Max Media

Max Media

Company type	Private
Industry	Broadcasting
Founded	2001 (2001)
Headquarters	5589 Greenwich Rd., Suite 200, Virginia Beach, Virginia, U.S.
Area served	Illinois, Missouri, and Virginia
Products	Radio
Divisions	River Radio LLC
Website	maxmediallc.com

Max Media is an American media company that owns radio stations throughout the United States and is based in Virginia Beach, Virginia. The company also operates under the name River Radio for stations in their Illinois and Missouri Markets with offices in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, Carterville, Illinois, and Poplar Bluff, Missouri.

Max Media was founded in 2001. Prior to this, some of the company's management had run the TVX Broadcast Group from 1979 until its sale in 1991 to Paramount Communications (which renamed it the Paramount Stations Group), and had also run Max Media Properties (similarly named to the current company) from then until its sale in 1998 to the Sinclair Broadcast Group (which owned some former TVX stations).

In December 2003, Max Media would gain a handful of radio stations in Southern Illinois and Missouri after the Zimmer Radio Group sold 17 of their stations to Max under the name River Radio for an estimated $43 million.¹

On September 30, 2013, the Cowles Publishing Company acquired Max Media's Montana television station cluster for $18 million.²³

On October 31, 2013, Sinclair acquired the non-license assets of WPFO, Waterville, Maine, for $13.6 million; the deal made it a sister station to WGME-TV, Portland, Maine, which already produced a newscast for the station.⁴ On November 20, 2013, it was announced that Cunningham Broadcasting was to acquire the license assets for $3.4 million.⁵ The sale of the license assets was approved on June 23, 2017.⁶

On August 21, 2013, Max Media announced that it would sell its six Arkansas-based radio stations to Bobby Caldwell's East Arkansas Broadcasters for $3 million.⁷ The sale was completed on January 9, 2014.

On August 12, 2015, Max Media announced that it would sell its four Pennsylvania-based radio stations to Kristin Cantrell's Seven Mountains Media LLC for $3.8 million.⁸ The sale was completed on November 5, 2015.⁹

On April 5, 2017, Max Media announced that it was selling NBC affiliate WNKY in Bowling Green, Kentucky to Marquee Broadcasting for $5.6 million.¹⁰¹¹ The sale was completed on June 30, 2017.¹²¹³

All television stations either directly or indirectly owned by Max Media were sold off by 2019, leaving the company with a portfolio consisting solely of radio stations.