In 1996, Wendell and Lydia Stark applied to do business in Idaho. The two filled out a form and wrote a check to the Idaho Secretary of State to start his FM 104.7 Co. That same year they received his FCC license for Twin Falls Radio Station.
Now, 26 years later, the Starks sell their Idaho radio to an employee.
The Iliad Odyssey
FM 104.7 Co. became FM Idaho just one month after its original application in 1996. Along the way, the Atlanta, Georgia-based Starks witnessed the twists and turns that led to an entire radio news blog. FM Idaho eventually became Iliad Media Group and in Boise and Twin Falls he owns over 10 radio brands.
Raised in Seal, Alabama, Wendell Stark became chairman of the large investment firm Invesco. But he and Lydia dabbled in investing in radio, starting with Twin Falls’ first group of stations. They reportedly sold the company for $10 million in 2000 to a group in Oregon, who also bought his Hawks in Boise. However, the Oregon group’s hopes for a radio station and a baseball team didn’t pan out, and eventually Starks regained the radio station two years after him.
Over the next 20 years or so, it went by several names: FM Idaho, Tester Broadcast Group, Locally Owned Radio, Impact Radio, and in the last decade it became Iliad.
CEO Darrell Calton joined the company in 2008 and began restructuring the Station Group, first in Boise and then in Twin Falls. In Boise, a small group of medium-rated stations has grown into eight different formats, including market-leading stations 101.9 The Bull, 96.1 Bob FM and My 102.7.
Local employee owned
Radio groups, like most media, are not typically locally owned. None of his other three major Boise radio station owners are based here, nor are the owners of commercial television stations, local newspapers, and cable companies. (Twin Falls’ another radio group, Lee Family Broadcasting, is also locally owned.) But his 46 employees at Iliad own and manage the company.
“One of the biggest concerns the owners and I had about the company was not year-to-year success, but decade-by-decade success,” Culton said. I am at a loss as to how to deal with the passage of time with regards to business plans and business plans. We are very lucky. This ESOP business migration tool is exactly what we all needed.”
Iliad joins a growing roster of Idaho companies with ESOP ownership structures. The most famous is Winco Foods, with the recent additions of Drake Cooper, Commercial Tire, Tates Rents and Bardenay.
The ESOP model essentially works as a retirement plan that uses a company’s revenues to pay for employees’ (or more precisely, owners’) retirement benefits.
“Employee ownership allows us to live our values of putting people first, leading with creativity and acting with integrity,” said Culton. “The work we do every day will have a deeper purpose and community impact than ever before.”
Iliad said it participates in three other employee-owned radio groups around the country.