Media Frenzy

By Rob Holbert Managing Editor

The long, tedious saga concerning who would eventually own WZEW 92-FM finally came to a close two weeks ago when Ken Johnson and dot.com media were awarded the right to purchase the station, pending FCC approval, according to Barry Wood, the station’s former owner.

Johnson has been running the station since 2002 under a local marketing agreement while ownership of the station and Wood’s finances were hashed out in court. The ruling ends nearly seven years of wrangling for the eclectic rock station. However, Wood said the outcome for one-time sister station WAVH is still up in the air, as Cumulus, which has operated that station since 2002 has backed out of its purchase agreement.

“Ken and I struck a deal last summer as part of a deal where Cumulus would buy WAVH and Ken would buy the ZEW,” Wood said from Washington, DC last week. “It was subject to a lot of paperwork. Ken followed through with the paperwork and Cumulus dropped out. I am seeking to enforce the agreement with Cumulus.”

According to Wood, the odyssey began in 1997, when he found a potential buyer for WAVH, which he’d operated since 1992. While the deal was pending, the potential buyer began to operate WAVH, and also purchased the license for WZEW, Wood said. Eventually, the buyer dropped out, but the ZEW had already been operating from the same studios as WAVH, so Wood bought that station as well.

In 1999, Wood says, his longtime station manager Bill Phillips called him and said the stations were having some severe financial problems. Wood says Phillips was an employee who stood to make a considerable amount of money through incentives if the stations were ever sold at a profit, but that he was not an owner. But shortly after that call, Wood says he received a letter from Phillips’ attorney alleging a partnership existed. Wood says that in a subsequent meeting at a local law firm, he fired Phillips.

“They left us alone in the conference room, and Phillips begged for his job back, and being a Christian, I agreed,” Wood said.

Not long after that, Wood says, Phillips arbitrarily changed ZEW’s format to ‘80s music, prompting outraged calls to D.C. where Wood is an attorney. Wood says he came back down and fired Phillips, igniting a full-blown legal battle over whether a partnership in fact existed between the two. Phillips filed suit locally, and Wood was forced into court.

“I thought ‘What can go wrong?’ I’m not from Alabama, that’s what’s wrong,” Wood said. “Don’t get me wrong, I love Alabama, and the people there are wonderful, but I got pulled into a meat grinder. I had a year of enormous difficulty with this thing.”

Phillips filed to have the courts appoint a receiver to take over the stations while it ownership was being litigated, which would have effectively removed Wood from the day-to-day control. After a five-day hearing, a receiver was appointed, and Wood countered by filing Chapter 11 Bankruptcy.

“All my pride was laid out right there,” Wood recalled. “Two years earlier, I was debt-free. I’d paid off my house.”

During Chapter 11 proceedings, it was decided Wood would have to sell both stations at auction. Separately, a settlement was reached between Phillips and Wood that would give Phillips some ownership of the stations when they were sold. Meanwhile, Wood’s appeal of the receivership hearing was heard by the Alabama Supreme Court in November of 2002, and it overturned the earlier ruling and said no partnership existed.

But the stations had already been auctioned, and dot.com and Cumulus came out as the winning bidders. They were allowed to start operating the stations under a local marketing agreement while the rest of the legal issues were hashed out, Wood said. In the meantime, escalator clauses in the sale contract were driving the price of the stations up every month, and in 2004, Cumulus told Wood they were not willing to pay the higher price, and the sale fell through.

Wood says a clause in his agreement with Phillips effectively negated the entire settlement when Cumulus backed out, thus making the Supreme Court ruling pertinent and putting Phillips out in the cold if and when the stations were sold.

“Phillips was looking at $3 million sprout wings and fly out the window,” Wood said laughing.

Wood said that while Cumulus and dot.com wrangled with him about a new price for the stations, another group, Styles Media, came in and offered to pay his price for both stations. But a judge eventually said there was a technical problem with Styles buying the stations, effectively keeping Cumulus and dot.com as the only players.

Wood says last summer both struck agreements with him to buy the stations, and that Johnson followed through two weeks ago.

“Ken did exactly what he said he was going to do. He even showed up with the money early. Have you ever heard of anyone doing that?” Wood said.

As for WAVH, Wood says he has filed a lawsuit against Cumulus to force them to fulfil their agreement. In the meantime, he will take back day-to-day operation of WAVH within the next month. When talking about the station, Wood sounds a bit conflicted, discussing running it himself, but also acknowledging several interested potential buyers.

“This is giving me my station back, and I want my station back. I’m working on putting things back together,” he said.

Wood said he’ll be looking for new studio space for WAVH in the coming weeks. Ken Johnson was unavailable for comment on this story.

The new CW

The decision has finally been made, WBPG will officially become Mobile’s new CW affiliate. The LIN TV-owned sister station of WALA was chosen to carry the new network’s programming. The CW was formed when UPN and WB merged. The move means WJTC, the former UPN affiliate will not carry CW programming.

According to LIN TV officials, the CW will launch in September with a 13-hour prime-time lineup consisting of many programs from the lineups of UPN and the WB, which will shut down at the end of the summer.

Rob Holbert is Lagniappe managing editor. Contact him at rholbert@lagniappemobile.com.

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