Which one do you listen to? Which one is the better sounding station?
-
Get involved.
We want your input!
Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.
After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.
After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/
Thanks in advance and have fun!
RadioDiscussions Administrators
Island 106 vs. Hot 1079 - Panama City
- Thread starter lovejamminoldies
- Start date
poledo said:
Back in the nineties, LaVela was dropping $125K annually for 6 months of Island's nightly remotes, still way cheaper than buying, owning & operating an FM 24/7/365--even at Double O's fire sale prices. Given the trajectory of radio ad pricing over the last 20 years, it's hard to imagine that they're paying any more today--probably less.
Well, you got to admit that after the Miracle Strip Tower WPFM studio came down it would have been pretty cool for them to relocate the Great 108 studios to the LaVela/Spinnaker area, if not tied in with one of those monster clubs. I was getting too old for Top-40 when Island 106 started up... plus Island never had a great signal west of Destin or north of I-10... where I spent most of my time. WPFM reached from Pensacola to Tallahassee, into Dothan, Alabama and even south-west Georgia. Island just covered the PCB area.
Actually I was re-thinking my post above, and you know--at $237K it probably would have been a good investment for LaVela (if they still do those nightly remotes) to buy a stick of their own. The $125K annual savings would pay for the SOB in less than two years, and hell, these babies are just iPods-with-transmitters nowadays, anyway. No humans required. Just tuck it in a closet and let Tibbs program it from Nashville. Or screw Tibbs and just put the iPod on "shuffle" and forget about it... just like Double O did. 
Do any nightclubs in the US have a in house radio station? It seems like a cool idea. LaVela would be a great host... put the station on auto-pilot most of the time and broadcast whatever is playing in the club live at night all spring and summer.... toss in John Boy and Billy in the morning and they'd be the #1 radio station in Chipley AND Bonifay!
They would need at least one DJ/on air personality to MC and do a little taking on air during live LaVela broadcasts, but they might be able to get someone decent and right out of college cheap... or easily find someone to pay with free drinks and loose FSU sorority girls. Tibbs seems like a good candidate for that position. You'd probably apply for the job too, Redneck. I'd even try to tune up my voice and shoot for it!
They would need at least one DJ/on air personality to MC and do a little taking on air during live LaVela broadcasts, but they might be able to get someone decent and right out of college cheap... or easily find someone to pay with free drinks and loose FSU sorority girls. Tibbs seems like a good candidate for that position. You'd probably apply for the job too, Redneck. I'd even try to tune up my voice and shoot for it!
Hey, I'd take that $100,000 cut in pay to spin tunes at LaVela or Spinnaker while sipping brewskies and staring at the lovelies. And you never know--one with a "Grandpa Complex" might show up some night...
Not sure my wife would let me take the gig, though. LOL
You know which signal always just burned up Chipley and Bonifay? 97X. And we ran Howard Stern on that baby--a big hit there in the Bible Belt! The Bonifay Chamber of Commerce was a big fan!
Poledo, this thread belongs on the North Florida board. Wanna just cut & paste the damn thing and slap it up there?
RNR/amfmxm
Not sure my wife would let me take the gig, though. LOL
You know which signal always just burned up Chipley and Bonifay? 97X. And we ran Howard Stern on that baby--a big hit there in the Bible Belt! The Bonifay Chamber of Commerce was a big fan!
Poledo, this thread belongs on the North Florida board. Wanna just cut & paste the damn thing and slap it up there?
RNR/amfmxm
LOL. You're right. Given the chance, we all want to be 25 again & footloose.
Back to the original question, Island 106 has been kicking Hot 107.9's ass for years, now. As a continuing practitioner of this art (in real life, I actually do manage a half-dozen radio stations), I've wondered why PFM kept banging away at 105.9, but kinda figured that there must have been enough "beach" money laying around unclaimed that they were able to churn out a nice profit as the perennial #2 CHR.
But the announced purchase price for the Double O cluster makes it appear as though I was mistaken. Less than a million for four FM stations is the lowest I've seen, anywhere. And it must reflect a cluster with no discernible CF/operating profit. And, apparently, no programming imagination or good sense.
Back to the original question, Island 106 has been kicking Hot 107.9's ass for years, now. As a continuing practitioner of this art (in real life, I actually do manage a half-dozen radio stations), I've wondered why PFM kept banging away at 105.9, but kinda figured that there must have been enough "beach" money laying around unclaimed that they were able to churn out a nice profit as the perennial #2 CHR.
But the announced purchase price for the Double O cluster makes it appear as though I was mistaken. Less than a million for four FM stations is the lowest I've seen, anywhere. And it must reflect a cluster with no discernible CF/operating profit. And, apparently, no programming imagination or good sense.
With the low price on Double O radio I wonder if it might now be possible for someone to buy WFXX and WPFM (or just pay off PFM.) Then 107.9 could be downgraded to a class A and 107.7 could be moved into the Pensacola market as a C2. This scenario should also open up 107.5 for a new allocation in the Montgomery market.
Panama City just isn't big enough to deserve all those 100kw stations... PCB could keep PAP and Sunny and knock most of the other stations down to 50 kw or 25 kw power levels more consistent with the market size. That would allow some other towns get new C2 or C3 station stations to replace the old little local stations that were poached to become beach move-ins.
Then again, I am suggesting that someone steal another radio station from Andalusia and Evergreen to add to the Pensacola market.
Would radio have any more good music on it if all the 100kw stations went away and the FM dial was repopulated with 3kw to 50kw signals? Or would it just double the amount of stations playing contemporary country and middle aged woman lite rock?
