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Dockins cancels 106.7 KDKN Ellington
- Thread starter JJSPC
- Start date
Fred will be 71 this year. He has owned KWKZ for over 4 years. He also owns KQLS in Lutesville, MO., which doesn't hit Cape Girardeau or Jackson well. He's sold off the stations in Mountain Grove and Cabool within the past year, and KQLS itself was listed for sale on RadioTVDeals.com within the past year.
KDKN was a Larry Rice station that Fred purchased years ago. It was a C2 that covered tons of forest, opossums and deer, but very little population. It was a pig in a poke, but it was purchased when Fred was on a buying spree. I suspect he's circling the wagons so he can pass a leaner, more efficient operation to his kids.
Sometimes, the best use of a signal is to let it go. Fred has obviously reached that point.
KDKN was a Larry Rice station that Fred purchased years ago. It was a C2 that covered tons of forest, opossums and deer, but very little population. It was a pig in a poke, but it was purchased when Fred was on a buying spree. I suspect he's circling the wagons so he can pass a leaner, more efficient operation to his kids.
Sometimes, the best use of a signal is to let it go. Fred has obviously reached that point.
Rather than return the license, I'm surprised the station wasn't taken silent with an intention to sell to someone else later. The station may cover a lot of rural land, though the station could be an extension of another current station's footprint as a simulcast. Cell towers don't cover the area either, so a radio station's app doesn't work as well as a terrestrial signal.
Even if Dockins wasn't programming it, he could still collect a check from someone as an LMA.
Even if Dockins wasn't programming it, he could still collect a check from someone as an LMA.
I took a look at Ellington. It is losing population. It's the biggest town in the county at about 750 people. The entire county only has 8,000 people. I doubt a station could garner more than $2,000-$2,500 a month. I could imagine it would be real difficult to just break even even with a good sales presence. There could not be any dedicated employees.
Just having salespeople at one station go to the county to sell likely won't work. If I can work an area selling $500 a month clients versus $200 there, my attention is on the $500 client: more commission and the same work as the $200 client there.
Just having salespeople at one station go to the county to sell likely won't work. If I can work an area selling $500 a month clients versus $200 there, my attention is on the $500 client: more commission and the same work as the $200 client there.
Seems pretty far fetched that there would have been any takers, given the nature of the area. The only way KDKN could work is as a satellite of another station, or supported by a cluster. An LMA operator typically would not have that scale (if they could, they'd just buy the license outright).
As Bill Turner pointed out, the CoL is tiny. One grocery, one hardware store, one funeral home, one bank, two gas stations.
It looks like that one grocery in Ellington is the only one for 15 miles in any direction, and the store 15 miles away is the same local chain. The nearest Lowe's is 60 miles, the nearest movie theater is 30 miles, the nearest Wal-Mart is 40 miles.
So you run into a classic advertising problem. When there's no competition, there's little need to advertise. If you want groceries in this area, you're going to Town & Country Foods (or Dollar General, if you can get by on their foodstuffs). Plus, with the population plunging, the grocery is probably barely afloat.
Sometimes you can get some of the advertisers in a bigger city to advertise on a small town station. The pitch is that "people in Ellington will want to buy a Ford, and you want to be their Ford dealer." But that is pretty hard to do and takes dedicated sellers.
Take it from someone who knows Fred, and has dealt with him for over 20 years. KDKN was a terrible buy from the start, and was an exercise in futility and ego.
KDKN was purchased when Fred was in the mode of buying stations just to increase the number of properties he could boast about owning. KDKN never served a significant population, but programmed right, it might have limped along. UNFORTUNATELY, Fred, for whatever reason, allowed a station in a rural, poorly educated, older tourist-destination type, economically depressed area, to be programmed with Alternative Rock as The Zone, as a sister station to KLMZ in Leadwood. I have to assume this was done at the behest of his sons, although I have no proof. Whatever happened, it was a waste of a 50kw signal. Unless you have a herd of deer who are really into Motionless In White, that is. Lots of bucks, but no bucks to spend...Badum dum! (Drum reference, if you ask!)
He who dies with the most toys wins isn't true. He who dies with the most Radio stations doesn't win, he just has either a lot of money or a loss of self-control. KDKN wasn't the first. KTNX in Arcadia was deleted recently. KYLS-AM just last month. He sold KFDS and KOZX in the Mountain Grove area last year after having them on the market for 2 years. That, after deleting KELE AM in Mountain Grove earlier. KQLS in Lutesville is on the market. It covers more population as a Class A than KDKN did as a C2, but it doesn't hit Cape Girardeau, MO with a robust signal. It was non-comm for years owned by a local preacher. He's in the process of moving KPWB FM closer to Farmington, but it's still going to be at best a rimshot signal. KWKZ, KYLS and KLMZ are the best signals he has. Once he deleted KTNX, he should have approached Alpha/Connoisseur to buy KTJJ instead of moving KPWB. After seeing what Miles Carter paid for 15 stations, Fred could have had KTJJ much cheaper than moving a marginal signal. Those of us with more than a passing knowledge of what's happening in Missouri knew Alpha was willing to part with those stations for YEARS.
