WTMJ-AM, WKTI are being bought by Good Karma, which owns ESPN Radio in Milwaukee
WTMJ-AM (620) and WKTI-FM (94.5) are being bought by Good Karma Brands, the Milwaukee-based radio company that owns six ESPN-affiliated stations, including WAUK-AM (540) in Milwaukee.
Good Karma announced the deal Friday morning. Radio and music industry website AllAccess.com Friday put the sale price at $16 million.
E.W. Scripps Co., which bought WTMJ-AM and WKTI as part of its acquisition of Journal Communications in 2015, announced in January that it was putting all of its radio properties up for sale.
RELATED:Scripps, parent of WTMJ-AM and WKTI, putting all of its radio stations up for sale
In June, Scripps sold a cluster of five radio stations in Tulsa, Okla., to Griffin Communications.
The WTMJ/WTKI sale would have to be approved by the Federal Communications Commission. Good Karma said it expects the deal to close by the end of the year.
The sale would give Good Karma, led by founder and CEO Craig Karmazin, an even bigger presence in sports radio in Milwaukee, a market with at least four stations focused on sports. WTMJ, which also broadcasts on a translator signal at 103.3 FM, is the flagship station for Milwaukee Brewers, Milwaukee Bucks and Green Bay Packers broadcasts, and airs a variety of sports call-in shows in its news/talk/sports mix.
Karmazin founded Good Karma in 1997 when he bought three radio stations in Beaver Dam. The company later bought WAUK and WTLX-FM in Madison, along with stations in Cleveland and West Palm Beach, Fla.
The deal also would bring WTMJ-AM and WKTI back to local ownership. WTMJ was launched by the owner of The Milwaukee Journal in 1927 and remained locally owned until Scripps bought Journal Communications, including the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, in 2015. Scripps spun off the Journal Sentinel to Gannett Co. Inc. a year later.
In the most recent radio ratings scorecard from Nielsen Audio, WTMJ-AM had a 7.8 share of the overall listening audience in the June ratings period — a distant No. 2 overall in the Milwaukee market behind long-term leader WRIT-FM (95.7), with a 10.5 share.
According to radio industry newsletter Tom Taylor Now, WTMJ-AM ranked No. 1 at night and No. 2 on Saturdays and Sundays, fueled mainly by Brewers baseball.
WKTI, with its country format, was at No. 10, with a 4.3 share overall.
(Ratings for WAUK were not available; Good Karma does not subscribe to the Nielsen service in Milwaukee.)
With the sale of the radio stations, WTMJ-AM and WTMJ-TV (Channel 4) would have separate owners for the first time. The TV station, along with its digital subchannels, would still be owned by Scripps.