Olympia Broadcasting Seeks Bankruptcy Protection

Olympia Broadcasting Corp.'s long-standing financial troubles have led the company into bankruptcy court to seek protection from creditors under Chapter 11.

Olympia said it made the filing yesterday after ``several months of discussions'' with creditors in order to restructure some debts and postpone legal actions threatening the company.

The publicly owned company, founded in 1985, owns and operates eight radio stations in four states. It said the filing included the parent company and a non-operating subsidiary but did not include its radio networks subsidiary nor the subsidiaries that own the broadcast stations.

``The company expects to continue its ongoing discussions with creditors and formulate a plan of reorganization consistent with these discussions,'' Olympia said in announcing the filing.

The company said its bankruptcy petition listed consolidated assets of $21.9 million and liabilities of $38 million.

Those liabilities include about $6 million of senior secured debts and $23.4 million of subordinated, unsecured debentures due in 1996.

Early in 1989, Olympia president and co-founder Ivan Braiker resigned ``to pursue other business opportunities in the radio and broadcasting industry,'' Olympia announced.

In an interview at the time, Braiker said Olympia's board had become split between ``Wall Street types and broadcast types'' and said he was among the latter. He said the company had been under pressure to sell radio stations to demonstrate their value to shareholders.

The extent of Olympia's financial difficulties was indicated last November when the company announced it was unable to make interest payments on the $23.4 million in unsecured bonds.

The default on the bond interest triggered an acceleration of due dates on the bonds.

At that time, the company said it was negotiating with lenders for more capital. It also announced it lost $1.8 million, or 76 cents a share, in the third quarter of last year.

In the same quarter of 1988, Olympia had profits of $5 million, but that included $7 million in one-time gains from selling two radio stations. Olympia lost $2.1 million in the comparable period in 1987.

The company's radio stations are in Kansas City, Fresno, Spokane, Anchorage and Fairbanks. The company previously announced that its radio stations are for sale, and last week announced it had reached a definitive agreement to sell its Fresno station to a Los Angeles broadcaster.

In addition to its radio stations, Olympia produces and distributes sports, entertainment and information programming via network to more than 1,700 radio stations.

Olympia stock, traded over the counter, was quoted yesterday at a bid price of 6.3 cents.