• 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

FAILED STATIONS, and what you know or have heard...

S

Stress

I have been searching the archives to see if a thread like this was ever done, so forgive me if I missed it.

TELL US--why did a radio station (FM preferable) fail that you worked at or perhaps you know anecdotally through others, peer stations, or fabulous disasters that reverberate within the industry. This can be anything from the sublime to the stupendous; slight miscalculations to major malfunctions are all welcome. Dish the dirt. I am curious.

ALSO--how common is it for a radio station to fail out of business and sell off due to financial calamity? I'm not talking "sad earnings" but rather hitting the dirt and digging into debt.

BONUS--any fabulous and unexpected success stories you ever heard of? Has anything bizarre and unexpected ever saved a flagging or damned radio station from dissolution?

Thanks for your input.
 
Stress said:
TELL US--why did a radio station (FM preferable) fail that you worked at or perhaps you know anecdotally through others, peer stations, or fabulous disasters that reverberate within the industry. This can be anything from the sublime to the stupendous; slight miscalculations to major malfunctions are all welcome. Dish the dirt. I am curious.
Click to expand...

I've been working in the broadcast biz for over three decades as a blue collar, and corporate ranks. With the exception of LPFM's, I've never seen a stupendous failure that caused the doors to permanently close on an FM station. Unlike your average business, there's a license attached to that FM station. Even though the ownership/management may be incompetent and unable to remain viable, there is always someone else coming along who will purchase the station to try themselves. Even if the station is sold at a fire sale price.

I've seen programming missteps, usually a format change or 'tweak', that has caused the listeners to run away to the competition. Ultimately, someone came along and stabilized the format to the point where the station started making money again.

Stress said:
ALSO--how common is it for a radio station to fail out of business and sell off due to financial calamity? I'm not talking "sad earnings" but rather hitting the dirt and digging into debt.
Click to expand...

For small markets? All too common. But as I mentioned, there is always someone else, or a group, that will pick up the pieces and try again in the market. That includes religious broadcasters.
Few banks will lend based on a station valuation anymore because after the recession of 2018, station (stick) values went way down. One could argue that the valuation model had gotten too high anyway.
 
Stress said:
BONUS--any fabulous and unexpected success stories you ever heard of? Has anything bizarre and unexpected ever saved a flagging or damned radio station from dissolution?
Click to expand...


Story #1

In 1999 there was a full power FM that generally did not show in the ratings in a market of about 16,000,000. It could not do worse.

There was a niche format that no broadcaster wanted to do, but for the first time a station actually researched listeners. It turned out that the format had much wider appeal than many thought... rock done only by local artists.

The market had monthly books. In the first book, with over 300 full coverage, partial and neighborhood stations, the new format got over a 20 share and was #1 far above #2. One of the local papers (circulation 1.2 million) said, "it took a foreigner to show us that we like our own rock!"

Story #2

Years before, in 1964, in a market of a million, there was no Top 40 station. In fact, there was no station that played the same music format all day, despite there being over 30 fulltime stations in the market. The first Top 40 went on the air, and other broadcasters made jokes about the "pocket station" because only kids with pocket radios listened and nobody else. Ratings were done by a major ad agency, McCann-Erickson, 6 months later when the station was nearly broke and might have had to sign off. Instead, it was #1. 100% sold out at market's highest rates in a month.

This kind of story is common. Scot Shannon's "worst to first" in NYC. Bill Drake's KHJ taking a dead, dead station and making it #1 in LA.

Of course, Shannon went on to do Pirate Radio in LA and it bombed. We can't all hit the bull's eye every time.

There are plenty of nearly dead stations that have been taken by skilled management and a good programmer and made into something big.
 
I spent some time working in the Terre Haute market, and the most stupendous failure in that market's history was Mike Rice. He was convicted of sexually abusing five minors, and lost all his licenses, in Terre Haute and other markets in the process.

Perhaps the worst part about this was the limbo. Rice was convicted in 1994. The FCC began an investigation as to whether Rice was qualified to be a licensee shortly thereafter. The commission ruled that the licenses should be revoked in 1998, but through a series of appeals Rice continued to operate his stations until 2001. If you thought your absentee owner was bad, how about an absentee owner who is in prison, who is picking a fight with the FCC!

