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Scripps stations for sale: who gets Knoxville?

It's a good bet the Cumulus chapter 11 will put four more stations on the market sooner or later. That should affect values. Hopefully it won't attract bottom feeders.
 
Possibly but no guarantees on that. Selling a few small markets wouldn't put a dent in their debt. I could see them letting go of smaller markets like Knoxville but not something I'd hold my breath about.
 
Personally, I’d like to see Entercom enter the market. With their recent pick up of the Chattanooga cluster & their established clusters in nearby Greenville & Charlotte, it would make sense. (Unless they’re only focused on larger markets since buying CBS). Also I saw rumors of maybe Summit Media or Saga being likely buyers. It would probably make sense in their focus on medium markets & nearby clusters. (Summit’s in Greenville & Birmingham, & Saga has stations in Asheville & Clarksville). One thing I like about all these companies is that they typically feature HD2 stations & translators. (Something the current groups here haven’t shown much interest in). I could also see Townsquare being possibly interested, but it wouldn’t make as much sense regionally as the others. Or, isn’t Midwest still under their market cap by a station? I could see them trying to grab one of the signals if they don’t go as a cluster.
 
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Duke 100.3? That'd be interesting if Midwest just got that signal. I don't think it's likely the cluster will be split up.

I'm a little curious about Entercom's new Chattanooga cluster, obtained from iHeart. Any changes in format or personnel? I imagine at least the constant ads for the iHeart app are gone.
All of the talk on this board and "old radio guy" Facebook has been OMG iHEART'S GOING TO KILL WBZ and nothing has been said about the markets and stations that have LEFT iHeart.

That being said, I don't see Entercom grabbing all of the Scripps markets; they're too small and they're playing with the big boys these days. Summit is the group created when Cox spun off a lot of their radio stations, and that's a possibility. Most of the available translators are pretty much taken.
 
BRH said:
Or, isn’t Midwest still under their market cap by a station? I could see them trying to grab one of the signals if they don’t go as a cluster.
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Midwest has 3 FMs, Scripps has 4 FMs. So yes, they can buy one.

But you make me think Midwest might be a good buyer for several other Scripps markets.
 
How about this: One cluster owned by Cumulus. One cluster owned by Lew Dickey, and the owners of Midwest could never need a Viagra prescription ever again.
 
I guess I called Summit. I wouldn't forsee wholesale changes at the cluster. I was almost was thinking Bristol would have been a possibility.
 
I wouldn’t be surprised to see Summit roll out their “Play FM” Hot AC format & name. They seem to be using it in quite a few markets. Also their “Eagle” classic hits format is another. I could see Star or ‘NOX maybe rebranded. Idk, but should be interesting. They also have Alt, AAA, & Adult Hits stations. I could also see ‘NOX morphing to Adult Hits/Jack FM. They seem to do a lot of urban formats as well, but other than rhythmic “Hot”, I don’t see that being terribly viable here. Anyways, I hope they shake things up a bit. They also tend to do HD radio & subchannels with translators. I’m definitely all for that as this market is way behind in that regard.
 
If you’re wanting Summit to shake things up, you’re likely to be disappointed. It doesn’t seem to be a company that makes major changes right away. Given that it’s inheriting mostly successful stations from Scripps, like it did from Cox, its past history would imply that it will mostly maintain the status quo. Granted, I would say that WCYQ has been a disappointment, but I can’t imagine Summit not wanting a country station in Knoxville.

I'm hoping for no major changes at KTTS and KFDI. I live about three hours from Springfield and used to divide my time between there and here after my wife and I first got together. It may not be the same newsroom it once was, but, outside of KC and STL, you won’t find a better radio newsroom in this state. The same can be said for KFDI in Kansas; it’s easily the best radio newsroom in the state not in metro KC. Growing up mostly in Oklahoma, I could hear both KFDI 1070 and 101.3 and KVOO 1170 and 98.5. I rarely listened to either, but, when something happened news or weather wise, you knew where to turn.
 
Summit's "Play" format is good, but I think it's demographically too close to Star 102.1, unless they plan to take Star younger, which I doubt. I don't foresee changes at Star, Hot, or Q. WNOX could use some refreshing. Summit has a great sounding classic hits station in Richmond, VA "Star 100.9." If they took that and transplanted it here, I think it would be more successful than the current WNOX.
 
I would concur that things should stay pretty much status quo with the 4 stations. I would agree on WNOX neeeding some refreshing, but they need to keep Frank and all the appearances, emceeing and event sponsorship stuff that brings in NTR. I'll have to listen to Star 100.9. They could use dumping Westwood One and adding a morning show (not a heavy-on-talk show though). I wouldn't mind seeing an updated classic hits format on the big signal. (I remember this board when JP was taking back 100.3 from the LMA. "He's going country and going to anhilate WIVK!". He did a poorly programmed second tier talk station, Journal did go Country with it and haven't set the world on fire.).. What I don't know is if Summit slashes and burns payroll when they come in.
 
gr8oldies said:
I would concur that things should stay pretty much status quo with the 4 stations. I would agree on WNOX neeeding some refreshing, but they need to keep Frank and all the appearances, emceeing and event sponsorship stuff that brings in NTR. I'll have to listen to Star 100.9. They could use dumping Westwood One and adding a morning show (not a heavy-on-talk show though). I wouldn't mind seeing an updated classic hits format on the big signal. (I remember this board when JP was taking back 100.3 from the LMA. "He's going country and going to anhilate WIVK!". He did a poorly programmed second tier talk station, Journal did go Country with it and haven't set the world on fire.).. What I don't know is if Summit slashes and burns payroll when they come in.
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I would put Hot on 100.3 and Q on 104.5. Hot has pulled in high 7 ratings on their 1,400 watt signal. Imagine what they could do with the 100.3 signal.
 
gr8oldies said:
What I don't know is if Summit slashes and burns payroll when they come in.
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I was very surprised to see Summit replace its live morning show for the syndicated Bobby Bones on its top-rated Richmond country station WKHK last week. Why would a company that has relied on local staffs give up morning dive?
 
gr8oldies said:
What I don't know is if Summit slashes and burns payroll when they come in.
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Summit is an efficient operator, but not a cheap one in the negative sense of that term. They move cautiously on major decisions, although they can be rather experimental with the translators and inferior signals.

One very important thing is that the top management and ownership team includes Bill Tanner, who is a programmer. This makes a difference in the priorities.
 
It seems the thinking was they'd beat a 100,000 watt country station by putting on another 100,000 watt country station. Doesn't seem to be the case. (The coverage isn't even exactly the same with WCYQ's Anderson County based tower vs. WIVK's Bluff Mountain/Pigeon Forge monster.
 
True, Big A. It's very hard to topple, or even dent the heritage country station.

Moving the Hip Hop...looking at the coverage maps I don't see the advantage. Looks like 104.5 covers the entire city just fine, and the outlying coverage the format would get wouldn't be worth it
 
DavidEduardo said:

Summit is an efficient operator, but not a cheap one in the negative sense of that term. They move cautiously on major decisions, although they can be rather experimental with the translators and inferior signals.

One very important thing is that the top management and ownership team includes Bill Tanner, who is a programmer. This makes a difference in the priorities.
Click to expand...

I've always heard the mixed bag on Summit. It doesn’t seem to be a company a lot of people are thrilled to work for, but it doesn’t seem like very many people are afraid of it either. The people I know in Tulsa and Springfield were afraid of some operators rumored to be in the mix, but Griffin and Summit were not on that list.

I suspect it gets some of the negative vibes from the upheaval in management it experienced about a year after it was started after a rumored group purchase reportedly cratered.
 
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