Are there any FM's for sale?

[DavidKaye]

Even if you own a blowtorch of a station in San Francisco, as I understand the business, you sell advertising ONLY if you have respectable ratings, and you only achieve good ratings by putting some kind of "audio content" on the air. It could be an ingenious format of music.

Nonsense. Utter nonsense. The stations that sell block programming and the religion outfits (KVTO, KFAX, KEST, KLOK, etc) do not have respectable ratings and yet they make money. You do not necessarily need large numbers of listeners in order to make money in radio. In fact, Multicultural and Salem make their money on low-rated AMs all across America because they've found enough people willing to buy time on them.

Some people buy radio time because a very small but specific audience segment is listening, such as people who speak Chinese (KVTO, KSJX, etc), or religious people (KFAX, KDIA, KDYA). And there are vanity advertisers -- people who buy block time in order to push their product or service or to hear themselves talk -- KEST, KNEW and KKGN (Karel is a vanity broadcaster, for instance).

Once again, commercial radio is an advertising medium, not a programming medium and investors aren't going to particuarly care whether the station programs oldies, hip-hop, or dog talk, as long as they get a ROI that exceeds what they can make in other investments.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

The stations that sell block programming and the religion outfits (KVTO, KFAX, KEST, KLOK, etc) do not have respectable ratings and yet they make money. You do not necessarily need large numbers of listeners in order to make money in radio. In fact, Multicultural and Salem make their money on low-rated AMs all across America because they've found enough people willing to buy time on them.

I follow your logic. In fact, I once managed a "preach and teach" religion station so I have some exposure to this part of the broadcasting industry.

There has always been and I guess there will always be this "tug of war" within the industry about the "healthy" course for broadcasting, and it ties into the much larger political discourse of our nation.

From sometime in the late 1800s, through the early 1900s, but hitting a harsh wall of public opinion as we came out of WWII and faced Communism head-on in the Cold War era... out nation saw the rise of so-called Progressive thinking. It was in vogue in the early 1900s for people to openly entertain thoughts of socialism.

So. When broadcasting came into being, the collective wisdom of Washington was to assume the airwaves were public property and to grant broadcasting licenses to people who would operate "in the public interest".... whatever that is.

About 30 years ago we began seeing a shift toward a much more so-called Conservative thinking. It is now in vogue to think that the person or company that legally occupies a frequency OWNS that frequency and has little or no obligation to operate "in the public interest"... whatever that is.

In the housing industry, public policy tries to minimize or eliminate "slum-lord housing" as not being in the best interest of society. And yet, there are people who are in economic conditions who can only find shelter within the slum-lord form of housing. So we tolerate minimal amounts. If you grow up in a family that invests in the apartment industry and dad suggests you go off to college and prepare for a career managing the family business, I doubt that any university offers much coursework on how to manage slum-level housing.

I am very reluctant to make this comparison.... but there are some traits about brokered radio, vanity radio, etc that parallel slum-housing. I don't expect to see public political unrest with citizens demanding that Congress facilitate the expansion of this form of broadcasting. A solid, stable industry offers career paths that entice talented people to devote their lives to the arts and skills that make the industry work.

This sub-culture of the broadcasting industry is probably not the future and the poster child for what radio is and what radio will be. On the other hand, if I am wrong, and this kind of "not programming dependent radio" IS the future of the industry, I would predict the industry has no future.

 

[Prais]

GRC asaid, "I am very reluctant to make this comparison.... but there are some traits about brokered radio, vanity radio, etc that parallel slum-housing."

Despite your reluctance, you wrote it, anyway. Thtre are "many traits" that parallel radio operators who find a niche, too.

For many years, even in the 1930's some stations were "Foreign Language" so they could serve the new immigrants - as well as survive because there was already a glut" of English language stations.

During WWII, the fcc made a few laws because they were suspicious that anti-American information was being transmitted that would hurt ther war effort.

In places like Chicago, Detroit, Miami,New York, etc., where there are many people for whom their native tongue comes easier than English, these stations serve a BIG need.

For a few years, I worked for WCRW, Chicago, a shared time station on 1240, that had Spanish, Greek, Italian and Polish programming. The place was only on the air 5 hours daily (sharing time with WEDC and WSBC) and could still gross 5k a week. It began broadcasting in 1927.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

Prais: you brought up the one example that caused me to say I had reluctance to use the terminology.

Back in the 60s a country music station in a Northern industrial city was a form of ethnic broadcasting of sorts. People from the financially depressed regions of Appalachia and the Ozarks were clustered in a number of big cities and in some cases country music for these people thrived the same way as ethnic radio.

