What AM owner has auction money burning a hole in their pocket?!!!
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Cumulus shutdown tracker
- Thread starter Mediafrog+
- Start date
I'm talking about the FCC. But yes, there's no obvious demand for these licenses. That's why Cumulus is shutting them down.
The FCC could change the rules. The NAB wants AM removed from the cap. There are lots of little things. But as you say, they're all cosmetic.
And the FCC stopped caring about the ionosphere decades ago. See: allowing "graveyard channels" to upgrade to 1 kW full-time; "breaking down the clears"; allowing AM IBOC at night; and proposing to eliminate all skywave protection.
Which is exactly what happened to international shortwave radio after 2000.
I’ve often had the thought that it would have been a better idea for NARBA if all AM frequencies from 1230 and above been made local channels, similar to the six “graveyard” allocations (1230, 1240, 1340, 1400, 1450, 1490), perhaps with somewhat higher power such as 2 to 5kw days, 1 or 2kw nights. This would have made all those silly daytime operations that sprouted up after World War 2 unnecessary.
Speaking as someone who has owned an AM station, I would need that money for the upgrade. If I had to cough up six figures just to play in an auction, sure, I might win, but the upgraded facilities might not happen. One hiccup in the economy could torpedo the whole thing.
Mexico’s congress declared AM dead and ordered the licensing bureau to allow as many as possible to move to FM. By relaxing second adjacent channel rules except in the U.S. border zone, about 80% of existing AM stations moved. Some AM channels were reassigned to rural stations, particularly one broadcasting in indigenous languages.
At one point, Mexico had nearly 900 AM stations, while the U.S. had nearly 5000.
That may be the future here. It becomes a waiting game for licensees. Whoever can hold out the longest might get a dropin.
Given the current FCC, it could be a long wait.
If translators were granted status, such as A-1, and allowed to silence their AM, I’d bet we would see around half of all AM licenses being turned in.
To allow the transition in Mexico, the ancient second adjacent rule was eliminated, allowing them to exist at the same city with no geographic separation.
The thought has often entered my mind that AM operators without a translator should be compensated or bailed out per the fair market value of the station. It probably would result in even more AMs being turned off.
I was in Houston earlier this week and tried, several times, to listen to local radio, particularly FM. I was in a Galleria-area hotel on a higher floor. The dial is clotted with translators, and some rimshots, that put in a barely usable signal at best. I was starting to think that it might have been better if they broadcast at higher power, to have at least a somewhat useful signal, and let the rules on adjacent signals be relaxed. I thought the "Aurora Triangle" in Denver at 93.7-93.9-94.1 was bad, but the situation in Houston seemed worse. Withal, RD participants in or near Houston will have a much better insight into this than I can have from a few days in the city and also trying to map stations to what they used to be 39 years ago.
No, no, no no, no, no, no ,no, NO.😡😡😡
The government (and taxpayers) shouldn’t be in the business of bailing out failed stations. You do that in one sector, you are pretty much obligated to do it for any type of business. Where do you draw the line?
Any decent radio owner is fully aware of the current economic situation of the broadcast industry. At some point you have to decide when to get out before it all crashes and burns. True for any enterprise.
AM stations have been swirling down the drain for almost half a century. None of what is happening is a surprise. And a majority of AM licenses by themselves are essentially worthless…fair market value would be somewhere around $0.
Any substantial change to AM allocation schemes and requires will require a treaty with Canada, Mexico, etc. Canada and Mexico have taken an approach different from that of the United States in allowing an AM station to move to FM without relegating it to secondary status. The U.S. attitude is, "an AM station you were born, and an AM station you shall forever be" unless you give up an FM station that you already own and just move the AM's programming onto it. Some of that has happened...it's about to happen in St. Louis...but it requires a determination that the cost of giving up the previous FM format will be made up, or exceeded, by the additional revenue gained with the AM's move. (I hope that made sense; I'm having trouble describing it clearly.)
Anyway, we may end up in a situation similar to Europe, where just a few countries still maintain a medium-wave service, and the rest are on FM (or DAB+) entirely. At that point, few if any AM stations would remain in Canada or Mexico and the U.S. could then move around the remaining stations as it would like without having to deal with negotiations and treaties because the other countries just wouldn't care at that point. Problem is, listeners might not care at that point, either.
So far, I don't see any big owners lobbying or offering to drop 2nd adjacent. That may change. The FCC is mainly GenX and GenY. These are not people who grew up with radio. It was their parent's thing. So it's not a big priority. I don't think we're anywhere near the bottom for AM.
Neither of whom are currently predisposed to entering into any more treaties with us.
Right, but I was thinking a little longer-term than the present-day situation. For AM stations, I think things will have to get worse before they have a chance of getting better.
Many AM's already cashed in any "fair market value" by selling their tower land. The license was never a true asset as the station never really owned it. It was just a license to use a certain frequency, never an ownership interest in the frequency.
Here's the list:
Twenty Cumulus & Townsquare Media Stations Cease Operations With More To Come
Cumulus and Townsquare Media both continue to shut down under-performing stations across the country. Following its shutdown of “ESPN Quad
radioinsight.com
Minor point: Cumulus' KBBM is also licensed to Jefferson City, Mo. (and isn't being shut down). One of the Missouri stations being shut down, KJMO, is licensed to Linn, just outside Jeff City.
The KLIK shutdown is notable as the original frequency of KWOS, dating back to 1937.
WAPI is 102 years old but its audience clearly migrated to simulcast partner WZZR nine years ago. Doubtful anyone will even notice it is gone.Here's the list:
Twenty Cumulus & Townsquare Media Stations Cease Operations With More To Come
Cumulus and Townsquare Media both continue to shut down under-performing stations across the country. Following its shutdown of “ESPN Quad
Minor point: Cumulus' KBBM is also licensed to Jefferson City, Mo. (and isn't being shut down). One of the Missouri stations being shut down, KJMO, is licensed to Linn, just outside Jeff City.
The KLIK shutdown is notable as the original frequency of KWOS, dating back to 1937.
Honestly, that list is filled with so many turnkey operations with no local content whatsoever. Just running the Westwood One conservatalk lineup, the Infinity Sports Network, Nash Icon, etc.
When Premiere owned it, KLIK did have some local content. Cumulus focused the local content on Columbia's KFRU, which made sense since Columbia is the larger community in the region.
The word "irony" gets overused, but I have to observe one from personal knowledge. There were proposals afoot in the early 1980s from various buyers to combine what was then KWOS (the KLIK-KWOS flip happened in 1999) with KFRU to form a mini-regional network. There were various reasons it didn't happen; some of them related to signal overlap, which would have prevented common ownership at the time.
Guess all three of my Texas AM predictions on another thread came true: KIKR, KBED and KPUR.Here's the list:
Twenty Cumulus & Townsquare Media Stations Cease Operations With More To Come
Cumulus and Townsquare Media both continue to shut down under-performing stations across the country. Following its shutdown of “ESPN Quad
Not sure when KPUR went back to sports, had been agriculture news a couple of years ago. Station had apparently been struggling since the demise of CHR ~35 years ago; Amarillo market also has a huge number of FMs for its size.