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America's Music
- Thread starter dhoule
- Start date
Do not hold your breath----no country station for the NY market will be forthcoming!!!!Fashion Week on the radio is more important than Hot Country.Why more threads on this "stomp a dead horse to death topic"?????Even when we had a country outlet---or even ,two-----the playlists were controlled.103.5 wouldn't play T.Tritt's first single,COUNTRY CLUB and Y107 did not play HEADS CAROLINA at first.WHN played POP versions of country hits rather than the country artist original.
Could a second tier AM with a killer smart phone APP and streaming be a low cost way to get into NYC. You would no have the "high dollar return expected" as with on of the ESB FMs.
secondchoice said:
If the goal is simply to "get into NYC," there are lots of country streams and APPs available. IHeartRadio, Pandora, radio.com, GoCountryNY, and hundreds of little ones. Take your pick. Like gnats swarming around at the lake. None have any measurable impact.
It's been my experience that there's no "low cost way to get into NYC." You want the big prize, you have to pay the big price.
TheBigA said:
I agree a class B AM in NYC is still an expensive buy (let's be truthful every thing costs more in NYC) but it is not impossible to play music on AM. Radio Disney (just a promotional tool for Disney) is a success. I know there are not real commercials on this station, but Disney could unload this to some religious group in a "New York Minute" so it has some value. The old AM stereo still works on a surprising number of car radio's. Which would be better #1 country station in the #1 market or the #9 (or worse) in an over 40 demo.
TheBigA said:
From personal sales experience, it is better to be in the top of something than number 6 or worse. The lowest rating I personally have ever been able to sell an agency was #4 in the 24-54 female demo. (we were #1 male 24-54) I assume NYC is almost all agency. The more I think about it, a signal that covers all of the PPM burbs (especially the high $$ zip codes) in the market would be more important than downtown.
secondchoice said:
There is no one secondary AM station in the New York market that could do this efficiently. The full signal AMs that have the lowest ratings are owned by companies that are more interested in promoting an agenda or getting a NY clear than being #1 at something. They make more money in compensation or promotion than they would as the #1 country station in the #1 market.
secondchoice said:
The cost of a good AM or FM in NY is likely quite a bit less than an equivalent facility in LA because the LA billing is higher.
Given that the 101.9 facility went for around $190 million, that gives us an idea of the cost of a full ESB FM in NY. As to an AM, there is a "band discount" and far fewer formats are truly viable. But an offer of $100 million for WCBS would likely get giggles and a boot out the door.
The only full covering AMs that get the New Jersey suburbs as well as much of Long Island and the areas north of the City are 660, 880 and 770. 1010, 1130, 1560, 1050 and 710 don't do that. With 880 and 660 being among America's highest billing stations, and WABC certainly being a revenue producer, none of the non-DA 50 kw AMs is going to switch.
In the NY market, only about 25% of listening is in the car, and I'll bet far less than 10% of cars have working AM stereo radios.
40-54 is half of the 25-54 sales demo. While it is a generalization, nearly all buys are for 25-54 or, if outside this, 18-34 and 18-49 or a subset of those. 25-54 is a span of 30 years, and 40-54 would, on a level field, represent about half of the revenue potential. So, it would likely be quite effective to be well rated in 35-54 or something like that (such Lite is).
On the other hand, except for the "no other option" choice of AM for sports, essentially nobody under 55 listens to AM. A well respected researcher, a few years ago, suggested that a Sunset Law be applied to AM.
Not to dispute your analyses, but to correct the station sale price to the most recent market level for a NYC FM.
The $190-million figure for Merlin Media's purchase from Emmis is about right, but that figure was for three stations, not just the 101.9 facility in NYC. The other two FM stations are in Chicago, WKQX-FM (101.1 MHz), WLUP-FM (97.9 MHz).
A guide to what was actually paid for the 101.9 NY station alone might come from the previous sale of FM stations in NYC.
Two years ago, New York Times sold their good signal WQXR-FM 96.3-MHz for about $45-million and, as part of a three way transaction with Univision, New York Public Radio purchased WCAA 105.9-MHZ for about $11-million. Both those FM stations, as well as 101.9, transmit from the same master antenna on top of the Empire State Building but the 96.3 signal is licensed for about ten times the power of the 105.9 signal.