But isn't this also a form of radio broadcasting where the PROGRAMMING content determines the success of the station?

 

[Prais]

Maybe, maybe not.

The ethnic merchants KNEW that the station reached the store's target.
The station was a necessary UTILITY in many homes. Advertising DROVE the direction of the station. Often times, the commercial aired in Spanish, and following that, I read the same commercial in English. There were MANY bi-lingual homes, with kids and teens comfortable
in English, and parents needing Spanish.

Example; EVERY theatre in CHICAGO(!) that showed Spanish movies advertised. Lot's more examples. The time brokers often booked music groups for concerts and made MORE money. Spanish religion and Spanish soap operas THRIVED on the station. The program producers had a good thing going.

 

[DavidKaye]

So. When broadcasting came into being, the collective wisdom of Washington was to assume the airwaves were public property and to grant broadcasting licenses to people who would operate "in the public interest".... whatever that is.

I think that this has been more window dressing than actual fact. How many stations have lost licenses due to failure to serve the public interest? WHDH-TV in Boston in the 1970s. And? And?

Since the beginning of commercial broadcasting stations have been run on the advertising model, not the programming model. Newspapers built stations in order to sell newspapers. In nearly every city the dominant newspapers owned stations -- the Oakland Tribune owned KLX (now KNEW); the SF Examiner had KUO; the Chronicle owned KPO (now KNBR) and later owned KRON-FM and TV. The Marin Indepdent Journal owned KTIM; the Santa Rosa Press Democrat had KSRO; the Santa Cruz Sentinel had KSCO, McClatchy had radio stations in each town where they had newspapers.

And in fact, before the newspapers got into the act, radio manufacturers started stations in order to sell radios! There were RCA, Westinghouse, Crosley, etc.

So, I think the idea that commercial radio is about the programming is a rather recent and hopeful belief, but not one based on fact.

 

[Prais]

And KHJ-tv in Los Angeles, and a few radio stations.

the FCC stripped WNAC-TV of its license for numerous reasons, but largely because RKO had misled the FCC about corporate misconduct at General Tire. The decision meant KHJ-TV and sister station WOR-TV (now WWOR-TV) in New York City lost their licenses as well. However, an appeals court ruled that the FCC had erred when it tied channel 9's renewal to that of WNAC-TV and ordered new hearings for KHJ-TV and WOR-TV.

The hearings dragged on until 1987. That year, an administrative law judge found RKO unfit to be a broadcast licensee due to numerous cases of dishonesty by RKO, including fraudulent billing and lying about its ratings. The FCC advised RKO that it would almost certainly deny any appeals, and persuaded RKO to sell its stations to avoid the indignity of having their licenses taken away.

Source; Wikipedia - but over 90 million Google results (really!)

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

I think that this has been more window dressing than actual fact. How many stations have lost licenses due to failure to serve the public interest? WHDH-TV in Boston in the 1970s. And? And?

Since the beginning of commercial broadcasting stations have been run on the advertising model, not the programming model.

Being just a little bit older than dirt, my years in broadcasting allowed me to be mentored by people who were broadcasting as early as the 1930s. Looking back at the record today, I can see how you would come to that conclusion.

But if you were in the facilities back in the 1950s talking to the owner who was fussing and fretting over his license renewal (every three years) you had no doubt that programming and the illusion of community service was the big, big, big issue.

If you ever went out on the streets in small town America calling on retailers in the 1960s, trying to sell them advertising, you might be inclined to agree that at one time (if not today) programming was central and critical to making a radio station work.

You can tromp through the FCC records and history and come out and say: "I don't see evidence of license revocations for programming failure and community service failure." But that was an era when "back room tactics" were also used. I worked for a man who decided he would move into the world of radio. I constructed and for a short (very short!) time managed his second station. When he turned in his 4th or 5th application for a construction permit he got a "back room" conversation that the newest app would not be approved and if he wanted to avoid a very public and nasty revocation process for his other stations and CPs, SELL THEM NOW! He kept his original home-town station. It took 3 or 4 years and a letter from a U.S. Senator to get the license of station #2 transferred to the new owner.

On a trip to Washington several years later, I visited the FCC and asked to see the file for that troubled station. That's when I saw the letter from the Senator. What a nasty, rats-nest of a file it was.

But that was the 1960s. Back when broadcasters would tell stories of how much different things were from the 1930s.

