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KMCQ files Minor Change for Cougar & KAFE, Bellingham files for 104.1 Mhz

F

FMSteve

Board member Semoochie from the 503 tipped us on this. As expected, First Broadcasting, licensee of KMCQ, Covington filed a minor change to go from Enumclaw to Cougar Mountain, contingent upon KAFE, Bellingham filing a minor change to go from 104.3 to 104.1, and the Forks station, KBDB to change channels, as well. The Forks station is owned by......yes........First Broadcasting.........surprise, surprise. There is a huge undisclosed sum of money being transferred to KAFE owner, SAGA broadcasting. KAFE will reduce their power in two directions towards Canada, 33KW and 26KW, respectively, and presumably go their full 60KW in all other directions. The tower location up on Cougar is cryptic, to say the least. I cross-referenced their stated coordinates to see which tower it's on, and came up with the Puget Sound Energy tower. But this is probably a ruse to throw us off as we attempt to determine the new buyer. The new buyer can easily correct these coordinates to their own tower.

Here's the new 60 dbu service: http://www.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/FMTV-service-area?x=FM1187001.html

47 32 36.9 Long
122 6 35.2 Lat (NAD 27)

Here's the app:

http://svartifoss2.fcc.gov/cgi-bin/...xt=25&appn=101187001&formid=301&fac_num=41861

So, inquring minds want to know, how much money did it take for SAGA to be bought off?
And shouldn't we have the right to know the amount, as these are the public airwaves?
 
Wow... didn't think that app would happen so quickly....

Looks like with the new app., Olympia is out of the 60db contour (and also away from KDUX's hair), while to the north, Everett gets some good coverage.

Unfortunately, we may never know as people out in the public, how much radio stations pay to get on the airwaves, or how much they sell for. It would probably be easier to find out how much a politician makes in office, than to find out how much a radio station pays to squeeze into a certain frequency.
 
You need to search by the ASR number, not the coordinates.

This tower is registered to American Tower Co. at Issaquah, Wa.
 
No surprises here FM Steve. I've said this all along in my posts that this would be the end result and I say the only people getting rich in radio nowadays are the guys who shoe-in stations like KMCQ and rimshot them into the metros.

In this case the winners are: First Broadcasting and their investors, KAFE, Mid-Columbia, and all the lawyers and consultants that have worked on this mess over the past 6 years. The losers are: The City of The Dalles and the service area of central Oregon and south central Washington, plus all the LPFM's that were going to serve the local places around here like Auburn, Maple Valley, Bainbridge Is. and one or two more local places that were deserving of service on 104.5 fm.

The big constellation prize goes out to KMIH, who's general manager and crew pulled off the choker with Cantwell that dragged this thing out as long as it did and in the end, gained a nice check plus a new channel for all their troubles at Mercer Island.

Ironically, the City of Covington will see absolutely nothing out of this either. We all know that the "new" KMCQ will be another jock in the box that gets it's power from a rack inside the building on Elliott Avenue in Seattle.
 
radioplayer said:
We all know that the "new" KMCQ will be another jock in the box that gets it's power from a rack inside the building on Elliott Avenue in Seattle.
Click to expand...

No, we don't. With the group on Elliott going private and selling a ton of assets in other areas, there's almost no chance KMCQ ends up there. It's far more likely that 104.5 ends up on Eastlake.
 
My money's still on Elliott Avenue, but you are right, it could be Eastlake or Dexter even, with a very slight chance it might end up on 4th Avenue for that matter. As for format, expect "soft rock" to come off the dish and into that box in the rack.

As long as First owns it, it will be run on the cheap and will merely "appear" on the air, with no serious promotional efforts.
Someone like cc will do an LMA for the ads. That's why I see this thing running out of the Elliott office building.
 
Whats up with KAFE being directional at 104.1? What stations does it have to protect in Canada. Also, is it directional towards Vancouver (Lower Mainland) or Victoria?
 
CCU is the clear buyer on this deal. For whatever they may spin, they are under the limit in Seattle and could pick this signal up for a decent price. Work it out - It's a $160MM market (or was!) - so a 2.0 share is worth $5MM in revenue, CF 40% or $2MM and a 10X multiple makes it worth $20MM. The boys and girls on Elliot would take that deal all day long. the problem is how do you get a 2.0 share in this market? And would First take $20MM?

At that price, it's not a home run for anyone but First Broadcasting - but they have risked alot of money and time for the past 6 years, so give 'em their due.
 
Your logic makes no sense Jackson.

Now Entercom is also under the limit for FM stations...

Bonneville is now in the market and might like to add an FM Talk station to their porfolio... They too are clearly under the limit.

The Entercom/Bonneville deal happened while the 104.5 move in was in the works and i would think it has changed the picture for First. Now they can play everyone against each other in a bidding war.

Ultimately will anybody OVERPAY for the frequency without it being moved to a real FULL MARKET tower site?

