Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, September 14, 1993                   TAG: 9309140060
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: B5   EDITION: STATE 
SOURCE: Melanie S. Hatter
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

SALE OF 2 STATIONS LOOKS LIKE NO SALE

Speculation within the radio industry say Roanoke-based WROV is not buying WJJS (101.7 FM) and WXYU (1320 AM). But until Mike Slenski, WROV's vice president and general manager, gets legal notification that the sale is canceled, he declined to confirm anything. "There is the possibility we may not close at all," he said Monday.

Dan Phillips, vice president of CRS Communications Inc., which owns WJJS and WXYU, said the deal is off. He said he received a letter from WROV's owner, David Weil, on Aug. 24 that said: "It has now become apparent that a closing cannot take place" and asked to be released from the contract.

In February, Weil said he had signed a contract to buy the Lynchburg stations. The purchase price was estimated at $300,000. But negotiations between Weil and CRS have been slow, Slenski said.

In April, Weil and his wife, Emily, filed personal bankruptcy in federal court in Wilson, N.C. Weil, who lives in Goldsboro, N.C., owns radio stations in North Carolina and Wisconsin as well as in Roanoke.

Weil's bankruptcy may have "elongated the process," Slenski said. But it "doesn't have any bearing on our two stations. Our companies are totally independent of his other business ventures."

With the sale, WROV would have been the first broadcasting operation in the market with two FM stations airing different programming. Slenski had said WJJS would continue with an urban contemporary format instead of switching to the album-rock format of WROV-FM (96.3). WXYU had already aligned its format to match WROV-AM's (1240) oldies, sports and talk programming.