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I would like to know the price of a lease for a commercial FM station, it MUST have good reception in downtown Philly. Do you know someone or know where I can search?
Thanks.
Thanks.
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Assuming there are ANY FM's in Philly that would want to lease some air time, I'd assume it would be the lower power, lower rated stations, that might want to lease air time, probably on the weekends, just as many AM's do. Possibly a smaller college station, not Temple's WRTI or U of Penn's WXPN.
Why would you want a broker? What you would want is a lawyer who practices before the FCC who can review the station owner's proposed LMA contract.
I agree you'd need a good FCC attorney and there's no way around that. With that said, a broker can locate possible stations and open doors that might be shut otherwise. I know a broker calling about a potential client tends to get our attention. We tend to presume they are 'qualified' and not tire kickers. Simply put we view them as serious. A broker won't take you if you don't pass the broker's test first.
Still I think leasing might be out of the question on FM. When stations are billing millions a year, why would they risk all those gains on a programmer that may or may not make it long term. Length of contract and no 'out' on the contract holds little weight since companies go belly up.
On AM that is a different story. I know in my market you can lease an AM for less than a note payment if the client bought the station, not by much but certainly substantial enough to consider starting with an AM LMA and then moving to ownership. Even well qualified candidates can go under. We had a very well qualified client with years of history go under and leave our station with zero billing. Sure we had a nice healthy deposit, but that only lasts so long. Finding a new client is tough. The group seeking a station 3 or 6 months ago is typically not in the market now and an existing client is bound by a contract. Sometimes it can take a year to replace a client In fact they almost have to call you out of the blue..
Then the financial backers might try to recoup a piece of their investment by blaming the station for the failure. I've seen that happen and even when that's not true, you invest lots of cash defending yourself. Putting such a clause in the contract doesn't work. You might be able to force an arbitrator but that costs you too.
Still I think leasing might be out of the question on FM. When stations are billing millions a year, why would they risk all those gains on a programmer that may or may not make it long term. Length of contract and no 'out' on the contract holds little weight since companies go belly up.
On AM that is a different story. I know in my market you can lease an AM for less than a note payment if the client bought the station, not by much but certainly substantial enough to consider starting with an AM LMA and then moving to ownership. Even well qualified candidates can go under. We had a very well qualified client with years of history go under and leave our station with zero billing. Sure we had a nice healthy deposit, but that only lasts so long. Finding a new client is tough. The group seeking a station 3 or 6 months ago is typically not in the market now and an existing client is bound by a contract. Sometimes it can take a year to replace a client In fact they almost have to call you out of the blue..
Then the financial backers might try to recoup a piece of their investment by blaming the station for the failure. I've seen that happen and even when that's not true, you invest lots of cash defending yourself. Putting such a clause in the contract doesn't work. You might be able to force an arbitrator but that costs you too.
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