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Family Stations Will Sell 94.7FM WFME Newark
- Thread starter Giacomo Siffredi
- Start date
Merlin is backed by a Chicago-based private equity fund GTCR, which invests in companies with "growth potential." It reportedly has about $3.25-Billion to play with. And buying an FM license in a major market like Philly for $22-million is not going to tap them out anytime soon. Not that they are likely to want to put good money after bad, but when you start companies with new ways of doing things to eventually generate growth, you are in it for the long-term, or at least several years. Merlin isn't a year old yet and people like GTCR understand that.
Check out GTCR's website and you'll get an idea of how they think and work: http://www.gtcr.com/
That said, it seems they see the growth opportunity in all-news, and they want to be in as many major markets as possible, likely meaning one station per market. The only reason they have the second Chicago station is that it was part of the three station package they had to buy to get FM frequencies in NYC and Chicago. They probably don't want to be in a music format business, but that could change if they can't find a way to make all news work.
The even bigger bucks new player in the Jersey radio game is Townsquare, which owns NJ-101.5 and clusters in South Jersey.
They didn't exist two years ago, now have about 180 stations, and are backed by Oaktree Capital, which has about $80-billion under management. They could easily buy WFME, as a North Jersey relay for NJ-101.5's Jersey-centric programming. That might work very well for them and they wouldn't have to deal with moving the transmitter to NYC to achieve their goals or reach their target audience.
Under normal economic conditions there might be a slew of companies bidding on a rare NY area FM license, but too many broadcasters are just trying to hold on to what they have got now, and aren't interested in taking on more debt. So, while there are still multiple likely bidders the list is probably a lot shorter than it would have been ten years ago.
Nick said:
Why would they throw away weekends just to roll out a deep-playlist, '50s- and '60s-intensive oldies format to compete with a very strong, tightly focused WCBS-FM?
Bill_W said:
They got 97.5 as part of a trade with Nassau involving 99.5 in the Boston market.
The reality here is that nobody - not Nassau, not Greater, not Townsquare - can afford to pay the New York City-market price Family will demand for the 94.7 signal and then turn around and pay back that debt by operating the station as a New Jersey-focused standalone. The revenue's not there to make it work.
With the future of 107.5 in the balance, the value of 94.7 may not be as high as if Innercity were in better shape.
That variable makes a purchase of 94.7 available to players who otherwise might consider 94.7 too high of a risk.
Add to that, the medical condition of Brother Camping, one can see why they changed the condition of the license back to "Commercial".
This is an interesting one, indeed. And just as we had been predicting all along.
Jeff in Sa-ra-so-ta!
That variable makes a purchase of 94.7 available to players who otherwise might consider 94.7 too high of a risk.
Add to that, the medical condition of Brother Camping, one can see why they changed the condition of the license back to "Commercial".
This is an interesting one, indeed. And just as we had been predicting all along.
Jeff in Sa-ra-so-ta!
Scott, you previously pointed out some pretty steep challenges in trying to move 94.7 to Empire. If it's not possible to do that could Family really get a full NYC-market price for this station?
Theater of My Mind said:
I dug into this pretty deeply a few weeks back in NERW...but the short answer is, no, they're probably not going to get as much for the 94.7 signal out of NJ as they could with a full Empire B. But a lot really depends on who's in the hunt for a signal and what else is available. The potential sale of 107.5 couldn't come at a worse time for Family, since it could offer a much better signal for a price not much higher than what 94.7 would bring if it were the only NYC FM on the market.
Even so, whatever price ends up being paid for 94.7 will inevitably reflect the 10 million or so potential listeners outside of NJ, not just the 4 million or so in north Jersey.
I still think 94.7 would be particularly well suited for country music, as a lot of the country fans in the area live in NJ, and would receive a strong signal.
Cumulus could buy it as their second FM outlet in New York. They operate many country stations, such as Kicks 105, in nearby Danbury CT, and The Wolf, in the Hudson Valley.
The people posting about buying WBLS may be oversimplifying the situation. I read that the organization preparing to sell it wants it to be purchased as part of a package including most if not all other Inner City stations. Many of them have urban formats, and a big outcry could result if WBLS drops its urban focused programming. As a result it may be difficult to buy WBLS with the aim of filling a format hole in NYC.
