The U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals sided Friday with Centennial Media, the owner of Lynchburg-based talk radio station WLNI, in its effort to block another talk station from broadcasting from Bedford.

Centennial paid about $4.4 million when it bought WLNI-FM from Gary Burns in 2005, according to court filings. Then in 2006, citing a five-year noncompete agreement that was part of the sale, Centennial took Burns to federal court to stop him from operating WBLT-AM as a talk station.

WBLT is owned by Burns' company, 3 Daughters Media, and had switched its format from music to talk.

In September 2006, after hearing conflicting testimony about how many categories of talk radio there might be, U.S. District Judge Norman Moon ruled that Burns and 3 Daughters could not operate a station with a talk format until the five-year noncompete agreement ended. Burns appealed to the 4th Circuit, saying the language of the noncompete agreement was ambiguous and unenforceable.

In an opinion released Friday, a 4th Circuit panel said the agreement's ban on Burns' overseeing a "significantly similar" format at another station was clear enough and upheld Moon's ruling.

Neither management at WLNI and 3 Daughters nor their attorneys could be contacted late Friday.

-- Mike Gangloff