The FCC gave Rice an opportunity to locate a qualified licensee to transfer his authorizations to, but Rice did not avail of that opportunity. So the stations suddenly shut down in the fall of 2001. One of the allocations was deleted to allow a station in Chicago to upgrade (WBOW 640), WBUZ-AM 1230 was off the air until 2014, and WZZQ was re-allocated for non-commercial use and finally signed back on the air in 2017 as a 50kW religious FM, primarily airing 7th-Day Adventist programming.

The LA Times offered a wrap of this unusual case after the Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal of the FCC's ruling in the matter: https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-jul-31-mn-28931-story.html
 
PTBoardOp94 said:
I spent some time working in the Terre Haute market, and the most stupendous failure in that market's history was Mike Rice. He was convicted of sexually abusing five minors, and lost all his licenses, in Terre Haute and other markets in the process.l
Click to expand...

Not as sordid and offensive, but Don Burden bribed congressmen, and did a number of other evil deeds. The un-amused FCC took his licenses in Indianapolis, Omaha, Denver and Portland, OR.

Richard Eaton did things like double billing and hidden lottery numbers. Lost radio stations in DC and Miami.

There are more, going down to towns in South Carolina that you need a detailed map to find.
 
As for format blunders, WGRP and WEXC in Greenville, Pennsylvania come to mind.

The man that initially signed on both of the stations was a bachelor. It seems when he was ready to retire, the station passed to his long-time sales manager who continued the operation just as it had been.

WGRP and WEXC were simulcast with a Lite Rock format and network news coupled with local news. They carried local sports, college and professional sports. They served the local area well and it was thought their core service area was around 25,000 people. While they were mainly automated, they did a good job serving the local community and estimates were the station billed about $300,000 a year, a figure that was actually pretty good for a small town station in that area.

There’s always a bit of bad blood when stations sell and most of the details came from the buyer that purchased the station from the sales manager that bought it from the original owner. I spoke to the new owner and he was a really nice guy. He had the money to run the stations perpetually if he desired. He was a successful businessman.

As I understand it, the price was $475,000 but the original office/studio building on the property where the tower was located did not come with the sale. If I recall correctly the price for the parcel with the studio/office and tower was $90,000 but the county assessed the true value at half that price.

The new owner claimed the guy likely sold because some major repairs were needed by then and likely the sales manager turned owner hadn’t the cash to do the upkeep. Reportedly the studio/office was in need of major repairs and I was told the tower and ground system was old.

When I spoke to the new owner, he had moved the FM tower site and had offices in town. The AM was dark because of the disagreement over the price of the property. The FM was running a satellite delivered oldies format and was trying to regain relationships with local businesses. The FM no longer carried local news. It was evident the FM had been silent as they awaited approval for the move to a new tower site.

Abruptly, the new owner who had now put the AM back on the air, changed the format to a couple of flavors of Christian music based formats, seemingly with no local information. The FM would eventually turn Christian Rock/Alternative. If I recall correctly the AM was either Southern Gospel or Christian Country. The FM was actually after the Youngstown market.


This new owner had 5 separate stations. I believe two were near Youngstown, close enough to be Youngstown stations. The other AM was a small market AM.

In the years the owner had WGRP and WEXC, the AM likely had been leased. It shared a classic country format with the AM small market station he owned.

I gathered his pair of AMs in the Youngstown market sold ministries and brokered time to anyone with the cash. If you wanted to do a polka music show, you could buy a block of time. If you wanted an hour for a Russian language program you could buy it. If you wanted a 30 minute slot for preaching, you could buy it on these stations. Such stations could bill a decent amount at one point.

Needless to say, the sale to this new owner destroyed an institution of local radio in Greenville extending back to the 1950s. It began with the stations being off the air for a time. Then it was further destroyed by opting for formats where the true listener base was too low to make the formats economically viable.

When this gentleman passed away, the family quickly sold all 5 stations. By then the monthly average billing of all five of the stations combined was about $12,000 a month.

