Breaking - 1060 AM Sold - Flipping to Catholic Programming

[Don Juan]

It turns out that there is a specific exemption in the FCC rules (73.2080): "Religious radio broadcasters may establish religious belief or affiliation as a job qualification for all station employees."

It goes on to say: "For purposes of this rule, a religious broadcaster is a licensee which is, or is closely affiliated with, a church, synagogue, or other religious entity, including a subsidiary of such an entity." That would exclude Salem, which I believe is a publicly traded company, but probably includes Holy Family.

The quoted post above SHOULD have been the end of this sub-thread. What Holy Family does is legal in Mass, legal in the US, and fully conforms to FCC regulations.

Well the licensee is not a church. Nor are they a subsidiary of the church. They are not under the auspices of the local Bishop as they are an entity unto themselves...so how "closely affiliated" does one have to be?

Their parent company I believe is Third Millennium Media, LLC.

 

[Deleted User]

Funny I thought this was the post that should have ended the discussion on the legality of it.

http://www.eeoc.gov/policy/docs/religion.html#_Toc203359502
D. Bona Fide Occupational Qualification

Title VII permits employers to hire and employ employees on the basis of religion if religion is “a bona fide occupational qualification [“BFOQ”] reasonably necessary to the normal operation of that particular business or enterprise.”[68] Religious organizations do not typically need to rely on this BFOQ defense, however, because the “religious organization” exception in Title VII permits them to prefer their co-religionists. See supra § I-C. It is well settled that for employers that are not religious organizations and therefore seek to rely on the BFOQ defense to justify a religious preference, the defense is a narrow one and can rarely be successfully invoked.[69]

 

[Don Juan]

And I thought this was the post that was supposed to end the subthread

The exclusion states that you CAN hire on the basis of religion, if religion is a bonafide occupational qualification reasonably necessary to the operation of a particular business or enterprise.

;-)

 

[WFNERBSHX]

The "QOM" likely is an acronym for "Queen of Mercy". In the Catholic tradition, Mary is often referred to as the Queen of Mercy, Peace, Victory, Heaven etc.

 

[raccoonradio]

Fybush's NERW says it stands for Queen of Martyrs, and it reproduces a logo with the slogan
"The Station of the Cross". For those who didn't grow up Catholic, many churches in that faith
have 12 (IIRC) reproductions of Jesus during the walk to his crucifixion, known as the Stations Of
The Cross, and Easter Week masses would prominently feature these. The debut is still just over
three months away, supposedly on All Saints Day 11/1.

http://www.fybush.com/nerw.html

 

[DanStrassberg]

Fybush's NERW says it stands for Queen of Martyrs, and it reproduces a logo with the slogan
"The Station of the Cross".

From that description, I would gather that WQOM will be running very strait-laced religious Catholic programming. But supposedly, all of the Holy Family-owned stations carry EWTN Radio. I could not find anything on the Web that describes EWTN's radio programming, but EWTN's older and much larger TV network seems to be under fire from deeply religious Catholics for being too secular. For example, these critics condemn EWTN TV for using rock music in some of its programs. And EWTN TV draws fire from the critics because some of the people who appear on the network are "casually dressed." So if the radio programming is in the same vein as the TV programming, it would appear that a schism exists between Holy Family's management and its programmers. Of course, it is entirely possible that EWTN Radio is much more strait laced than its TV sibling. AM radio, after all, appeals to a much older (and hence, presumably, more strait-laced) audience than does TV. I guess we'll find out on November 1.

 

[raccoonradio]

I had to chuckle when I saw what "Anonymous" wrote on Boston Radio Watch's story about WBIX's
sale (http://www.bostonradiowatch.com)

Mark had written: "Framingham's WBIX AM 1060 was sold to Buffalo-based Holy Family Communications last week."

Anonymous' comment was: "I cannot figure out how the Catholic church can be crying poverty, closing churches, and have huge legal costs: yet they have a million dollars to spend on a radio station. What is wrong with this picture?"

Well, what is wrong, Anonymous, is that the article said Holy Family Comm. is buying the station...not the Catholic Church

 

[DanStrassberg]

Holy Family is not the Catholic Church, but it must be a legitimate non-profit religious organization (well, at least a legitimate non-profit--and not just because it doesn't make a profit). Part of the sale price of $1.5 million is a letter stating that Alex Langer is selling WBIX to Holy Family for $500.000 less than the station's $1.5 million fair-market value. Langer plans to use that letter to demonstrate to the IRS that he is entitled to a $500,000 charitable deduction from his income tax. An interesting question, however, is just how much that letter is really worth to Langer. If I'm not mistaken, the IRS phases out charitable deductions for high-income taxpayers.

OTOH, Langer certainly must have invested well over $1.5 million on WBIX, nearly all of which was probably spent more than a year before the Nov 1 2010 date of the transfer of control. So he gets to claim whatever he spent in excess of the selling price as a long-term capital loss. As long as he has long-term gains, he can use the long-term loss to offset the gains and thus pay no capital-gains tax on his long-term gains. But can he do something similar with the charitable deduction? Maybe; I'm no tax expert; but I don't think so.

 

[thirdendorsed]

excellent analysis of the financials, Dan, but I am struck by the language in the asset purchase agreement. It provides WBIX Corp. will receive a letter to be used in obtaining "claiming a tax
credit for charitable donation"

As I understand it, the credit comes right off the net tax due, making it worth a lot more than the value of a deduction. However, I have no idea how it relates to regular income vs. capital gains.

As for bias in hiring, they're doing a Catholic format and have the right to insist that employees understand what they're talking about. For example, above we have references to Stations of the Cross which is mainly accurate but which misses nuances, and to Easter Week Masses, when there are no masses from Good Friday to the Easter Vigil with extremely rare exception. Not to debate Roman Catholic theology, but it's pretty hard to keep all the rules and customs straight unless it's been pounded into your head for years, so it's pretty hard to do the format when you don't speak the language.

 

[Don Juan]

As I understand it, the credit comes right off the net tax due, making it worth a lot more than the value of a deduction. However, I have no idea how it relates to regular income vs. capital gains.

It is indeed a "credit" (as opposed to a debit)...but no, charitable contributions do not "come right off the net tax due".

Charitable contributions are still deducted from the income...reducing the income that is taxable on your return.