We know the billing, which is gross income. Deduct all the expenses, starting with sales commissions, sports rights, talent, and all the other variables and it is possible that WCBS was not profitable.
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Good Karma To Lease 880; WCBS News Programming To End
- Thread starter lanceventa
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This is not a monopoly. It is simply a small segment of the total listening pool that goes to two stations; there are other stations with news, starting with NPR affiliates.
The FCC stepped in with the potential sale-generated sports monopoly in because it was a much larger part of the overall pie and an immense portion of total radio billings in the market... and... the combo would have controlled all the significant play by play in Boston. This was not the case in NYC with news.
I keep reading this as though companies are people and they're not. They don't make business decisions based on personal likes or dislikes. If that was true, there would still be an alternative station in NY. It's not personal, it's business.
The fact of the matter is the audience for this format is over 65. That applies to both stations. Anyone who actually listened to WCBS knows what that means as far as the quality of advertising. Anyone who listened to this station knows that the age problem meant they had to run an entire weekend of infomercials to make their budget. This decision is about money. Audacy owns a heritage all-news station in Dallas. Over the last few months, they've been adding conservative talk shows to the station. That could have happened to WCBS. The circumstances are very similar. But someone came up with the sports idea. That's what led to this decision. Not someone's personal preference. The company wants the best for all of their properties, and hopes they all make a lot of money.
And my assumption is that the baseball game and related (pre and post game, etc.) revenue is the dominant part of overall revenue on that station.
Even if it was profitable, I’d think Audacy was tracking the trends in profitability which was almost surely decreasing, especially since WINS started broadcasting on FM. If the trend analysis showed WCBS would be only breaking even or losing money within a year or two from a business perspective this was the right decision. But I still feel for everyone losing their jobs.
Often, those tribute shows are done more to please the staff and to get some outside publicity. All it says to the listener is that the station is really old.
On a number of occasions I have stepped in to stop numbered anniversary celebrations where the age is greater than the median age of my listeners. Better to do "another year of being the best station for your all time favorite songs in Smalltown!" with a contest or event that thanks listeners for "being part of Z-109 for another year of the best music in Smalltown".
The best is "at Z-109 we have a birthday, too. But instead of getting presents (pause) ...we give them... because you made us the best music station in Smalltown".
*Mets. Yankees are on WFAN.
The only two all-news options in the same market being owned by the same company is absolutely a monopoly on the format.
I know you love, and will always staunchly defend your beloved giant, bloated, bankrupt radio conglomerates, but this is what it leads to. A great heritage radio station has been destroyed by it. We could have seen it coming a mile away.
I can understand your opinion based on emotion, but I think your objective financial math is flawed. If not for consolidation, what you see happening today would likely have happened years ago. The significant reduction in overall revenue simply cannot be ignored.
Once again, WCBS was not all-news. It's as much all news as WNYC. A monopoly isn't about being the only company doing something. It's about using that advantage in an anti-competitive way. That's clearly not what happened here. If the company did something to prevent another company from entering the format, that would be monopolistic. Being an all-news station is not an advantage. If it was, you'd see more companies doing it in more markets.
If SiriusXM isn't a monopoly despite being the only satellite radio service in the U.S., then there's no way Audacy could be any sort of monopoly when other stations in the market are also broadcasting news. The bar for monopoly is set very high, understandable considering Corporate America's influence on the legislative and judicial branches of government.
But anyone can do the same... Randy Michaels tried in NYC and failed horribly. There is no "format monopoly" per se. That is why the FCC looked at who controlled the rights to all play by play in Boston because that is a commodity in limited supply.
Most radio owners are not bankrupt. All are struggling with the loss of people to streaming. A few are bankrupt due to financing deals that made sense before the 2008 "trifecta" of the PPM, the recession and the introduction of the smart phone. But most operators are trying to adjust to the new environment.
The best example of adjustments is Townsquare, whose revenue is now well over half from new media that they package with their radio clusters. The groups that have not move away from pure AM and FM are the worst off.
WCBS had very poor ratings except in the play by play breakouts. "Heritage" in radio is you last book... and that is made up of your last 24 hours 28 times over.
Nobody listens to a station because it "used to be good". Unless it is good today, nothing else matters. We don't run museums.
And SiriusXM is a monopoly in a very narrow niche. The two original satellite operators were allowed to merge because there was no way to project two such services ever being profitable, leaving the government no choice.
Sirius is a regulated monopoly. That was part of their merger agreement.
There are no regulations that require a radio company stick with a format regardless of circumstances.
What are some other regulated monopolies? Or was the designation created just to ensure the survival of satellite radio in the U.S.?
For decades, the telcos were regulated monopolies (and still are quasi-monopolies for wired internet, etc), as are electric power companies, water and gas companies, cable TV companies, private subcontracted trash pickup services, even the limited food and gas places along the PA turnpike.
Is it really possible that those expenses would exceed the $29 million it was bringing in annually? I’m not disagreeing, I just wanted to know your opinion.
That's a truly arrogant way to belittle a legitimate question.
I'll tell you why. There is no authoritative source for music. A song by Taylor Swift, Beyonce or any other artist is just as good being played by Lite, NEW, CBS-FM, KTU or Spotify. As long as they're not editing a song in such a way as to butcher it, or processing it so badly that they're destroying the ability to be enjoyed by listeners, a song is a song is a song.
Anyone who thinks that's still true today with news has been in a Rip Van Winkle-length coma. (Google the reference, kids.) A news story carried on Fox News is not as authoritative as the same topic carried on an NPR hourly. "News" from TikTok cannot be relied on with the same trust level as that same subject being covered by the resources of CBS or ABC network news, even given their latter-year diminishment. Look at the difference in how WCBS or WINS covers a completely-local story, compared to the current-day WABC or WOR (much less WFAN or WNYM), then realize they all lack the resources that a network affiliation can bring to a national or international story. Which at the moment means only WCBS, and only for 9 more days. (If you think that's untrue, try getting your news exclusively from any of the other stations for awhile and then review how informed you've been, how well you've been served by their parsimonious coverages.) What the CBS network brings to WCBS and other affiliates that still take it is a level of authority, for non-local coverage, that demonstrates a seriousness that has largely evaporated most everywhere else in commercial news coverage.
Of course, if someone wants an organization with a truly serious approach to new coverage, they're already listening to an NPR member station. For now, WCBS or WINS are the only commercial alternatives, and one of them will be blown up after next week.
They are in Bankruptcy. Almost everything has to be approved by the Court Appointed Trustee who answers to the judge. If you want to remain a trustee you don't do things to decrease positive cash flow. On paper this increases positive cash flow.
Apparently 880 didn't have that much cash left after expenses
Apparently 880 didn't have that much cash left after expenses
None of those are national monopolies. They are monopolies in their own limited territories. SiriusXM is a true national monopoly. No one else can start up a rival satellite radio company because SXM has exclusive rights to the entire bandwidth. I've never understood why the "merger of equals" (laughable, since Sirius in fact bought out XM) was approved. Plenty of powerful palms must have been greased.
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