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WEPN 98.7 To Be Sold Next Year?
- Thread starter Barry
- Start date
Do commercial Gospel music stations do well in any market? It seems they are frequently being sold, for rather small sums.
Even if Gospel does well in some markets somewhere, NYC/Tri-State Area isn't one of those markets. A station like WLIB can get by, because there are so many people that some small fraction of them will find the programming meaningful, but it's a heavy lift to do any better than 'just ekeing by'. Maybe that's enough for WLIB-AM, but it won't fly if moved to 98.7, one of the more robust signals in the market. The opportunity cost will be huge.
What's the logic behind that? Please explain yourself.
Wasn’t there a Summit Communications in the late 1980s & early 90s that owned Kiss for a few years? I *think* they bought it from RKO and sold to Emmis.
I'm sure they would like to buy it but if there are other big offers I could see them shifting to 1050. In LA, Chicago, and Cleveland they are AM only.
Good Karma could move ESPN Radio to 1050, but would those who currently listen on 98.7 follow them to an AM frequency that hardly anyone listens to?
Absolutely. Way too much fantasy speculation is going on here.
The most outrageous is the poster who moved WEPN-FM's current programming to 1050, and then moved WLIB's gospel music format to 98.7 while selling 1190 or turning it off. Cold chance in hell those events will ever happen.
(The last thing NY needs is another religious FM. However, if Salem were buying–and they aren't buying anything at the moment, given their current financial state—then I would take that seriously.)
There are no signs pointing to the sports format at 98.7 being in imminent danger of a flip, especially if they remain tied to ESPN. The locally-produced shows can be better, though. But WFAN isn't the juggernaut it once was so there is more of an opening for a second strong sports talker in a strong sports town.
That company sold off all of its radio stations and left the industry. There is now another company called SummitMedia LLC that is unrelated.
Thanks for clarifying the confusion.
If 98.7 gets sold, and that's a a major if, it'll probably go to Good Karma. Only other company I see buying it? EMF. They must be waiting for a full market FM in NY to go up on sale for them to buy and flip to Air1.
98.7 being sold is far from a "major if"; it is more of a foregone conclusion when the company (Emmis) has all but gotten out of the radio business.
Regarding EMF: I don't think it will come down to that. I would imagine that there is some sort of provision in the LMA for WEPN-FM that gives GKB the right of first refusal on a buyout of the station. Since the LMA is probably the same one negotiated by Disney, I cannot imagine they did not leave some sort of verbiage to prevent the rug being pulled out under them.
I agree...I even think some of the LMA money might be applied to the purchase price. ''Future consideration.''
Urban One would probably be more interested in the Mediaco-owned assets (WBLS and WQHT), and less WEPN if they were to enter the market. Even if they did buy WEPN, what would they launch on it?
I think Urban One is unlikely with the rumors of late regarding those stations.
Maybe buy the IP of Kiss-FM back and relaunch it? I really don't see that happening though.
Why would someone spend millions of dollars to launch a format from the ground up, aimed at demos that are not desirable to advertisers? It's been so long at this point that the "Kiss" brand has little to no value to anyone that matters.
How well does WEPN perform in ratings and sales compared to WFAN? My theory is that WFAN would make WEPN redundant and always at a deficit. Then again, New York is a huge market. I can only personally compare it to Boston, where ESPN in didn't perform well, several times, cared to two local sports stations. So, I'm more interested in its performance in LA and Chicago, to make a better comparison regarding the number of overall potential listeners and sales.
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