I believe WGRP/WEXC sold for $225,000 to EMF. As it worked out, WGRP AM was sold by EMF for $50,000.
 
Stress said:
I have been searching the archives to see if a thread like this was ever done, so forgive me if I missed it.

TELL US--why did a radio station (FM preferable) fail that you worked at or perhaps you know anecdotally through others, peer stations, or fabulous disasters that reverberate within the industry. This can be anything from the sublime to the stupendous; slight miscalculations to major malfunctions are all welcome. Dish the dirt. I am curious.

ALSO--how common is it for a radio station to fail out of business and sell off due to financial calamity? I'm not talking "sad earnings" but rather hitting the dirt and digging into debt.

BONUS--any fabulous and unexpected success stories you ever heard of? Has anything bizarre and unexpected ever saved a flagging or damned radio station from dissolution?

Thanks for your input.
Click to expand...

My story's from an AM station....but here ya go.

I used to have a pretty successful pro wrestling talk/call-in show at WDJZ (1530 AM) in Bridgeport, CT. Yes, it was brokered time, but I was getting some good "bang for my buck".

That's when, through no fault of mine, things started to go south for the station. Apparently, the FCC found them to be in violation of the rule requiring fencing around the transmitter (which was present, but deemed inadequate). Thus, the feds imposed a fine on the station's owners, one that they said they could not afford to pay. After an apparent appeal, the FCC declined to reduce this fine.

Regardless of whether the fine was ever paid or not, that was the death knell for WDJZ; I was notified that they were ceasing all operations.

Now that I think about it, perhaps the owners of the station didn't want to be bothered any longer. For a time, they went internet-only....couldn't they have continued with that arrangement? And it seems to me that they might have had a chance to sell the station. To just simply close up shop is kind of bizarre.

Anywho, that's my story, and I'm sticking to it. :-/
 
Kelly A said:
I've been working in the broadcast biz for over three decades as a blue collar, and corporate ranks. With the exception of LPFM's, I've never seen a stupendous failure that caused the doors to permanently close on an FM station. Unlike your average business, there's a license attached to that FM station. Even though the ownership/management may be incompetent and unable to remain viable, there is always someone else coming along who will purchase the station to try themselves. Even if the station is sold at a fire sale price.

I've seen programming missteps, usually a format change or 'tweak', that has caused the listeners to run away to the competition. Ultimately, someone came along and stabilized the format to the point where the station started making money again.



For small markets? All too common. But as I mentioned, there is always someone else, or a group, that will pick up the pieces and try again in the market. That includes religious broadcasters.
Few banks will lend based on a station valuation anymore because after the recession of 2018, station (stick) values went way down. One could argue that the valuation model had gotten too high anyway.
Click to expand...

The market correction had to happen. Stations were overvalued. This will open the door for new owners and operators.
 
Groove1670 said:
The market correction had to happen. Stations were overvalued. This will open the door for new owners and operators.
Click to expand...

Really? When? What's mainly happened is prime radio properties are being bought up by EMF. Sure there exceptions, such as WABC in NY and KLOS is LA. But where are all the passionate new owners in other places? We were led to believe that "real broadcasters" would bring back the golden age of radio. It hasn't happened.
 
TheBigA said:
Really? When? What's mainly happened is prime radio properties are being bought up by EMF. Sure there exceptions, such as WABC in NY and KLOS is LA. But where are all the passionate new owners in other places? We were led to believe that "real broadcasters" would bring back the golden age of radio. It hasn't happened.
Click to expand...

I never said anything about "real broadcasters" don't know what that means. As a owner, do I qualify as a "real broadcaster".

I can't speak for NY and LA (and I don't really don't care). To think that a "passionate owner" is going to plop down money for a major market property at this time (or in the near future) is asinine.

I was addressing several small market and medium market stations that have been purchased recently at a fair market value. No, not at the pace as in the past, but the deals are there. Maybe I should of been more concise.
 
WLDR in Traverse City, MI. 100,000 watts from not far from TC. The station has been silent since last fall after an LMA went south. The station had been struggling pretty much since the current owner bought it for way too much $$$ in 2000
 
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.


Back
Top Bottom