How to go broke in broadcasting

[thirdendorsed]

Buy stuff and then sell it for 20% of what you paid for it!

WAMG, Dedham and WLLH, Lowell sold by Mega to J Sports. Price: $9,000,000

WAMG, Dedham sold to Gois. Price: $1,300,000

WLLH, Lowell sold to Gois. Price: $500,000

Apparent loss on transfers: $7,200,000

Yeah, yeah, yeah, there may be "other considerations" including assumption of debt. Yeah.

 

[DanStrassberg]

Buy stuff and then sell it for 20% of what you paid for it!

Well, your story is true, but the shorter and more humorous version has been around for years (decades, maybe):

How to become a millionaire in radio:
Start with a billion dollars...

I'm sure there are enough real-life examples that the short version could correctly be called true.

 

[MassMusicMan]

Somebody paid 9 million dollars for AM stations? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. That's awesome.

 

[Don Juan]

Buy stuff and then sell it for 20% of what you paid for it!

Great post! lol!

It's good to remember how times change...and this is the new "now". ;-0)

Are you sure about that original $9 million figure?

 

[thirdendorsed]

Yes indeed, nine million and they blew it in less than five years.

https://licensing.fcc.gov/cdbs/CDBS...?appn=101051372&qnum=5030&copynum=1&exhcnum=1

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[CTListener]

Buy stuff and then sell it for 20% of what you paid for it!

Well, your story is true, but the shorter and more humorous version has been around for years (decades, maybe):

How to become a millionaire in radio:
Start with a billion dollars...

I'm sure there are enough real-life examples that the short version could correctly be called true.

I prefer the variant I once heard a musician use in an interview: "How do you make a small fortune in folk music? Start with a big fortune!"

 

[MarcB]

Station values are also down. Peter Davidson paid $1.4 million for WXCT 990 in the Hartford, CT Suburb of Southington in 2004 from Peter Aprin (who paid $850,000 in 1999). They're trying to unload it for $800,000 but they may be willing to take $700,000. - Still way too much money. (Gois offered them $500,000 and were turned down). While they got a kicking 2500 watt daytime signal that goes as far north as Northampton, Mass and as far Northwest as the Poughkeepsie area of New York their 80 watt signal at night barely goes 2 blocks.

 

[DanStrassberg]

their 80 watt signal at night barely goes 2 blocks.

They need to find an existing stick that is closer to the neighborhood where the demographic group they serve resides and diplex into it. As a Class D AM, they are not required to cover their CoL at night. That strategy might be tough for this particular station, however: The day and night patterns use the same two towers but the day pattern sends almost everything to the northwest and the night pattern sends almost everything to the southeast. To keep from having to reduce its night power, WXCT needs two towers with more or less the same orientation and spacing as the two towers at its own site. My guess is that there is nothing suitable anywhere in the listening area. But the WSNG 610 array (in Thomaston, I think) might work, if there is anyone near it that WXCT would want to reach. And WSNG has three towers, which might allow the use of more than 80W at night.

This idea actually has some potential! WSNG is 15 miles NW of WXCT and WSNG's towers are lined up to create a pattern that aims almost directly at WXCT. Moving WXCT's night operation to the WSNG site would give WXCT night coverage in the heart of the area that the day signal serves. This idea is probably too expensive for WXCT's budget, but it appears to have the potential to significantly increase the station's stick value. If the ownership can see its way clear to spend money to improve the night signal, this idea would be worth pursuing.

 

[MarcB]

their 80 watt signal at night barely goes 2 blocks.

They need to find an existing stick that is closer to the neighborhood where the demographic group they serve resides and diplex into it. As a Class D AM, they are not required to cover their CoL at night. That strategy might be tough for this particular station, however: The day and night patterns use the same two towers but the day pattern sends almost everything to the northwest and the night pattern sends almost everything to the southeast. To keep from having to reduce its night power, WXCT needs two towers with more or less the same orientation and spacing as the two towers at its own site. My guess is that there is nothing suitable anywhere in the listening area. But the WSNG 610 array (in Thomaston, I think) might work, if there is anyone near it that WXCT would want to reach. And WSNG has three towers, which might allow the use of more than 80W at night.

This idea actually has some potential! WSNG is 15 miles NW of WXCT and WSNG's towers are lined up to create a pattern that aims almost directly at WXCT. Moving WXCT's night operation to the WSNG site would give WXCT night coverage in the heart of the area that the day signal serves. This idea is probably too expensive for WXCT's budget, but it appears to have the potential to significantly increase the station's stick value. If the ownership can see its way clear to spend money to improve the night signal, this idea would be worth pursuing.

WSNG's towers are in Harwington. And one would assume if someone wanted to invest in buying the station and persue this idea they'd have to get permission from Buckley Radio since they're the ones who own WSNG. Also would the FCC allow this? I mean I have heard of station using different sites day and night, but 15 miles away?

 

[12 In a Row]

Cost to upgrade? Return on investment?

 

[DanStrassberg]

WSNG's towers are in Harwington. And one would assume if someone wanted to invest in buying the station and persue this idea they'd have to get permission from Buckley Radio since they're the ones who own WSNG. Also would the FCC allow this? I mean I have heard of station using different sites day and night, but 15 miles away?

The FCC has approved many separate day and night sites for Class D AMs. There is nothing exceptional about the sites being 15 miles apart. The best example I can think of is WRDT, the AM 560 licensed to Monroe MI. Monroe is half-way between Detroit and Toledo along the shores of Lake Erie. The four-tower 500W day site is south of Monroe and is directional to the north to cover Detroit, which it does pretty well. The 13W ND night site is north of Detroit--in Southfield, I believe, 41.2 miles from the day site. The night site uses a Folded Unipole on an ~1000' shared communications tower known as the Mo-Tower. I'm sure that you need a very good radio and a night with exceptionally bad skywave to pck WRDT's 13W night signal out of the hash on 560 in the CoL (Monroe).

I realize that WLGZ delivers a pretty potent skywave on 990 into central CT on most nights, so I have no idea whether 80W DA on 990 would be in any better shape by the time it had traveled the 15 miles from Harwinton to Southington than 13W ND is in Monroe after it has traveled the 41 miles from Southfield, but I should have made my point.

Obviously. Buckley would have to agree to the diplex and WXCT would have to enter into a lease with Buckley for any diplex to be constructed. Since we're talking about use of the WSNG site by two directional stations (albeit both with pretty low power), the design/construction costs would NOT be negligible, but the result could be worth it.

Oh, an added complication. which would probably add to the cost of proofing the 990 operation is that WSNG's towers are top loaded. The gain in efficiency at 990 would be nice (16 degrees of top loading at 990, making the towers electrically ~134 degrees at 990, which would be good for holding down the high-angle skywave toward WALE) but I think the FCC wants proof that the vertical radiation pattern is, in fact, what the method-of-moments analysis says it should be.