Heck, started up a good discussion of the good old days when 105.9 challenged 107.9 for the title of "Top Rocker on Panama City Beach" and it made me depressed about the sad state of radio today which in turn made me start brainstorming unrealistic ideas to revive radio and make it cool again. I need a Xanax... and a Rocker on the beach... to sit in or listen to while I take some more Xanax.
Panama City just isn't big enough to deserve all those 100kw stations... PCB could keep PAP and Sunny and knock most of the other stations down to 50 kw or 25 kw power levels more consistent with the market size. That would allow some other towns get new C2 or C3 station stations to replace the old little local stations that were poached to become beach move-ins.
Then again, I am suggesting that someone steal another radio station from Andalusia and Evergreen to add to the Pensacola market.
Would radio have any more good music on it if all the 100kw stations went away and the FM dial was repopulated with 3kw to 50kw signals? Or would it just double the amount of stations playing contemporary country and middle aged woman lite rock?
Heck, started up a good discussion of the good old days when 105.9 challenged 107.9 for the title of "Top Rocker on Panama City Beach" and it made me depressed about the sad state of radio today which in turn made me start brainstorming unrealistic ideas to revive radio and make it cool again. I need a Xanax... and a Rocker on the beach... to sit in or listen to while I take some more Xanax.
Oh, radio isn't in such a sad state. Our little company spins off millions of dollars in cold, hard profit every year and we're just a bunch of small-town shits.
And just last week the 2011 list of top-billers was announced, and DC's WTOP showed a billing (ad revenue) increase of around 12 percent to pop up to about $64 million for good old Hubbard Broadcasting, and I'd guess that at least $30 million of that--maybe $40 million--drops directly to the bottom line.
In other words, there are still good broadcasters and lousy broadcasters in American radio, just like always. Double O, for whatever reasons, wasn't able to figure out how to succeed in Panama City, but they're not the first to screw it up... nor will they be the last.
And as far as the general pricing of radio stations today, it's not that much different from the overall real estate market. When lenders decide to start lending again, there's a good chance that the market (and prices) will rebound. Right now the banks make more money just borrowing from the fed at 1% and lending it back to the fed at 3%, so lending to anyone to buy anything is stupid. Besides, it cuts into their 4-hour lunches.
And just last week the 2011 list of top-billers was announced, and DC's WTOP showed a billing (ad revenue) increase of around 12 percent to pop up to about $64 million for good old Hubbard Broadcasting, and I'd guess that at least $30 million of that--maybe $40 million--drops directly to the bottom line.
In other words, there are still good broadcasters and lousy broadcasters in American radio, just like always. Double O, for whatever reasons, wasn't able to figure out how to succeed in Panama City, but they're not the first to screw it up... nor will they be the last.
And as far as the general pricing of radio stations today, it's not that much different from the overall real estate market. When lenders decide to start lending again, there's a good chance that the market (and prices) will rebound. Right now the banks make more money just borrowing from the fed at 1% and lending it back to the fed at 3%, so lending to anyone to buy anything is stupid. Besides, it cuts into their 4-hour lunches.
cceng said:
Trying to keep all those nostalgic thoughts and feelings bottled up is hard, isn't it? Things will never be the way they used to be and they probably won't be better in our lifetime... except that hopefully, one day, we'll all have enough investments to retire to the woods and vacation on the beach whenever we want. Carrabelle may not be overpopulated in our lifetime... hopefully. Hopefully no one will build nice roads into the Big Bend area in the next 20 years. Everything from Biloxi to Apalachicola has been already been occupied by the Yankees.
I have no time to look at this board ever, but today, I figured why not and look at what I have missed. Great comments. I could program them channels rite nice from America's beautiful Music City, but like you, RNR, I'd need to make sure I kept my eye on the situation along the waters edge while I can still see. Agree on the imagination being necessary for those stations and they'd have to be methodically programmed to take on water as other smaller owners would attack. Not sure I'd even waste the time playing Top 40/Urban/CHRa. Those clubs bring in night revenue, but what could you get with a better demo. Real issue is that the PCB market has changed since the 80s so CCENG would know more about what that revenue stream would look like. Sad that that gifted engineer in PC probably can tell you more about revenues and programming moves than any other in America. CCENG - I so owe you a case of something. I suck for not checking in. Bad excuses, which is no excuse. I can just say, almost to the Day, 1.5 years of the latest and greatest project I swore I wouldn't do, 12 hrs a day...and I finally had my first real flashback of the good ole days on this post in some time by just demanding i take some time away from that project. RNR - I still contend the overall status of the 4some equipment, image and viability is so bad that it will cost them $4M to dig their way up the ranks. Can this Iowa company figure out PC? I dunno. Can anyone? Its kinda like buying a house for $100, but you find the termites, biohazard dump, nuclear waste site, no access from the street and you quickly realize someone didn't really do their home inspection. Better to just call in Fire Marshall Bill Burns .... Let me show ya something....
Tibbs2 said:
The media memory of the average guy/gal on the street is extremely short, nowadays. In TV, for instance, most of the "exciting new shows" that debuted last fall are long-ago cancelled and completely forgotten. Radio listeners have trouble enough connecting call-letters to dial-positions, much less remembering which station is "Hank" or "The Beat." That's why marketing for radio stations has become a matter of making everying real, real, real simple. Easy, peezy, lemon-squeezy!
The ratings summary here on radio-info for godforsaken Sioux City shows Powell whipping Clear Channel soundly in a head-to-head Country battle, so maybe they've got the chops to do it in PC. Hey, cceng, have they taken over the Uh-Oh foursome, yet?
- Status