Kxly Buys Two Hagadone Stations

Two Coeur d’Alene radio stations have been sold to a Spokane broadcasting company.

The stations, owned by the Todd Hagadone, of Beverly Hills, Calif., son of newspaper and hotel owner Duane Hagadone, will be sold to Spokane’s KXLY Broadcasting Group.

The Spokane broadcasting group said Monday it would purchase stations KHTQ-FM 94.5 and KVNI-AM 1080 from North Idaho Broadcasting, Todd Hagadone’s company. “We’re delighted with the aquisition,” said Steve Herling, executive vice president of KXLY Broadcasting Group. “It’s really another level of serving Kootenai County residents.”

The KXLY group, which also owns Spokane’s ABC-TV affiliate, has grown from just two radio stations 18 months ago to five currently owned.

This purchase would bring the total to seven. The KXLY group is owned by Morgan Murphy Broadcast of of Duluth, Minn., a division of the Evening Telegraph Co. of Superior, Wis.

The amount of the sale was not disclosed and the sale is subject to Federal Communications Commission approval. That process may take six to eight months, Herling said.

The FM station, with a top-40 mix format, was 14th in the Spokane market in the winter Arbitron ratings. The AM, adult-only music station didn’t rank at all in the combined Spokane-Kootenai County market.

Both stations combined have 21,400 listeners, said Bruce Deming, general manager of the Coeur d’Alene stations.

He said his staff was surprised by yesterday’s announcement, but for now, “it’s business as usual.” No format changes are planned.

, DataTimes