I don't know if Fred is dropping the dead weight and consolidating to sell everything, or conserve finances to make a run at something else. Believe me when I say I know of practically every station for sale in Missouri, Arkansas, Illinois, Kentucky and Tennessee, and who's interested in them. I've heard rumblings, but those are confidential. I won't tell people what I've been told in confidence. Have I heard something? Yes. Will I tell you? No. Just keep watching. Fred still has to deal with his stations in Florida as well. Deleting KDKN was a business decision. A good business decision. The first one after buying it in the first place and programming it the way it was. Both of which were bad decisions. Just my educated opinion.
Just because a signal exists, doesnt mean it should modulate or even shouldve been built in the first place. Topo many think "just because i can, i should" with radio signals. Thats never the case.
@exdjted knows what hes talking about and then some in this particular case, I'd listen to what he has to say.
These comments are all fair, though I will say that KWMU extended it's coverage the same way, buy purchasing WQUB Quincy, and KMST Rolla. The station in Ellington may be a bad idea for anyone to own--it was however allocated and licenses aren't doled out like candy in a parade. There aren't any real ad dollars to be had in Reynolds or Shannon counties--I will agree with that. I still think existing owners of stations from that region could still use that frequency as a simulcast of their existing stations (West Plains, Poplar Bluff, Cape Girardeau). Again, this is a region where cell towers are few, and apps will not work, but FM still does.
Why? Businesses don't stick around losing money.
The FCC has no clue. There were 2 class C FM allocations in Texas: one in a town of 1,100 with 1,700 in the 2,000 square mile county and the other a town of 550 in a county of 700 with 2,500 square miles. Neither town could cover the power bill much less all the other expenses.
The FCC has no clue. There were 2 class C FM allocations in Texas: one in a town of 1,100 with 1,700 in the 2,000 square mile county and the other a town of 550 in a county of 700 with 2,500 square miles. Neither town could cover the power bill much less all the other expenses.
I don't know about that, especially in radio.
A lot of dead wood in this industry lasts for years. Broadcasting doesn't have the moral authority to preach about business practices.
I agree, but, to the FCC's defense, it doesn't open allotments for bidding if no one shows a continuing interest. I believe that was also required in the days of comparative hearings.
Every radio station, no matter how run down and dilapidated, was once somebody's dream. Some just dreamed better than others.
This is my thought on all of these stations being cancelled, and what the FCC could do to really help some broadcasters. When a station like KDKN is cancelled, if it's not resurrected within 1 year, then the Table of Allotments needs to be amended to remove that channel completely. There are WAY too many of these signals that are cancelled, just to remain on the Table and offered up again in another auction in an attempt to take in more money for the government.
If the FCC is serious about 'Delete, delete, delete', then delete these allotments. That might allow another broadcaster to upgrade their signal to better serve their market. Cleaning up the band and rewarding the survivors should be a priority.
If the FCC is serious about 'Delete, delete, delete', then delete these allotments. That might allow another broadcaster to upgrade their signal to better serve their market. Cleaning up the band and rewarding the survivors should be a priority.
I'd support that. Highland, IL had a station that changed frequencies from 1510 to 880 in the 1990s. Somehow, the 1510 was resurrected later in the decade by Larry Rice's people, and allowed to continue. It later was bought by Bob Romanik and
As it stands right now, KDKN’s allocation will go up for auction, but it will be removed if it doesn’t have any bidders. The rules still say that an allotment has to have continued interest to remain. The FCC deletes these rural stations that garner no interest routinely.
The problem, of course, is that some of those stations do get interest, even if it’s just from speculators.
Some hope that if they just limp along these dead stations would find a savior willing to offer them a nice payday. Many of them might even see an occasion headline from Radio Insight or other publications of a station sold for way more than it should've and think their station(s) could be next.
These stations are often subsided by other profitable stations or businesses so it really doesn't hurt the owners too much.
Another factor that might prevent them from going off sooner is tower leases. Many stations might be in the middle of a multiyear lease and to terminate it would require a large lump payment to the tower company. So they just keep things going hoping that some miraculous way the station turns around.
Under current FCC rules there is no way to resurrect a cancelled license that quickly... You must wait for a new auction to apply for a surrendered commercial FM license whenever the FCC decides to have one.
The most recent auctions were in 2021 and 2013.