WRCR 1700 AM FOR SALE

[Prg333]

It’s been posted in a trade paper for a while now. Rockland County radio station . 1700 AM is up for sale.
The asking price is now $799,000 I believe. Alex Medakovich is the owner operator. It’s tough to get new advertisers for the radio station now. That there are other outlets for advertising very inexpensive or for free. Like Facebook, for example

The radio station has a 10,000 W signal during the day producer dropping to 1000 at night or after sunset

Not sure what the terms of the sale are exactly. I’d have to try to find the advertisement, but there’s a transmitter on a piece of land in Rockland County. Of course, then there’s the license of the station.

AM Radio is tough sell now. I think the only people that would take over the station would be

1. Religious broadcasting with other stations.

2. Foreign language broadcaster

3. It would be nice to have someone who could take it out and program 50s and 60s music with some good DJs even if they were amateur

New York City Westchester, Orange County Westchester County area there’s no station that will play exclusively 50s and 60s music

But who knows when it will sell and if the price has to be dropped from $799,000. I think 500,000 would be a more realistic asking price.

If it doesn’t sell, and the operator runs out of money, I guess it will sadly go dark like other stations on the AM dial

Any thoughts on this?

 

[secondchoice]

With little or no chance of picking up a translator this will be hard. Is the tower "rentable" to a cell company?

 

[radiofan2023]

It’s been posted in a trade paper for a while now. Rockland County radio station . 1700 AM is up for sale.
The asking price is now $799,000 I believe. Alex Medakovich is the owner operator. It’s tough to get new advertisers for the radio station now. That there are other outlets for advertising very inexpensive or for free. Like Facebook, for example

The radio station has a 10,000 W signal during the day producer dropping to 1000 at night or after sunset

Not sure what the terms of the sale are exactly. I’d have to try to find the advertisement, but there’s a transmitter on a piece of land in Rockland County. Of course, then there’s the license of the station.

AM Radio is tough sell now. I think the only people that would take over the station would be

1. Religious broadcasting with other stations.

2. Foreign language broadcaster

3. It would be nice to have someone who could take it out and program 50s and 60s music with some good DJs even if they were amateur

New York City Westchester, Orange County Westchester County area there’s no station that will play exclusively 50s and 60s music

But who knows when it will sell and if the price has to be dropped from $799,000. I think 500,000 would be a more realistic asking price.

If it doesn’t sell, and the operator runs out of money, I guess it will sadly go dark like other stations on the AM dial

Any thoughts on this?

Playing only 50's and 60's music on an AM station will NEVER make money. Not in Westchester County, NYC, or anywhere else.

 

[Prg333]

Playing only 50's and 60's music on an AM station will NEVER make money. Not in Westchester County, NYC, or anywhere else.

That’s unfortunate. I’m not sure if I agree that it will never make money. I suppose it wouldn’t make enough money to sustain the station possibly/probably they already play a lot of music on WRCR during the day when there’s no specialty programming and there are songs from the 50s and 60s mixed in there.

 

[luperm]

It will never make money. Here are a few reasons...

There's no reason to tune in. There is no coherent programming strategy.
Music on AM, especially oldies, is a loser programming concept in 2024.
Almost nobody knows that the station exists.
It's at the high end of the extended band and the signal is not that great.
AM is on its deathbed.
Even a religious or ethnic broadcaster would probably be better served by streaming to their niche group.

Because of the above, and because there are so many other ways to obtain information and entertainment, there are no advertisers.
National advertisers won't buy time on the station.
There is no appetite for advertising by local businesses because they don't have the budget and because nobody is listening.

If you have a business plan, please share it.
Or, better yet, take it down to your local bank and get a loan to buy the station and show us how it's done. I'd love to see someone come up with a winning formula!

 

[Prg333]

It will never make money. Here are a few reasons...

There's no reason to tune in. There is no coherent programming strategy.
Music on AM, especially oldies, is a loser programming concept in 2024.
Almost nobody knows that the station exists.
It's at the high end of the extended band and the signal is not that great.
AM is on its deathbed.
Even a religious or ethnic broadcaster would probably be better served by streaming to their niche group.

Because of the above, and because there are so many other ways to obtain information and entertainment, there are no advertisers.
National advertisers won't buy time on the station.
There is no appetite for advertising by local businesses because they don't have the budget and because nobody is listening.

If you have a business plan, please share it.
Or, better yet, take it down to your local bank and get a loan to buy the station and show us how it's done. I'd love to see someone come up with a winning formula!

That’s true a lot of people don’t know the station even exists. They don’t have a budget for advertising at all so they can’t get the word out. It is high up the highest on the band at 1700 so yes, that affects the signal strength if it was lower down, like it 830 or 1030 on the amplitude modulation band it would do better with the signal . That’s true a local station like that wouldn’t get national advertisers. Many local deli restaurants movie theaters don’t have the money for advertising.

We’ll just have to see how long the station goes for how long the owner can keep it going.

 

[Kelly A]

A couple things come to mind:
It doesn't hurt to ask.
"There's a sucker born every minute."

 

[Ex-RadioTV]

PRICE DROP ALERT!!
A couple weeks back, they dropped the price 25%.
Was: $799,000. NOW: $599,000! Further drops are probably inevitable.
It was listed at $950k as recently as January. Look out below.
It's been listed for sale since the end of 2023, at least.
NYC-N. Suburbs for sale

 

[Barry]

Perhaps someone from the nearby Hasidic Jewish area might find it attractive, to serve that community?
Maybe another possible buyer could be Radio Cantico Nuevo. They have bought several failed AM stations in the Metro Area.

