Equity Media Sets Auction For Stations

Equity Media will auction its 100-plus stations at 10 a.m. April 16 in Dallas. The stations are mostly small low-power outlets in markets ranging from Nashville to Las Vegas to Butte, Montana.

Patrick Communications is assisting with the auction. Interested parties are asked to submit a bid on or before April 13 that's at least equal to a minimum bid set out by Equity. Minimums range from $750,000 for KAMT Amarillo and $1.5 million for KKYK Little Rock to as little as $50,000.

Equity Media Holdings is operating under Chapter 11. It sold digital channel RTN for $18.5 million in June to help ease its fiscal woes.

Michael Malone is content director at B+C and Multichannel News. He joined B+C in 2005 and has covered network programming, including entertainment, news and sports on broadcast, cable and streaming; and local broadcast television, including writing the "Local News Close-Up" market profiles. He also hosted the podcasts "Busted Pilot" and "Series Business." His journalism has also appeared in The New York Times, The L.A. Times, The Boston Globe and New York magazine.