KOCM-FM Is Sold for $2.95 Million

Newport Beach-based radio station KOCM-FM has been sold to Financial Capital Broadcasting Co., a Miami-based firm, for $2.95 million in cash.

The purchase of the 3,000-watt, soft hits station comes after 24-year-old KOCM failed to qualify for the latest Arbitron listenership ratings for Orange County published in July. KOCM last appeared in the Arbitron survey in January with a .4% rating, roughly equal to 13,000 listeners.

KOCM’s owners, Donrey of Nevada Inc., said the sale is part of an effort to sell off all of its six radio stations to concentrate on its newspaper operations. Donrey, a media conglomerate, owns more than 100 daily and weekly newspapers.

The station is the first to be acquired by the four-month-old Financial Broadcasting. Company founder Sam Rosenblatt said he plans to launch a “big and aggressive promotional campaign” to increase the station’s ratings, but will not change the station’s management or programming.

KOCM switched nine months ago from an easy-listening format to “adult comtemporary” programming, which emphasizes soft rock ballads by pop artists.

“People weren’t listening to soft and beautiful any more,” station manager Dick Sadar said. “We went to a brighter, all-vocal format.”

Rosenblatt, who plans to spend two to three months at the Newport Center station to implement some “small operational changes,” said he also wants to keep KOCM oriented toward the Orange County audience by becoming involved with local issues.

“We are not absentee owners,” Rosenblatt said. “We hope to become involved with the community as a whole and provide better service to the community.”