Shaw Local Radio buys LaSalle, Dixon stations

Year-old division of Shaw Media expands even further into radio with a four-station purchase

Shaw Media, who owns about eighty local newspapers across Northern Illinois and websites here and in Iowa, is making a push to get into radio.

Christened Shaw Local Radio, the division announced last Thursday it was purchasing three  Illinois radio stations: Dixon’s Oldies WIXN-AM (1450) and W236DM (FM); Country WRCV-FM; and Oregon, Ill. AC station WSEY-FM. The seller is NRG Media, brokered by Kaili & Co.

Dixon is located some 100 miles west of Chicago, in Lee County and was the boyhood home of President Ronald Reagan.

In January 2023, Shaw purchased its first radio station cluster in LaSalle-Peru-Streator, Ill., the seven-station group from Studstill Media for $1.8 million, nearly two years after the U.S. Supreme Court threw out the 46-year-old FCC cross-ownership rules, which prohibited one company from owning a newspaper, radio, and TV station in the same media market, unless grandfathered in or if a waiver was obtained. In 2022, The Chicago Sun-Times and WBEZ parent Chicago Public Media finalized their merger, becoming the nation’s biggest non-profit media entity.

Shaw Media already owns newspaper The Sauk Valley News, which serves Dixon and LaSalle; and the LaSalle NewsTribune, which serves LaSalle, Peru, and Ottawa. All are part of the Shaw Local News Network, serving North Central Illinois.

Ironically, the late Chicago and south suburban political figures and twin brothers Robert and William Shaw once held stakes in the family trust that owns Shaw Media, whose roots go back to 1851 as the B.F. Shaw Printing Co.