K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
Because Saul Levine is a special case, and you all already know the reasons (and I know that I will get attacked if I repeat them again, so I will leave it at that).
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1090 XEPRS Has Gone Back to Oldies Plus Wolfman - L.A. Daily News
- Thread starter Daryl Lynn L.A.
- Start date
Because Saul Levine is a special case, and you all already know the reasons (and I know that I will get attacked if I repeat them again, so I will leave it at that).
I wasn't suggesting that he was mimicking Wolf's shift in music policy, but as we discussed earlier in the thread, XERB went a lot more pop in '69.
It could be that El Chingon thinks going more mainstream will get him some traction.
I like Saul, but he is not that special. I say XEPRS can play what they want.
It really is kinda fun to see them do so while the know-it-alls around here harumph about it like offended little old ladies.
They can play Wolfman Jack for as long as they want as far as I am concerned. In fact, after seeing all of the wasted electrons on the subject, I might very well tune in myself.
They can, and they do. Who's saying they can't?
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
May this "know-it-all", as Flipper so callously derides us, "harumph" about one inconvenient truth? (With apologies to Al Gore.)
XEPRS itself is not programming the Oldies. It's brokered time. When DJ "El Chintzy" (or whatever his name is) runs out of money -- or, more likely, when whoever his financial backer is decides to stop funding him -- XEPRS will run the programming of whoever antes up to fill that airtime.
Saul, on the other hand, finances everything he does himself and has no worries about the money running out.
So does Meruelo. Why does Saul get a pass and Meruelo doesn't?
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
The only criticism I have ever offered about Meruelo is that his highest rated station (KLOS) is the one that doesn't have any synergy with the rest of the cluster, and I think he should flip one of them to a format that can be sold in combo.
In fact, I give him credit for deciding to sell channel 22. That was more of a drain on his finances than the entire radio group combined ... the only thing that kept KWHY going for a long time was when they were co-owned with KVEA/52, and when that came to an end when NBC and Comcast merged and they spun off the station to Meruelo as the waiver allowing NBC/Telemundo ownership was rendered null and void.
Meruelo was lucky in that MundoFox/MundoMax came along mere months after he took over operation of KWHY, but that only lasted a little over four years, and it cannot be honestly said that the current schedule is terribly competitive against KVEA and KMEX/34's network programming. But I certainly will give him credit for hanging in there as long as he did (noting that the channel share with KBEH/63 remains, but all three of that station's channels are brokered out ... and I still can't receive the RF 4 signal at my residence, the only Mt. Wilson-based signal that I cannot).
[Okay, so I have criticized him for accepting a low-VHF channel in the repacking. But I think he just got bad advice from whoever his technical consultant was.]
The differences here are simple:
- Meruelo wants to make a profit and pay down debt. He has cut staff, changed program management.
- Saul runs the AM as a pass time, a hobby. No debt, about 60 years of taking nice profits from his FM.
- XEPRS is a brokered station with an owner in Monterrey, México. Achieving success with a few brokered hours a day on an AM is unlikely.
The difference is: If you like the programming, the owner gets a pass. If you don't, the owner is an evil greedy cheapskate.
But operationally, they're all basically doing the same thing.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
Speak for yourself, A. That's not what I said.
Look at my post. Who did I quote? You? No.
I have no disagreement with your post.
I was also using the generic "you."
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
Thank you for both clarifications.
Not really. One has all the money he needs and is running a station as a hobby. The next one wants to make money, but does has a cluster without the needed synergy to make larger profits. And the third things that a few hours a day on a Mexican AM signal can make money with a music format aimed at seniors.
You know that Meruelo is a multi-billionaire, right? I doubt very much that he thinks of radio as a profitable business.
My take is he just doesn't want to LOSE money. Which is basically what Saul thinks.
He does, and saw it as an expansion of his entertainment business. He lost a lot of money during the recession in all of his enterprises... not even including the sports debacle in Phoenix.
The radio and TV division was established as a true profit center. The change in OM and staffing he made earlier in the year were based on poor performance and a desire to make radio and TV profitable. That is, in fact, why he hired my friend and long-time co-worker Pio Ferro.
Nah. Disagree. Radio and TV are to be profit centers, and he has put well over $100 million into that enterprise and is not seeing a commensurate cash flow. Thus the recent changes.
Why did Meruelo sell off KWHY-TV? Isn't television more profitable than radio?
Saul did the same thing, hiring consultant Kenny Jay, who works for Jaye Albright's company.
We were talking about Saul's AM, I thought. He has always been profitable with the FM, making very few changes in the roughly 65 years that he has owned it. The AM is his plaything and he is known to have said that its billing does not cover the electric bill at the transmitter site.
No. Independent OTA television is not a delightful place to be. Because expenses are higher, if you lose you can lose "big time". And that has been the case since cable channels started fragmenting the audience, going back to the 80's.
You don't think Kenny is involved in the AM? He knows classic country better than Saul.
The decision to flip the AM to country coincided with Kenny's hiring.
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