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Atlantic City/Cape May Equity Atlantic City To iHeart

lanceventa

lanceventa

Chief Operator
Staff member
iHeartMedia is acquiring Equity's four Atlantic City FM's. No word yet on 1340 WMID and 1230 WCMC.

radioinsight.com

iHeartMedia Acquires Atlantic City Cluster - RadioInsight

iHeartMedia is acquiring Gary Fisher’s Equity Communications four Atlantic City NJ stations for an undisclosed amount. iHeart will add CHR 95.1 WAYV Atlantic City, Adult R&B 96.1 WTTH Margate City, Rhythmic CHR “99.3 The Buzz” WZBZ Pleasantville, and Classic Rock 100.7 WZXL Wildwood. The deal...
radioinsight.com radioinsight.com
 
Whereforth art thou Ted Baxter? This deal makes me think back to the early days of the MARB and Radio-Info. This story would've crashed the site for multiple days with the amount of posts about it.
Radio guy said:
But they won’t spend money on local DJ’S kinda sad.
Click to expand...
This cluster was already that way. If anything iHeart gives the cluster access to much more in the way of sales tools and event partnerships both nationally and with their New York and Philadelphia clusters.

WAYV has been all remote tracked outside of mornings for years. WTTH is jockless outside of Steve Harvey in mornings. The Buzz is jockless outside of a syndicated mixshow on weekends. WZXL has a morning show and their PD doing 10am-5pm.
 
Wow. Interesting move, as I didn't think iHeart was really adding to their portfolio at this point. But, if the price is right, probably makes sense because they can gain some efficiency by leveraging their Philly resources.

Steve Raymond has been at WZXL for what feels like forever. Didn't realize he was doing a daily, seven-hour shift + his PD duties. That's a long day.

Will be curious to see what changes iHeart implements in the next few weeks/months. Maybe "premium choice" would actually be a good thing for a station like WZXL, if it's currently just music and sweepers from 7pm - 6am weeknights and all weekend?
 
Looks like Gary is just cashing out. He's has a great career, starting at Z-100 in the 80s, then into ownership in 1996. Now he's ready to take the money and retire. Congratulations! Much better that the FMs will stay with music instead of all going religious.
 
TheBigA said:
Looks like Gary is just cashing out. He's has a great career, starting at Z-100 in the 80s, then into ownership in 1996. Now he's ready to take the money and retire. Congratulations! Much better that the FMs will stay with music instead of all going religious.
Click to expand...
He's been trying to do so for awhile now. When @fybush and I visited the cluster in 2016 or 17 he was already expressing interest in finding a buyer.
 
I'm taking a guess that the stations will use the following:
WAYV: the Hit Nation, Kiss Radio, Power or Hot networks
WTTH: the R&B Jams network
WZBZ: the Hip Hop Beats network
WZXL: obviously the Classic Rock network
or local talent and local playlists?
 
Radio guy said:
But they won’t spend money on local DJ’S kinda sad.
Click to expand...
What is really unfortunate is that nobody in the US has yet followed the European model of doing a format nationally with one super production and running it in every market nationally.

Many of the European operators use online services to provide local weather for every location, as well as ongoing news updates and other services that are local or regional. Many also offer streamed format variants, like music by decade or era, feature artist days, all ballads, etc.

The end product is what I'd compare to the difference between local TV trying to do a late-night show themselves vs. running one of the "Big 3" network national show with guest stars. Radio trys to reinvent the wheel in every market instead of having a strong national product.

I'd even recommend that (despite a fear of collusion) that the bigger groups try to trade off stations and own formats nationally. I'd rather have two or three national formats in every rated market than 5 in one market, none in another and one or two in others.

Radio is much better off in nations where this is done than where it is not. We accept national programming on TV, but not on radio. I never understood that.
 
DavidEduardo said:
Radio is much better off in nations where this is done than where it is not. We accept national programming on TV, but not on radio. I never understood that.
Click to expand...
Excellent points there. Plus, the technology exists to localize or regionalize things when necessary. I realize this isn't music to the ears of "live and local 24/7/365" fans, but it is economic reality in most markets. Well produced content is a benefit to all in the long run.

Lance also makes a good point regarding the access that the Equity stations will now have to iHeart's marketing and promotional infrastructure...not to mention its programming.
 
Mykel the Radio Guy said:
I'm taking a guess that the stations will use the following:
WAYV: the Hit Nation, Kiss Radio, Power or Hot networks
WTTH: the R&B Jams network
WZBZ: the Hip Hop Beats network
WZXL: obviously the Classic Rock network
or local talent and local playlists?
Click to expand...
I can see WAYV becoming kiss fm and getting Elvis duran in mornings.
 
MVB13 said:
I can see WAYV becoming kiss fm and getting Elvis duran in mornings.
Click to expand...
Becoming Kiss FM? Maybe, but probably not. WAYV has great brand recognition throughout the area. Plus, Kiss FM was used from 2008-2013 on 99.3, but of course that doesn't mean it couldn't be used again. iHeart has also taken over longtime CHRs and left the branding as is, like Erie's Star 104 in 2019.

Elvis Duran in the AM and shifting the current morning duo into other dayparts could definitely happen though.
 
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