The University of Northwestern-St. Paul’s radio network is continuing its expansion with the purchase of an Illinois Christian radio network.
The $9,901,558 deal calls for UNWSP to buy 14 full-power FM stations and eight FM translators from the Illinois Bible Institute and the Illinois District Council of the Assemblies of God. The sellers will also receive a $200,000 credit for future underwriting announcements about their non-broadcast activities.
WCIC/91.5 (Pekin-Peoria) and WBGL/91.7 (Champaign) serve as flagships for the network, with coverage across much of Illinois extending from the Chicago suburbs to near St. Louis and beyond. The stations carry a Contemporary Christian format.
The deal includes one Iowa station, K247BW/97.3 (Bettendorf), which transmits from northeast of the Quad Cities and covers a rural area.
UNWSP owns 18 full-power stations and 18 translators, mostly in the Upper Midwest. It’s also the proposed licensee of Refuge Media’s three full-power stations and 13 translators in Minnesota and neighboring states.
Combined, the deals will give UNWSP a total of 35 full-power, non-commercial stations and 39 FM translators.
The latest deal comes just over a year after UNWSP purchased KGBI-FM/100.7 (Omaha) and converted it to non-commercial status. The organization is also in the process of upgrading its Des Moines-area signal, KNWI/107.1 (Osceola).
UNWSP’s stations carry one of two non-commercial formats: Contemporary Christian (often branded as “Life”) or the “Faith Network” of Christian talk and preaching. Contemporary Christian is usually carried on the major FM signals, with “Faith” on a mixture of AM stations, FM translators, and a few full-power FM signals. The group’s flagship stations are KTIS/900 and KTIS-FM/98.5 (Minneapolis).