KENOSHA, Wis. — A Wisconsin family-owned broadcasting company with roots stretching back more than three decades is expanding again, as Magnum Media moves to acquire several western Wisconsin radio stations while its founder, longtime broadcaster Dave Magnum, celebrates his recent induction into the Wisconsin Broadcasters Hall of Fame.
Magnum Communications, Inc., part of the larger Magnum Media group, reached an agreement with Sparta-Tomah Broadcasting Co., Inc. to acquire WCOW-FM in Sparta, WKLJ-AM in Sparta, FM translator W271CM and WFBZ-FM in Trempealeau. An application for the sale is expected to be filed with the Federal Communications Commission.
The acquisition will add to an already substantial regional radio operation. Magnum Media consists of Magnum Communications, Inc., Magnum Radio, Inc. and Magnum Broadcasting, Inc., which currently operate six full-power AM stations, 14 full-power FM stations and 18 FM translators throughout Wisconsin, eastern Minnesota and northern Illinois.
The centerpiece of the acquisition is WCOW-FM, a 100,000-watt Sparta country station broadcasting at 97.1 FM. The station is celebrating its 75th anniversary and has been named the Wisconsin Broadcasters Association’s Small Market Station of the Year seven times. Last year, WCOW personalities Ben and Arnie received the Country Music Association’s award for Best Small Market Personality of the Year.
The purchase also carries special significance for the Magnum family.
Dave Magnum’s connection to WCOW dates back nearly 60 years. According to his son, Reid Magnum, WCOW was the first radio station his father ever visited, when Dave was just 4 years old in 1967. Dave’s uncle, Len DeSomer, was an announcer there at the time.
That childhood encounter eventually turned into a broadcasting career spanning half a century.
Dave Magnum first went on the air in 1976 at age 13 at WNNO-FM in Wisconsin Dells while helping raise money for Camp Wawbeek during a radiothon. The station hired him as a disc jockey at 15, and by age 19 he was working at WIBA-FM in Madison. His broadcasting career later took him to Kansas, Texas and New Mexico.
In 1991, Dave and his wife, Lynn, returned to Wisconsin and began building their own broadcasting company. Their first station was constructed from the ground up under a construction permit licensed to Tomah. They named it WBOG, a reference to the area’s cranberry bogs. They subsequently consolidated two additional Tomah stations, WTMB-FM and WLXR-FM.
The company continued growing. In 1998, Magnum acquired the Wisconsin Dells stations WDLS-AM and WNNO-FM — including the station where his broadcasting career had begun — along with WIBU-AM in Poynette. The family’s goal was to develop an all-Wisconsin broadcasting group with overlapping signals along the I-90/94 corridor from La Crosse through Madison toward Milwaukee.
Tragedy struck the family in 2002 when Lynn Magnum died from breast cancer at just 33 years old.
The company nevertheless continued expanding. In 2014, Magnum acquired Racine-Kenosha stations WRJN-AM and WVTY “92.1 VTY Country,” as well as WMBZ-FM and WRYU-AM in the West Bend-Milwaukee market. Magnum later divested WRJN in 2023.
Over the course of his career, Dave Magnum has owned 27 AM and FM radio stations, 25 FM translators and three low-power television stations across Wisconsin. His sons, Reid and Ty, along with Reid’s wife, Chelsey, are now helping take the family broadcasting operation into its second generation.
Dave Magnum’s decades in Wisconsin broadcasting were formally recognized June 18 when he was inducted into the Wisconsin Broadcasters Hall of Fame during the Wisconsin Broadcasters Association’s 75th anniversary convention in Lake Geneva.
The family’s latest acquisition also produced a bit of unintended comedy.
Following last week’s announcement of the WCOW deal, some reports apparently identified Reid Magnum as president of Magnum Media. The mistake resulted in Reid receiving congratulatory messages about his unexpected promotion.
“This was news to me, my dad, my brother Ty, and my wife, Chelsey,” Reid wrote in a tongue-in-cheek correction issued Sunday. He said the title apparently became attached to him because he had been quoted in coverage of the acquisition.
Dave Magnum, Reid clarified, remains very much in charge.
“For the record, my dad, Dave Magnum, is still fully ensconced in that role,” Reid wrote.
He couldn’t resist having some fun with the error.
“It was fun being president, at least in the minds of others. I will always look back fondly on my short yet highly distinguished tenure,” Reid wrote before thanking media outlets for covering the WCOW acquisition.
Once completed, the transaction will bring WCOW-FM 97.1, WKLJ-AM 1290, W271CM 102.1 and WFBZ-FM 105.5 into the Magnum operation. The sale remains subject to the federal regulatory process.
For Dave Magnum, the acquisition brings his broadcasting career remarkably close to where it began: back to the Sparta radio station he first walked into as a 4-year-old nearly six decades ago.
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