity.
Blarney Stone had begun operating the stations in November 2019, at which point they dropped the Conservative Talk format originating on now-Silent 1110 WJML Petoskey and flipped the two FM’s to AC “North-FM“. They would then move to a simulcast of WQON in June 2020. WJML and WJNL began simulcasting WGRY-FM with the LMA, but WJML went silent in June 2022 “due to financing issues and the licensee’s ongoing attempts to assign the license to another entity”.
Blarney Stone’s LMA with Mitten News had replaced a previous LMA with Roy Henderson’s N Content Marketing that ended with a lawsuit between the two parties.
This story first appeared on radioinsight.com