It's unfortunate to see WRKL in this situation, as the owner put a lot of money and effort into it. He had the frequency changed to 1700 AM, in the extended portion of the AM band, raised the power, and then had to move to the current location from the West Nyack area after losing the lease for it. It seems to me the station has a weaker signal in the more populated parts of Rockland County after moving west to its current location.
When WRKL first moved to 1700 AM, they briefly operated with an HD signal.

 

[Kelly A]

Of course, one should always past the sales hype. Not only is this station at the end of the band, the .05mv/m might make it through the middle of NYC. Given the noise floor, an average listener will never hear this station in the big city. In other words, to claim this covers NYC is pretty disingenuous:
Loading Map...
Heck, the valuation might be $100,000 for the station including assets. $500,000 for any land.

 

[bturner1]

!960s and 1970s hits was tried in Los Angeles on AM and the owner claimed what he was able to bill didn't quite cover the light bill which is why he changed the format. If you were in a small town as the local station, you might be able to pull it off if business owners like the format but that cash cow isn't going to moo. Success is likely covering expenses as a computer driven station.

AM is rapidly becoming about what FM was in the last half of the 1950s. The number of stations that realized the land where their towers sit is worth more than the station itself is alarming.

 

[davideduardo]

If you were in a small town as the local station, you might be able to pull it off if business owners like the format but that cash cow isn't going to moo.

It could try to be a "cash frog" but it is likely it would croak.

If you do the math, 10 kw on 1700 kHz covers about as well as something like 100 watts on 550 kHz at the bottom of the dial. The 1 kw night signal is next to useless.

 

[Ex-RadioTV]

Perhaps someone from the nearby Hasidic Jewish area might find it attractive, to serve that community?
Maybe another possible buyer could be Radio Cantico Nuevo. They have bought several failed AM stations in the Metro Area.

It's unfortunate to see WRKL in this situation, as the owner put a lot of money and effort into it. He had the frequency changed to 1700 AM, in the extended portion of the AM band, raised the power, and then had to move to the current location from the West Nyack area after losing the lease for it. It seems to me the station has a weaker signal in the more populated parts of Rockland County after moving west to its current location.
When WRKL first moved to 1700 AM, they briefly operated with an HD signal.

Barry, you're conflating two different Rockland County AM stations that have both fallen on hard times: WRKL and WRCR.
WRKL is at 910 kHz (when it's on the air, which these days is not at all). Nobody's put any money into WRKL since it was built into a 4-tower facility in 2000. It has been a foreign-language station since 1999.
WRCR is the station on 1700, the one now listed for sale.

 

[Barry]

My bad. I was referring to WRCR, not WRKL.

 

[Ex-RadioTV]

With little or no chance of picking up a translator this will be hard. Is the tower "rentable" to a cell company?

AT&T and Verizon were former tenants on this tower. They left sometime before WRCR took ownership. Both have likely filled in their networks with alternate sites.
The site does have a great view of Manhattan, but that’s not as valuable as it once was.

 

[Prg333]

PRICE DROP ALERT!!
A couple weeks back, they dropped the price 25%.
Was: $799,000. NOW: $599,000! Further drops are probably inevitable.
It was listed at $950k as recently as January. Look out below.
It's been listed for sale since the end of 2023, at least.
NYC-N. Suburbs for sale

I’m not too surprised it was dropped by the owner Alex. 595,000 is a more reasonable asking price. He might have more interest at that price point. But if not, I’m guessing he may have to go down to 500,000 or possibly 450,000 I think he definitely wants the station sold as quickly as he can get a buyer. It’s definitely most likely not making much of a profit at this point. Most likely in the red, I wish they would’ve been able to do better get more advertisers and even have enough money for advertising to alert more people about the station the doo-wop dream machine on Friday nights is a very good program . I’m in Rockland and the signal is strong and I enjoy listening to the music on AM REMIND ME OF THE DAYS OF MUSIC RADIO 77 WABC.

 

[Kelly A]

I think heI wish they would’ve been able to do better get more advertisers and even have enough money for advertising to alert more people about the station the doo-wop dream machine on Friday nights is a very good program .

Local advertising has been sliding like the side of Mitch McConnell's face for many reasons. I can't imagine there would ever be enough interest in such an old format on such a limited coverage AM station that high on the dial. If someone wanted to do such programming, they'd be better off developing a stream or an LPFM that streams too. Better coverage and availability to serve more geography.

I’m in Rockland and the signal is strong and I enjoy listening to the music on AM REMIND ME OF THE DAYS OF MUSIC RADIO 77 WABC.

That's great. When was the last time you intentionally did business with their advertisers, or even better, show your appreciation by sending them a check?

 

[Prg333]

Local advertising has been sliding like the side of Mitch McConnell's face for many reasons. I can't imagine there would ever be enough interest in such an old format on such a limited coverage AM station that high on the dial. If someone wanted to do such programming, they'd be better off developing a stream or an LPFM that streams too. Better coverage and availability to serve more geography.

That's great. When was the last time you intentionally did business with their advertisers, or even better, show your appreciation by sending them a check?

I go to the restaurant Ric club American for lunch. they are one of the sponsors of the station. Used to always go to the Italian restaurant in suffering Marcello when they advertised.. still go to Franco‘s Pizza even though they’re not advertising there anymore

You’re funny I should send the station a check. I give plenty of support to the station by going to a few of the advertisers and telling people about the station.

 

[luperm]

290 people have read this thread. That’s probably more than the number of listeners the station has had in the last month.

 

[Prg333]

290 people have read this thread. That’s probably more than the number of listeners the station has had in the last month.

I definitely do not agree. The station certainly has had more than 290 listeners tune in for example to The Morning Show and the doo-wop dream machine in the last month. I don’t know where you get your numbers from.