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If Multicultural would like to expand, the LMN AMs must be looking mighty fine right now.
Multicultural sold its 10kw AM in Houston (KXYZ) to iHeart a few years ago. I doubt they want to get back in with KLAT, though they still have daytimer KCHN here.
I'm speaking about the LMN AMs in general.
No, the big problem was that the fact that new ownership was associated with Soros caused the Cuban business community to sort of "blacklist" those stations.
And get no audience as there are bunch of options for music on FM.
They did not "collapse" but did get stronger competition.
La Poderosa just moved to 990, the old WFAB channel. At one point, WFAB was the #1 station in Miami, but things change with new competition
Arthur Liu is 89 years old. Multicultural isn't in growth mode.
LMN had to place two stations in a trust when the Audacy restructuring completed. There's nothing stopping them from making a deal now or LMA type deal other than Brendan Carr claiming he's going to block any acquisition by Audacy simply because Fox News has turned the word Soros into a boogieman simply because he's one of the few liberal billionaire donors. Albeit one who has ZERO oversight over either company.
Audacy would probably spit out a few of those LMN stations, such as KFZO in DFW, which is a dog.
But Mambí was doing moderately well. As soon as the idea of Soros being involved spread, clients began to cancel.
Older Cubans in Miami listen to AM for news and talk; that is the one exception. There is no talk format on FM, so that is where they go. Miami is the only market where Hispanics have a higher CSI per Household than any other group. The majority of bank VPs and Presidents in Dade are Hispanic.
No, Audacy did a time brokerage deal with Americano Media to operate a talk format. It did not succeed. Audacy did not run the format. Now they are trying to do it on their own https://www.audacy.com/stations/radiolibre790/shows/en-este-pais-con-lourdes-ubieta-248f5. I am listening to it now, and it is not "belly up" as they are quite aggressively criticizing Obama right now!
And I said the station made money. It still did, until it got tainted by the Soros name. But the issue is bigger than WAQI and WQBA, as LMN cut back 30 employees today. For a smallish company, that is a lot of people.
As I have said many times, local radio sales is far less demographically focused. Miami "anti-Castro" business owners supported WAQI very strongly.
Of you were talking about WAQI, the ratings were good before the sale. In local talk radio in Miami, the demos don't matter. I was involved with WAQI since about 1997 until about two years ago... about 25 years... and have been a GM in that market, too.
WQAI was moderately profitable. I can't give confidential data that would be have been accurate at the time of the sale. AM 790 is likely not making money. The times I have listened I heard no ads at all. Not even PSAs at normal talk radio bread times.
It is just not a very good station. Nobody is supporting it.
Among those that appear in the public data. A number of Spanish language AMs don't subscribe because ratings, good or bad, are not what they sell with.
And nearly everyone I talked to about this thinks it is a holding pattern until the FCC allows Audicy to absorb them with the new ownership limits we all expect.
Not much for Audicy to work with.
"Real" value is in the LRGV, Fresno, Las Vegas clusters.
