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Fort Myers Beasley selling 5 Fort Myers stations?
- Thread starter BoboKnight
- Start date
Wow pretty pricey. They must bill very well.
That would be a pricey/risky move. 92.5 already covers the market well. It would add places like Clewiston and areas north of Arcadia, but those are very rural, low populated areas.
You typically don't pay prices like that if you're not buying at least part of the programming. Spending that money to spike the programming on one or both of those stations wouldn't seem to be a smart fiscal decision. And, yes, I know the key words are "typically" and "seem."
Despite the price for the other cluster, I fully expect either WAVV or WJPT will change formats. Having both of those under the same roof doesn't make sense. Wouldn't be surprised to see a change at Playa or a merge into 97.7 at the other cluster either.
Exactly. In a deal like this, all the old rules are out the window.
This is all about creating as close to a media monopoly as possible. Either directly or indirectly, they will control 11 full-powered FMs, 11 translators, and at least five TV brands. Anything they do now will be to exert more power against Renda and iHeart's stations. My guess is we'll see them do something to target 102.9 Bob-FM/95.3 The Beach directly and perhaps Classic Country to flank 93.7 against Gator and Cat Country.
Is there something about the SW Florida market driving the higher purchase prices?
On the TV side, people commented about the high price ($220 million) Hearst paid to acquire the NBC station and operating rights to the ABC station in Ft Myers a couple years ago.
Not sure if this is driving it, but it's a bigger market than Tulsa, OK, which saw Cox sell its cluster to a local optometrist for $20 million. I don't know if this data means multiples are going back up, but the $18 million for the Beasley properties in Ft. Myers is essentially what Cox got in Tulsa. If multiples are otherwise not going up, I would suspect that Beasley wasn't planning on selling Ft. Myers and got an unsolicited offer that was beyond its own valuation.
It's remarkable that the existing Fort Myers / Sun operation has been accepted by the commission given the existing station ownership rules, and that this new deal would be going forward.
The Schwartzels are paying a combined 18 million in 2025 for the stations? What kind of billing/cash flow is the Beasley Ft Myers cluster doing? For growth industries, overpaying to consolidate competitors can be a good financial move. FMBC/Sun do end up with a dominant position in the local radio market but what does that get them in a -- let's be honest -- declining industry?
Maybe they can trim some costs but most of the real expense cuts have already been taken. On the revenue side, there are so many other places for local advertisers to place dollars today. It will be difficult to drive much more demand & rates with the current sales management approach in radio. I guess they add some digital marketing magic, and poof everything is great? It's not like it's 30 years ago when revenue was growing quarter after quarter after quarter.
The existing rules are archaic given what media is in the 21st century. But they are the rules in place and it's not clear why the FCC allowed them to be circumvented in this situation. Or from the other side of the whole question, why haven't more markets seen similar interlocking family businesses to get around the spirit of the regulations?
There is at least one other (much smaller, under the radar) market where a similar supercluster family deal has been accepted by the commission for years.
And -- if this is a sign that the FCC is about to relax ownership rules more (probably true, TV groups are doing similar deals), how does radio move through a next wave of consolidation?
I'd bet there will be swaps to double up where various groups can -- Group X trades Boise to Group Y for Spokane, or Group I trades these 10 markets to Group T for that basket of markets. Not much fresh capital available to radio right now & doubtful that a rules change, even a dramatic one, will spark much new interest.
The Schwartzels are paying a combined 18 million in 2025 for the stations? What kind of billing/cash flow is the Beasley Ft Myers cluster doing? For growth industries, overpaying to consolidate competitors can be a good financial move. FMBC/Sun do end up with a dominant position in the local radio market but what does that get them in a -- let's be honest -- declining industry?
Maybe they can trim some costs but most of the real expense cuts have already been taken. On the revenue side, there are so many other places for local advertisers to place dollars today. It will be difficult to drive much more demand & rates with the current sales management approach in radio. I guess they add some digital marketing magic, and poof everything is great? It's not like it's 30 years ago when revenue was growing quarter after quarter after quarter.
The existing rules are archaic given what media is in the 21st century. But they are the rules in place and it's not clear why the FCC allowed them to be circumvented in this situation. Or from the other side of the whole question, why haven't more markets seen similar interlocking family businesses to get around the spirit of the regulations?
There is at least one other (much smaller, under the radar) market where a similar supercluster family deal has been accepted by the commission for years.
And -- if this is a sign that the FCC is about to relax ownership rules more (probably true, TV groups are doing similar deals), how does radio move through a next wave of consolidation?
I'd bet there will be swaps to double up where various groups can -- Group X trades Boise to Group Y for Spokane, or Group I trades these 10 markets to Group T for that basket of markets. Not much fresh capital available to radio right now & doubtful that a rules change, even a dramatic one, will spark much new interest.
Rapidly growing, affluent market is what comes to mind. WAVV sold for $8 million as a stand alone 3 years ago.
If Sun is part of this deal (and I still haven't seen anything official on that yet), a good question to ask would be: Did Sun get this arrangement specifically because of its ownership's loyalty to the current U.S. President? While I do not know for a fact what the ownership's views are, I do know that one of the group's current stations, WHEL 93.7 FM, promotes itself as "Trump Country."
No. Officially or unofficially these groups are working on the basis that the FCC is going to eliminate the ownership caps.
There's no arrangement for the groups to get with loyalty to the government because there has yet to be a filing with the FCC.
Sun's waiver request specifically says it intends to keep the formats and programming on 96.1 and 103.9. It could, of course, renege on that promise at some point, or it could flip some of its existing properties to accommodate what it's adding.
WINK's waiver request, on the other hand, does NOT mention keeping ANY of the formats or programming of the stations it's attempting to acquire. Doesn't take much reading between the lines to figure out what's likely to happen there.
You beat me to it.
I see FMBC replacing “La Playa” Spanish CHR format on WWCN 99.3 with the “Maxima” Spanish Tropical format from WTLQ-HD2/W239CL/W247CR (they already have “97.7 Latino” Spanish CHR on WTLQ-FM).
The FCC doesn't regulate formats so it's an empty promise. I'll have a lot more to say on this subject tomorrow.
WWCN is more Tropical than WTLQ-HD2 last time I checked. WWCN is almost completely on salsa, merengue and *bachata but with a few latin pop songs. Maybe around 5-10 of them in the playlist over the span of 5 hours the last time I listened to it. (Sorry for being nitpicky.)
*Just so I can avoid the eventual correction from Mr. Eduardo, bachata is far from what is traditional Spanish Tropical. A true Spanish Tropical format consists of salsa and merengue (primarily merengue de orquesta).
And here it is... but not a correction, just an expansion.
The best definition of "bachata" is "rhythmic bolero". But it is rooted in the "interior" of the Dominican Republic, so there is a "folk music" heritage to it as well.
Tropical is the rhythmic music of Latin America. Salsa from Puerto Rico and New York, Merengue from the Dominican Republic, Cumbia and Vallenato from Colombia as well as the older types like cha cha cha, danzón, rumba, mambo, etc. And the cumbia has derivitives in Mexico (cumbia grupera). Perú (tecnocumbia) and even Argentina (bailanta).