Yes, newspapers built radio stations back then. Manufacturers of radios built a few stations back then. The trend I never see people write about here: How many radio stations were originated by funeral homes, and how many of those funeral homes were sideline businesses of the family that owned the town's hardware store. In the era when radio was getting started in this country, the funeral home industry was getting started. Up until then, when someone died you went to the hardware store, bought a casket, took it home and inserted the corpse and set it up in the family living room or parlor and friends and family came to the house for "visitation". And by the time the weekly newspaper came out the funeral had already taken place. The young funeral home industry got the idea that having their own radio station would give them the opportunity to let people know about deaths in time for people to attend the funeral.

The history of radio broadcasting (and its business methodology) has a lot of unique twists and turns.

 

[LKellerIII]

I'm hardly an expert on radio history, but I recall that many early radio stations were started by businessmen who had something to sell, and thought the (then) new medium would help them sell their product.

Don Lee (KHJ, KFRC) and Earle C. Anthony (KFI, KECA) were both car dealers before they got into brodacasting. From what I've read, Anthony took broadcasting very seriously, while Lee's main interest remained the selling of Cadillacs. Many other early stations were started by churches as a way to "sell" Jesus, or build their congregation.

A couple of years ago, I did some internet "research" (I use the term loosely) on one of the controversies on these boards - whether or not early call letters were always assigned or could be requested by the license holder. Two early examples of station owners in the mid 1920s that requested (and were granted) specific call letters - included the owner of WHO, Des Moines (also owned a local bank there), and the Third Avenue Baptist Church in Oakland, which started KTAB, considered the progenitor to KSFO.

 

[Prais]

WEDC, Chicago) Emil Denimark Cadillac,
WSBC, Chicago, Standard Battery Company,
WGN (Worlds Greatest Newspaper) owned by the Chicago Tribune, WLS (Worlds Larget Store) owned by Sears,
WAAF (the FIRST Chicago radio station) owned by the (cattle) Drovers newspaper,
WTMJ, Milwaukee, owne by the Milwaukee Jurnal
WSBT, South Bend, owned by the South Bend Tribune
WMAQ ("We Must ask quesions") owned by the Chicago Daily News
WDHF (fm) owned by the DeHaan stereo store

and many others.

 

[LKellerIII]

Wandering way off topic now, but after my last post I Googled WHO, Des Moines. Naturally, there is a website dedicated to Iowa radio history - probably started by Boss Radio DJ's mid-western doppelganger ;D.

Anyway...among the bits of trivia - WHO was the station credited with starting the showbiz career of Ronald "Dutch" Reagan. Actually, he started at WHO's Davenport sister station, but his sports broadcasts were first noticed by a wider audience when he transferred to the higher power Des Moines station.

Thought that was interesting...

 

[DavidKaye]

And KHJ-tv in Los Angeles, and a few radio stations.

the FCC stripped WNAC-TV of its license for numerous reasons, but largely because RKO had misled the FCC about corporate misconduct at General Tire. The decision meant KHJ-TV and sister station WOR-TV (now WWOR-TV) in New York City lost their licenses as well. However, an appeals court ruled that the FCC had erred when it tied channel 9's renewal to that of WNAC-TV and ordered new hearings for KHJ-TV and WOR-TV.

You're making my point. The FCC stripped or threatened to strip the RKO licenses (all your cites are RKO) because of corporate misconduct, but not over community service issues. There may be others, but as far as I can remember, WHDH-TV, nearly 40 years ago was one of the few station licenses ever yanked under community service issues.

 

[Prais]

I'm retired so this is only from memory...(not sure of call letters any more) there were stations, like the ones owned by the coastal New Jersey preacher (name forgotten) lost because of some issues, and more recently the station lost because of the owner was convicted of a felony.

 

[LKellerIII]

I'm retired so this is only from memory...(not sure of call letters any more) there were stations, like the ones owned by the coastal New Jersey preacher (name forgotten) lost because of some issues, and more recently the station lost because of the owner was convicted of a felony.

KRLA 1110 AM in Los Angeles was also stripped of its license in the mid 60s due to supposed misconduct. I've never understood the entire story. This was during the time the station was a Top 40 powerhouse, though it was eclipsed in '65 by Bill Drake's KHJ. The station had been owned by Jack Kent Cook, the entrepreneur that owned the LA Lakers (among other properties), and the LA Forum (sports and concert venue) in Inglewood. After Cook lost the license for KRLA, it was operated for years by a trust that channeled at least part of the profits to KCET, Channel 28 - the NET (now PBS) TV station. It was an odd arrangement, and there were charges that the trust actually tried to sabotage KRLA so it would make less money, and remain a pitiful also-ran to KHJ.

