Earlier this year , after sitting in a trust since 2011, KFWB-AM was sold to Universal Media Access for $8 million. On Tuesday, it was announced that the station, which was carrying a South Asian format, was being purchased by Howard and Jim Kalmenson’s Lotus Communications for $11.2 million.
KFWB-AM has been a format-flipping machine the past few years. It was all-news, it was a news, talk and entertainment hybrid, then it was all-sports before this latest format. After KFWB-AM was sold by the trust earlier this year, the new owners switched the sports talk format (980 The Beast) to a “Bollywood” music format, presented primarily in Hindi. They call themselves the “Bollywood of Hollywood”.
Lotus currently owns and operates 34 stations in Arizona, California, and Nevada. The formats consist of 16 English, 17 Spanish, and 1 Farsi. The company owns two AM stations in Los Angeles, KWKW (1313) and KTMZ (1220), both airing ESPN Deportes.
Lotus plans to announce its format plan for KFWB on October 17.
The station had been had been held in trust by CBS Radio because CBS owned and operated two TV stations and two radio stations in the L.A. market. The seller is Universal Media Access KFWB-AM. Universal Media Access is part of Principle Broadcasting, run by Charlie Banta and Bill Saurer. They also have stations in Boston, New York, Seattle and two in San Jose.
Kalil & Company was the exclusive broker in the sale to Lotus.