Cumulus could buy it as their second FM outlet in New York. They operate many country stations, such as Kicks 105, in nearby Danbury CT, and The Wolf, in the Hudson Valley.
The people posting about buying WBLS may be oversimplifying the situation. I read that the organization preparing to sell it wants it to be purchased as part of a package including most if not all other Inner City stations. Many of them have urban formats, and a big outcry could result if WBLS drops its urban focused programming. As a result it may be difficult to buy WBLS with the aim of filling a format hole in NYC.
Barry said:
I agree, especially since WFME puts a better signal into places like Hunterdon, Sussex, Somerset, and Warren counties than a typical NYC station. These are suburban/rural areas that would likely embrace country music. Demographically, these areas are similar to places like the Hudson Valley and Long Island that already have country music stations.
Barry said:
Indeed...and that, as well as the Cumulus speculation, was also something I explored last month in NERW. Here's the link to that column, which I've pulled out from behind the paywall to share:
http://www.fybush.com/nerw-1912-wfme-goes-commercial/
As for WFME's signal, while it looks good on paper as ai4i notes, those contour maps don't take into account two very big factors: the skyline of Manhattan functions as a terrain block to WFME's eastward signal just as surely as a thousand-foot ridge would, and there's also the issue of receiver overload and intermodulation in midtown Manhattan from all those other signals coming from Empire.
ai4i said:
I thought so too, based on the maps and the decent reception I get in Manhattan on my table radio. But I took a walk around midtown a couple weeks ago with a portable FM radio (a better than average Sangean DT-110) and got pretty much zero reception on 94.7. Maybe someone with a car can chime in and report how it is driving around Manhattan but I suspect it's probably not very listenable that way either.
Maybe it's because your portable radio can't handle overloading well. My Insignia portable can not only get WFME right in the shadow of the Empire State Building, it can also get 94.5 PST there too. And yesterday with KTU's HD off, it got WPRB in lower Manhattan.Theater of My Mind said:
But then that would be the same with lots of other people's radios too. The Empire signals cut through everything.Nick said:
Since we are all just speculating and playing "what if" since there are two frequencies on the market, does anybody else see the possibility of a "grand deal" emerging the way it did when WQXR was sold by the NY Times, and the classical format was moved to the lesser (also Newark licensed) signal on 105.9.
In this case, ESPN has long been rumored to want an NYC FM, which would not only be important in terms of local audience and revenue, but would also be important for brand image in the home market of the advertising and communications industry.
An NYC FM would also be a long-term investment for ESPN, rather than just an opportunity to make a profit in the next quarter.
While WBLS offers the best available signal, at the very least, it also promises to bring public relations problems if the legacy minority programming is dumped. Any buyer is also going to be paying a premium for that legacy audience and not just pure stick value so it would make economic sense not to throw that established audience away.
In this case, a grand deal maker could have ESPN get the 107.5 signal, which offers better reception in some of the outer suburbs, while the WBLS call letters and legacy would move to 94.7 which adequately still covers the urban core of the metro area whether it can move its transmitter to NYC or not.
If ESPN really is that interested in owning an NYC FM, then this is the time, and they certainly have deep enough pockets to make it happen. So it does seem that they will be one of the major players in how this all works out. And it's also likely that the WBLS format will continue on one of the two stations after the transactions.
In this case, ESPN has long been rumored to want an NYC FM, which would not only be important in terms of local audience and revenue, but would also be important for brand image in the home market of the advertising and communications industry.
An NYC FM would also be a long-term investment for ESPN, rather than just an opportunity to make a profit in the next quarter.
While WBLS offers the best available signal, at the very least, it also promises to bring public relations problems if the legacy minority programming is dumped. Any buyer is also going to be paying a premium for that legacy audience and not just pure stick value so it would make economic sense not to throw that established audience away.
In this case, a grand deal maker could have ESPN get the 107.5 signal, which offers better reception in some of the outer suburbs, while the WBLS call letters and legacy would move to 94.7 which adequately still covers the urban core of the metro area whether it can move its transmitter to NYC or not.
If ESPN really is that interested in owning an NYC FM, then this is the time, and they certainly have deep enough pockets to make it happen. So it does seem that they will be one of the major players in how this all works out. And it's also likely that the WBLS format will continue on one of the two stations after the transactions.
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