 

[BossRadioDJ]

Naturally, there is a website dedicated to Iowa radio history - probably started by Boss Radio DJ's mid-western doppelganger ;D.

I feel that it was totally unnecessary to drag my anatomy into this discussion.

 

[davideduardo]

KRLA 1110 AM in Los Angeles was also stripped of its license in the mid 60s due to supposed misconduct. I've never understood the entire story. This was during the time the station was a Top 40 powerhouse, though it was eclipsed in '65 by Bill Drake's KHJ. The station had been owned by Jack Kent Cook, the entrepreneur that owned the LA Lakers (among other properties), and the LA Forum (sports and concert venue) in Inglewood.

Mr. Cooke had Canadian nationality, and was discovered to own more than the legal cap a foreigner could have; he bought the station in the name of his brother, a US citizen but it was shown that Jack actually financed and controlled the licence... illegally. In addition, there were some contest issues which, IIRC, triggered the investigation which discovered the ownership issue.

 

[davideduardo]

Anyway...among the bits of trivia - WHO was the station credited with starting the showbiz career of Ronald "Dutch" Reagan. Actually, he started at WHO's Davenport sister station, but his sports broadcasts were first noticed by a wider audience when he transferred to the higher power Des Moines station.

I always liked the WHO and WOC calls, which Dr. Palmer, a chiropractor, decided stood for "World of Chiropractic" and "With Hands On."

 

[davideduardo]

The hearings dragged on until 1987. That year, an administrative law judge found RKO unfit to be a broadcast licensee due to numerous cases of dishonesty by RKO, including fraudulent billing and lying about its ratings. The FCC advised RKO that it would almost certainly deny any appeals, and persuaded RKO to sell its stations to avoid the indignity of having their licenses taken away.

General Tire was deemed unfit to be a licensee after it was found that they had made bribes in Alegeria and Argentina and thus broken U.S. law. This finding, long after the SEC issue, resulted in the FCC ALJ suggesting the company's radio and TV stations should not have their licences renewed. It was, in fact, a decade passed between the tire issue and the FCC judge's recommendation.

The Boston TV issue was, for the most part, separate (but eventually tipped by the fact that RKO did not disclose its corporate sins to the FCC). The first issue in a chain of problems was a complaint against KHJ TV that said that General Tire pressured dealers to advertise on the station; this was eventually dismissed. But the same charge was brought against WNAC but the license renewed in 1974. When the SEC brought out the misconduct of the parent company in '77, the licences all were in jeopardy. The case dragged on, but with the 1988 approval of the sale of KHJ TV to Disney, the door was opened to a sale of most of the stations before revocation might occur; WNAC had been revoked in 1980.

It's speculation, but were it not for the bribery issue which General Tire did not opportunely inform the FCC about ("Lack of Candor") they might have overcome the other issues.

 

[Madmansam]

The hearings dragged on until 1987. That year, an administrative law judge found RKO unfit to be a broadcast licensee due to numerous cases of dishonesty by RKO, including fraudulent billing and lying about its ratings. The FCC advised RKO that it would almost certainly deny any appeals, and persuaded RKO to sell its stations to avoid the indignity of having their licenses taken away.

The Boston TV issue was, for the most part, separate (but eventually tipped by the fact that RKO did not disclose its corporate sins to the FCC). The first issue in a chain of problems was a complaint against KHJ TV that said that General Tire pressured dealers to advertise on the station; this was eventually dismissed. But the same charge was brought against WNAC but the license renewed in 1974. When the SEC brought out the misconduct of the parent company in '77, the licences all were in jeopardy. The case dragged on, but with the 1988 approval of the sale of KHJ TV to Disney, the door was opened to a sale of most of the stations before revocation might occur

I thought that RKO sold KHJ-TV to Fidelity Television (which first challenged RKO for the license in 1965) in 1988 who then sold KHJ-TV to Disney?

 

[davideduardo]

I thought that RKO sold KHJ-TV to Fidelity Television (which first challenged RKO for the license in 1965) in 1988 who then sold KHJ-TV to Disney?

I see from the 1988 Broadcasting Yearbook that RKO still owned the station, and in 1989 the sale to Disney was referenced both in the "Transactions" section and in the station listing.

I can flip through Broadcasting Magazine for '88 and '89, which I have complete, and see if there is anything more under the FCC filings.

Sidebar: This was originally KFI-TV and was sold in 1951 for $2.5 million.