TimeIsTight said:
Nope. Emmis sold a part of the three stations for $130 million, received an equity stake in Merlin and kept a part interest. The value of NY is more than 2/3 of the deal.
The NYT wanted a way to ensure the continuation of the classical format to avoid more adverse publicity in light of the labor and financial issues they were having; as we know, classical is a format that tends to generate passions in the community totally out of proportion with the remaining audience size. So they made a deal to sell WQXR for $33 million plus 105.9, which they turned around and gave to WNYC for $11 million. 105.9 had been bought for $115 million in 2002. Factoring in the recession value of 105.9 and the cash paid, 96.3 is likely in the $120 million valuation range.
Taking the numbers right off the Emmis Communications press release:
Adding up the cash and preferred equity, comes to $148.7-million. Since the main assets, and likely only major assets, Merlin Media, as a startup, owns are the radio stations, Emmis' remaining 20.6% equity stake has an indicated value of $30.6-million.
So, if it sold that stake the total value of the deal would come to about $180-million for the three stations. No doubt the New York station was the most valuable, but the other two stations are in Market-3, and if they together were only worth one-third of the purchase price that would value them at about $30-million each, while the New York station would be worth $120-million by itself. No way to tell for sure from what has been publically released about the deal.
So, the bottom line would be to avoid disturbing the NY classical music community New York Times sold a station valued at $120-million and walked away with only $45-million in cash? Honestly, I am sure NYT took a hit to avoid offending the classical music folks, but a public company couldn't take that big of a hit, for that kind of reason, without getting sued by shareholders for being totally irresponsible. A $75-million bath is way too much, and there were too many very business savvy investors who had a stake in the game and were watching very carefully.
While WCAA may have been purchased by Univision for $115-million in 2002, it was worth far less in 2009. Lots of people paid a lot more in 2002 for a house than they could sell it for in 2009, and the same was true of radio stations, except that the percentage drop in the value of radio stations was too often much sharper than the well known drop in house prices.
Both the Emmis-Merlin deal and the NYT-Univision deal were complicated and involved more than one station, so the actual sale price of just one NYC FM station may be hard to nail down, but in both cases it appears the actual number was something less than $120-million for just one full power NYC FM, but especially in the WQXR situation.
This is the link for the NY Times own story on its sale of WQXR: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/15/arts/music/15radio.html
Here is the link for the Emmis Communications press release on the closing of the three station sale to Merlin:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/15/arts/music/15radio.html
TimeIsTight said:
BIA valued the deal at $198 million total, including payment, equity and preferred equity. The NY FM comes in at well over $120 million.
Correct. Versus litigation, petitions to deny, etc. A good deal for all parties.
But it was not worth $11 million. There are move-in class A's going for around that amount. The nature of the format dictated that the NYT find a new home for it. The fire sale price of 105.9 satisfied that concern and the only company that could bring the "lesser value ESB signal" to the table was Univision. So the parties were in a sense preordained.
This whole debate feels like deja vu to me. I heard all the same arguments against country when I lived in Detroit years ago. They said it wasn't a Country market, too urban, not white enough, etc., etc.
Then finally after all those years, WYCD signed on and now it's consistently at or near #1 in the market. And that happened before Country was as contemporary-sounding as it is today.
It's like today's radio execs don't know how to study recent history and combine it with a little common sense.
Then finally after all those years, WYCD signed on and now it's consistently at or near #1 in the market. And that happened before Country was as contemporary-sounding as it is today.
It's like today's radio execs don't know how to study recent history and combine it with a little common sense.
Theater of My Mind said:
WYCD is cosistently about 5th in 25 54 in Detroit... back in the early 80's, the combo of WCXI AM and FM was around 7th or so... there have been successful country stations in Detroit going back roughly three decades.
Detroit is 22% African American and less than 4% Hispanic. New York is over 50% Black, Asian and Hispanic... add in another 10% for the first generation immigrants who don't fit in those three categories, such as Russians and Persians, and the market is nearly two-thirds composed of groups that severely underindex for country usage. With PPM being a cume based game, not a good start.
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