doc9464 said:
Good question, I have been trying to solicit Nova M to look at what they can do here in the providence area....I would be curious to hear what people thought the going rate might be to save one of these stations. Both WPRO and WHJJ have pretty darn decent signals, both probably have good worth on the open market. After the CC purge, Im still not sure how strongly CC thinks of the PVD area in its game plans for the future. This could be an interesting discussion thread....
Either WHJJ or WPRO would bring good bucks. Their transmitter locations are close enough to Providence and are on marshy ground where they would be allowed to built in today's environmental climate. Good tower height for a strong signal in each case. Their 5-kW signal is what they're gonna get; the years when something more powerful might have been possible are long gone.
WSAR likely will one day bring more money than it's worth, especially if some future buyer is thinking of it as a rimshot at Providence which, really, it is not. The transmitter location is not optimal; they might actually have had a better signal from their old site (some 45+ years ago) had they been able to keep it and get down to 2-tower DA N as they were able to do on the new site. But that's history.
WBSM would be appealing only if the target were New Bedford and parts of Cape Cod.
The sleeper in the market remains in a deep slumber.
That's Disney's 550 whose current call I can't remember. There are a couple of problems that might not be insurmountable:
1. It's presently 1-kW days, ND; 2-tower DA N with only 500 Watts. Still, with the transmitter location on swampy ground just North of Providence, it pumps out one hell of a signal into the metro area.
2. Dial position. 550 is great for coverage but hard to successfully promote. Maybe not as hard today as in the days of rotary-knob tuned car radios but certainly demanding serious promotional work.
At one time there was a scheme for a third tower and around 4.5 or 5 kW but, if memory serves, that was dashed by "wetlands protection". Rhode Island being what it is, it might be possible for somebody really clever to propose purchasing some desireable upland geography and doing a swap giving title to the "new" land to some conservancy group in exchange for consideration of use of additional wetland. An additional tower on that site is pretty much invisible to anyone but the most sensitive eco-freak (down in a hole along The Blackstone River). There's a long history of towers in that stretch going back to the 1920's (old tower bases still visible across the river). Doing that stuff would certainly be expensive but I believe that if Disney were ever to decide to sell the station, "as is" would cost quite a lot less than either WPRO or WHJJ would bring so the total cost of equal or better coverage might actually be less.
