Thanks for your clear summary of how hard it is to break even or even make money with a big city AM only radio station. When I worked in small town radio while in college in the 70s, many of my colleagues and I dreamed of owning a radio station when we got older. I’ve found it interesting that big city radio talentl of the 70s sometimes bought small radio stations in towns with under 100,000 people. Even back then, I learned that without great financing, it was tough to buy and hold a profitable radio station. I know one person, who did that with great FCC connections in the 1950s, but I think that’s pretty rare.
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- Thread starter K108 Sacramento
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I would suppose that, at the least, back then good financing for radio was easier to come by because it was still considered to be an important and sensible investment, unlike now. Nowadays, it's considered foolish to invest in traditional AM/FM radio because the writing's been on the wall ever since the Internet became a viable streaming platform.
c
Hey, in the 70s, an AM station in a town of 100,000 people or less wasn't that expensive. Not that hard to make back the money and get in the black if you knew what you were doing:
Not to mention that I believe the BBC charges stations/networks fees to carry their programming...
Correct, there is a fee for carrying BBCWS. Still free for streaming on its website. I assume SiriusXM pays for its carriage.
The BBC put its news website behind a paywall about six months ago, and is actively monetizing other output.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channelâ„¢
You hit that right on the head. I have a very healthy investment account, a money market account in the five figures (liquid for emergencies, and the credit union has a better interest rate than I would get elsewhere) and a high-yield savings account with a current interest rate above 4%. I also have a FICO score in the 800s and my total credit limit across all my cards is higher than the balance in the MM account.
Money is not something I spend time worrying about. Which makes it even more fun to be doing what I love.
Keep-in-mind that $120,000 in 1975 is a little north of $750,000 in today's dollars. It has a translator, but I doubt KFYN 1420 would fetch even $120,000 today.
Interesting to think that a 100,000 watt FM that's now essentially a Wichita station went for $215,000, though. I know AM was still king in Wichita at the time, but, even in 1975 dollars, that was a great deal.
No---absolutely---adjusted, it's a chunk. But there were good odds of making it back. Unless the town was depressed, the facility was substandard or the management were idiots, the banks probably saw it as a good risk.
If we're talking towns of fewer than 100,000 people, you had (in most cases) a still-vibrant local ad base, agency buys in towns of 50,000 or more (I heard them in towns of 30,000), lower real estate costs, lower salaries, lower promotion costs, an audience that still listened to local radio, and---especially in the mid-70s---the advent of nearly flawless automation systems that could put a good sound on the air and keep overhead low.
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In addition, Cumulus saw how the 560 audience failed to make the change to the new frequency. Even with a far better signal. You can make the argument that the audience for that format is dying off, and that's very true. But the drastic drop associated with the frequency change can't be denied. Also, 1050 may be very inexpensive to operate. I know it's located on land that used to be a landfill and will likely never be developed.
Dave B.
It's not like the old days when a frequency change in a large market would have a large ad campaign to get the word out. Using TV ads billboards, sides of city buses, bus benches/shelters, as well as on air promotional contests involving the new frequency.
That kind of advertising budget is long gone. Now, they just hope to get the word out with an on air mention.
That's the real problem these days in trying to move the audience over to a new frequency....getting the word out.
Let's remember that, in fact, the numbers went up after the move---this is from me, a few weeks ago:
And now, 0.6.
I stand corrected. Sorry, Michael. For some reason I thought 560 had better numbers before the move.
Dave B.
No apologies necessary, Dave---I had to go look it up.
That's a lot better than what KNEW has been able to do since the move from Bloomberg to Talk. I have yet to see 960 even get a 0.1 since that flip.
Talk radio on AM is just plain dead in the SFBA.
You might be able to strike "talk" from that line. If you take KCBS and KNBR out of the conversation because they have FM simulcasts but single-line reporting that doesn't break out how many are on which band, the number one AM station is KSFO at 810.
With a 0.6.
KSRO in Santa Rosa has an 0.4, but they have an FM simulcast (actually, I think two FMs).
The next AM with no FM simulcast is then 1050. And it has a 0.2
No other AM even shows up.
BIN on KKSF is another no-show, although last month they did show up (0.1). For iHeart to have 2 AM's that are ratings no shows is unusual for them, as they don't seem to normally tolerate a situation like this. BIN would be the exception, as we know the purpose of it, and financial backing it receives to stay on the air.
In either case, I don't think it's going to make a whole lot of difference with folks who believe they've received a revelation and are simply not persuadable.
Remember that the virtual plethora of Asian language stations don't subscribe and some don't encode. However, the biggest issue is that Nielsen has no quotas or goals for any part of that group so it is hit or miss on even finding such listeners in the current methodology.
Well, at the very least, it would be a fun learning tool for aspiring radio people to play with!
c
When I call up the KSRO website, here's the logo I see:
Notice the slogan: "Sonoma County's FM News Talk".
(On the right side, the frequencies are listed: "103.5 FM, 96.9 FM, 1350 AM". That plus the slogan plus big "KSRO" call letters comprise the entire logo.)
Yes, "FM News Talk". If that doesn't tell you that the AM (which has halfway decent coverage) has taken a back seat to the FM translators, I don't know what will.
For what it's worth, KTCT is on an HD subchannel of KSAN. (So is KSFO.)
Yeah, I know, HD.