After turning in the license for WPRY (AM) in 2024, Dockins is now surrendering 92.1 WPRY-FM.
-
Get involved.
We want your input!
Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.
After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.
After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/
Thanks in advance and have fun!
RadioDiscussions Administrators
Tallahassee Dockins cancels WPRY-FM Perry
- Thread starter JJSPC
- Start date
Perry is a very poor city and there may not have been any interest in acquiring the station at any price. It was probably a money pit while still operating.
Fred still has WFDZ in Perry, which is a C3. Fred has owned the stations in Perry for over 25 years. He's certainly seen the decline, and, after having to rebuild the stations there several times after hurricanes, has probably chosen to stop fighting Mother Nature and a dying economy. Nobody is rushing to buy stations in that area, and it is painfully obvious that the stations would cost more to rebuild and maintain than to shut down. I am reasonably sure that Fred is probably shopping WQLC and WJTK in the Lake City area. Unfortunately, there are a ton of stations for sale in Florida and Georgia at the moment that have been waiting literal years for a new owner.
As for why someone would shut a station down rather than selling for an extremely low price, you still have to find someone willing to pay the extremely low price. I can give you the telephone numbers of over 30 owners who would like to find that buyer of last resort today rather than keep pumping money into a failing operation.
As for why someone would shut a station down rather than selling for an extremely low price, you still have to find someone willing to pay the extremely low price. I can give you the telephone numbers of over 30 owners who would like to find that buyer of last resort today rather than keep pumping money into a failing operation.
Keep in mind that selling a station costs money, too. Selling a station for $1 doesn't mean you walk away with $1 more than what you'd get if you had surrendered the license.
As Ted mentions, you have to sell to someone who will at least pay enough to cover your attorney's fees and those of any other third parties involved in selling the station or getting it ready to sell. That buyer doesn't always exist. Plus, if it does, that buyer might become competition. Granted, FM's remain on the city's frequency allocation table. So, you might get competition anyway, but making that competition bid on and build that competitor itself might make better sense than handing it the keys yourself.
Simple. Fred doesn't want competition. He was willing to sell to a non profit group with provision that they can't go commercial while he owns a station in the market. There were no takers. He would rather turn in the license than to enable a competitor. The same thing happened in Lake City with WGRO a couple of years ago. I suspect WJTK will also get its license turned in. Last I heard, it had only a $50k price tag, but similar format restrictions.