Also who's to say that Fisher or Sandusky would not like another signal???
 
Jackson Dell Weaver said:
CCU is the clear buyer on this deal. For whatever they may spin, they are under the limit in Seattle and could pick this signal up for a decent price. Work it out - It's a $160MM market (or was!) - so a 2.0 share is worth $5MM in revenue, CF 40% or $2MM and a 10X multiple makes it worth $20MM. The boys and girls on Elliot would take that deal all day long. the problem is how do you get a 2.0 share in this market? And would First take $20MM?

At that price, it's not a home run for anyone but First Broadcasting - but they have risked alot of money and time for the past 6 years, so give 'em their due.
Click to expand...

I'm going to have to go with Jackson Dell Weaver on this one. It's been a Clear Channel operation all the way. Or should I say Ackerley. Fisher wrote a letter to the FCC against these types of move-ins, and Sandusky is tight with KMIH. Entercom/Bonneville has too many plates spinning and a labor-intensive cost-structure, and CBS still has to deal with Kiss 106.1.

Ackerley will get some fresh cash by divesting the Monkey, put a nice down payment on the new 104.5, and either run the Funky Monkey or Sports Radio on the new channel.

But I wonder about Jackson's math. I've seen metric's up to 18x cash flow. And the numbers tossed around my station have been like 30 million dollars, which makes that 15x cash flow.

As for counter-tactics, is seems like KBSG is digging in their heels. So forget that KIRO simulcast. They don't have the guts to do that. Given the choice of the Funkey Monkey in a 3-way battle with KNDD & KISW where nobody wins, I'd go with the Sports Radio option. That's got great, broad demos, probably 18-49 men, and excellent appeal. And a fantastic FM signal so we can hear the games in stereo.
 
Does anybody has an answer why moving 104.1 has to be directional?

>>Whats up with KAFE being directional at 104.1? What stations does it have to protect in Canada. Also, is it directional towards Vancouver (Lower Mainland) or Victoria?
 
FMSteve said:
Fisher wrote a letter to the FCC against these types of move-ins, and Sandusky is tight with KMIH.
Click to expand...

i doubt sandusky being "tight" with KMIH would ever put a stop to sandusky buying KMCQ. Just because you're buddy buddy with a high school station doesn't mean that you would pass up potential profit and the opportunity to take a VERY valued frequency from a competator. If sandusky or fisher don't buy KMCQ it's merely for financial reasons and not because of local relationships.
 
Whatever happens, I expect KMCQ sometime in the next month or so (pending the new application to Cougar Mtn.), to do some more transmitter testing, so we might hear them on the dial again soon before they officially sign-on.  Maybe another round of testing involving re-broadcasting KMIH's signal.   As for KAFE, I am not sure, but if they were to do any testing on their new 104.1 signal, I'd expect them to do it during the overnight hours, and maybe for only a couple hours each night since they are already an established commercial station.   If it's found that they might interfere with any operations that might commence on or near the same frequency in Nanimo, BC, where they want their own station, this whole situation might take a bit longer to resolve itself.  Stay tuned...
 
e-dawg said:
Does anybody has an answer why moving 104.1 has to be directional?

>>Whats up with KAFE being directional at 104.1? What stations does it have to protect in Canada. Also, is it directional towards Vancouver (Lower Mainland) or Victoria?
Click to expand...

From the KAFE FCC filng, it looks like they're protecting allotments to the due north and northwest of their current transmit site. The cities are Bralone, BC and Powell River, BC. There are no call letters, so these are vacant allotment protections per Canadian agreement.

Your other question is both areas have to be protected; therefore the power is actually directed away from Canada on the 315 and 0 degree bearing and nulled accordingly.

I think you're really asking if the listeners in Victoria and Vancouver will notice a change and from what I can tell on paper, that answer is no. KAFE's coverage in those areas will be pretty much the same as it is now. Kelly, let us know if you see anything differrent here. I think this is a slam dunk from an engineer's point of view. The nulls look really simple to me.

I believe the bigger issue is one regarding a recent application for the use of 104.1 in BC that was recently filed near Vancouver. Perhaps FM Steve can fill us all in on that one since he's been all over this thing from the start.
 
What I really, really want to know is whether KMCQ is testing from their Enumclaw site, or, more likely, from the future Cougar site. Seems to me that they would much prefer to skip building an expensive installation in Enumclaw and then move the whole shootin' match to Cougar if they can get the upgrade processed quickly at the FCC.

If anybody knows where those tests are actually originating, rather than just guessing, it would be verrrry interesting to find out.

If they're broadcasting from Enumclaw, then the signal in Seattle is going to be good on a car radio, probably non-existent on an iPod thanks to the radio shadow cast by Cougar Mountain. But up on Cougar, it's going to be pretty good just about everywhere the other stations are heard.


-The Knobster
 
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