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Could the K-Love format happen here?
- Thread starter cyber
- Start date
More info:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K-Love
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K-Love
Five-ish years strong now.
Seems easy to me. Nobody listened to it when it was Family Radio, nor did many listen to IQ-106.9. When people have a habit of skipping a station, that habit takes awhile to break. If you’re not into CCM, you probably skipped right over 106.9 without thinking much about it.
It's just businesses. A buyer flush with money to spend finds a willing seller. The format is, to a degree, immaterial to the equation. Formats change without ownership transfers, format changes happen with ownership transfers. Circle of life.
Ownership changes without format changes as well. How many owners has WMMR had as a rock station, 4? Metromedia, Westinghouse/CBS, Greater Media, and now Beasley.
The common thread is that EMF was able to offer cash to motivated buyers - owners who needed cash to service debt. In Philly's case, Merlin invested a lot of other people's money in several stations which they then tanked with expensive news formats that didn't gain traction. In Philly, they tried mostly-syndicated talk which, given time, would probably have caught on. But Merlin didn't have any time left; their investors wanted to recover what they could from the failed experiments in Chicago and NYC. EMF offered cash for 106.9 and CBS either lost interest in an additional FM outlet (possibly for KYW), or didn't want to pay the price. In NY and DC, Cumulus' past mismanagement tanked WPLJ and WRQX. The new team couldn't turn them around in a timely manner and debt reduction became more of a priority than trying to monetize small station clusters. EMF, cash in hand, to the rescue. Silver lining: removing two major signals from competition in the commercial sphere, which benefits other commercial stations in the affected markets. Win-win for broadcasters. For anyone still relying solely on terrestrial radio for entertainment, it might be seen as a setback.
The price in 2013 was $20 million in cash. At the time, CBS was already talking about selling its radio group. One year later, they did a trade with Beasley to get some stations including WXTU, but spending actual cash, even as little as $20 mil, was likely not what corporate wanted to do. It's hard to turn down cash, especially given the situation Merlin was in. They may have been close to the ownership cap as well.
Certainly true. WDAS also comes to mind as a long timer through a number of owners as the companies evolved.
K-LOVE is the sort of format where you either love it or you are only
dimly aware that it exists. Personally I have people in my life who think I'm
a heathen because I never listen. It's just not by bag, musically speaking.
dimly aware that it exists. Personally I have people in my life who think I'm
a heathen because I never listen. It's just not by bag, musically speaking.
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