TV GM to run, eventually buy WCHL

The owner of WCHL (1360AM) has sold a minority stake in the station to Barry Leffler, who is stepping down as president of TV station WNCN-TV (NBC17) and will run day-to-day operations at the community-oriented mostly liberal talk station, according to the Raleigh News & Observer.

Current owner Jim Heavner eventually plans to sell the station outright to Leffler.

"The opportunity to become a media owner doesn't come along very often," said Leffler, who has worked in television for nearly 25 years. "To be able to do it in a community I love makes it even better."

At WCHL, Leffler plans to continue WCHL's "hyper-local" news and information approach and expand it's online presence. The locally-focused approach, along with local sports and syndicated programming such as Ed Schultz, Stephanie Miller and Air America, has been doing well in advertising sales, particularly in the sagging media market.

"Local advertisers find that their ads on WCHL continue to work."

No other programming changes have been announced, or are forthcoming.