Wendell Pierce, other businessmen announce purchase of WBOK

WBOK 1230 AM, a New Orleans-based independent Black radio station, has announced its sale to a group of local Black businessmen.

The station will be acquired by a newly-formed media company called Equity Media, which has executed a purchase and sale agreement to assume ownership from Los Angeles-based Bakewell Media, and is expected to close on the sale in the second quarter of 2019.

In 2009, Danny Bakewell Sr. and his son Danny Bakewell Jr. established WBOK as the state’s only African-American news talk platform with programming specifically tailored for the African-American community.

“WBOK has always been the voice of the African-American perspective in New Orleans, and there is no one more equipped to that mission than this team,” said Danny J. Bakewell Sr., chairman of Bakewell Media.

Equity Media is composed of four partners, including actor and producer Wendell Pierce, Cleveland Spears III, president and CEO of the Spears Group, Troy Henry, managing partner of Henry Consulting, and Jeff Thomas, founder of Thomas Media Services.

The acquisition of the station is partly financed by the partners of Equity Media and debt-financed through Liberty Bank, a Black-owned bank based in New Orleans.

Following the finalization of the sale and FCC approval, Equity Media plans to evaluate the station, its programming and branding in preparation for its planned re-launch in mid-Summer 2019.

This article originally published in the April 22, 2019 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.