KSET 1300 Silsbee/Lumberton Is Sold For

[Mike O]

$500 <Five Hundred Dollars>! The FCC Granted approval of the sale on July 25th. Sold by Dave Collier Communication Broadcasting, Inc of Silsbee to Proctor-Williams, Inc of San Antonio.

KSET 1300kHz has been off the air since hurricane Rita. KSET was granted an extension of their STA for Silent Station on July 25th due to severely damaged transmitter and studio building. To the best of my knowledge the antenna is still standing as no mention is made of damage to the antenna. The station has yet to be rebuilt.

I don't know if the station had insurance for such a disaster, or if it is even possible for a radio station to get Hurricane Coverage for property and antenna.

If any of the Golden Triangle area members know if the antenna is still standing please drop a post and let us know.

While a new building(s) will have to be built and a new transmitter purchased, $500 is a damn good deal, even for a 500 watt daytime station. KSET could easily be upgraded to a 5000 watt fulltime station using directional antennas day and night. The station should be able to cover all of the metro Beaumont area at 5kW. KVET Austin and WIBR Baton Rouge need to be protected, but both are distant enough to allow for decent east-west coverage of the Golden Triangle, especially if the arrary is built where the current one stick is located.

If the FCC does indeed make moving a station from one city to another a Minor Amendment which is being considered and will likely be approved, KSET could become a station for the The Woodlands.

The 5mV/m signal of 2nd adjacent KXYZ 1320kHz cuts through Spring, but if the arrary was built far enough north of The Woodlands, say around New Waverly a decent amount of power could be sent to the south to reach the 5mV/m-5mV/m contours. This should give 1300 fairly good coverage of Houston. Justification of moving the signal from Silsbee would be population and the fact that Silsbee has an FM station, KAYD 101.7, while The Woodlands has no aural service. Population for Silsbee is 6,722 (7/05 Est); Lumberton 9,637 (7/05 Est) and Hardin County 50,547 (2004 US Census). The Woodlands 67,500 (1/05 Est); Spring 37,300 (1/05 Est) and Conroe 46,217 (1/05 Est) and Montgomery County 362,382 (US Census 2004).

There would have to be a null towards Austin, but I believe you could cover Montgomery, Walker and most of Harris County.

KUHD 1150 Port Neches is still silent and has not had it's license renewed yet. KUHD has not even filed for Silent Status STA. I wonder if KUHD will even return to the air?

 

[dx7]

$500 for KSET?

Mike, this is an amazing deal for the buyer even if they start over from nothing.

I think that if it remains a 500-watter licensed to Lumberton, there is "some" local revenue potential if it's run right.

A 5kw upgrade would be awesome, but who knows when the next AM major change window at the FCC will open.

The only thing in the Asset Purchase Agreement that looks suspicious is the part where the buyer will assume the seller's outstanding debts. Doesn't say how much those debts are...may be in the tens of thousands of $$$, who knows?

BTW, a contact of mine checked into the status of KUHD and was told that the owners have no intention of selling...go figure.

 

[stan]

$500 <Five Hundred Dollars>! The FCC Granted approval of the sale on July 25th. Sold by Dave Collier Communication Broadcasting, Inc of Silsbee to Proctor-Williams, Inc of San Antonio.

Proctor-Williams formerly owned the sister station of KSET, which was 101.7 KLOI (now KAYD).

From 9/3/2001,

KLOI(FM) Silsbee/Beaumont, Texas

Price: $2.5 million (includes 2-year, $200,000 LMA and $200,000 in assumption of obligations)

Buyer: Cumulus Media Inc., Atlanta (Lewis W. Dickey Jr., president/ 75% owner of one of Cumulus's three attributable shareholders; brother John W. Dickey, executive vice president); owns/is buying 218 FMs and 91 AMs, including four FMs and two AMs in Beaumont

Seller: Hilco Communications Inc., San Antonio (William Hill, president); no other broadcast interests. Note: KLOI was bought, along with KSET(AM) Silsbee, for $175,000 (Changing Hands, Jan. 1). Buyer was listed as Dave Collier Communication Broadcasting Inc.; seller was Proctor-Williams Inc.

Facilities: 101.7 MHz, 3 kW, ant. 200 ft.

Format: Oldies

From 1/1/2001,

KSET(AM)-KLOI(FM) (formerly KKAS-KWDX) Silsbee, Texas

Price: $175,000

Buyer: Dave Collier Communication Broadcasting Inc., Silsbee (David D. Collier Sr., owner); no other broadcast interests

Seller: Proctor-Williams Inc., San Antonio (Gerald R. Proctor, president); no other broadcast interests

Facilities: AM: 1300 kHz, 500 W day; FM: 101.7 MHz, 3 kW, ant. 200 ft.

Formats: Both country


So, both KSET and KLOI were purchased for $175,000 in early 2001, KLOI sold to Cumulus for $2.5 million, and now we are left with a $500 AM broadcast powerhouse.

 

[CW]

$500 <Five Hundred Dollars>! The FCC Granted approval of the sale on July 25th. Sold by Dave Collier Communication Broadcasting, Inc of Silsbee to Proctor-Williams, Inc of San Antonio.

KSET 1300kHz has been off the air since hurricane Rita. KSET was granted an extension of their STA for Silent Station on July 25th due to severely damaged transmitter and studio building. To the best of my knowledge the antenna is still standing as no mention is made of damage to the antenna. The station has yet to be rebuilt.

I don't know if the station had insurance for such a disaster, or if it is even possible for a radio station to get Hurricane Coverage for property and antenna.

If any of the Golden Triangle area members know if the antenna is still standing please drop a post and let us know.

While a new building(s) will have to be built and a new transmitter purchased, $500 is a damn good deal, even for a 500 watt daytime station. KSET could easily be upgraded to a 5000 watt fulltime station using directional antennas day and night. The station should be able to cover all of the metro Beaumont area at 5kW. KVET Austin and WIBR Baton Rouge need to be protected, but both are distant enough to allow for decent east-west coverage of the Golden Triangle, especially if the arrary is built where the current one stick is located.

If the FCC does indeed make moving a station from one city to another a Minor Amendment which is being considered and will likely be approved, KSET could become a station for the The Woodlands.

The 5mV/m signal of 2nd adjacent KXYZ 1320kHz cuts through Spring, but if the arrary was built far enough north of The Woodlands, say around New Waverly a decent amount of power could be sent to the south to reach the 5mV/m-5mV/m contours. This should give 1300 fairly good coverage of Houston. Justification of moving the signal from Silsbee would be population and the fact that Silsbee has an FM station, KAYD 101.7, while The Woodlands has no aural service. Population for Silsbee is 6,722 (7/05 Est); Lumberton 9,637 (7/05 Est) and Hardin County 50,547 (2004 US Census). The Woodlands 67,500 (1/05 Est); Spring 37,300 (1/05 Est) and Conroe 46,217 (1/05 Est) and Montgomery County 362,382 (US Census 2004).

There would have to be a null towards Austin, but I believe you could cover Montgomery, Walker and most of Harris County.

KUHD 1150 Port Neches is still silent and has not had it's license renewed yet. KUHD has not even filed for Silent Status STA. I wonder if KUHD will even return to the air?

WOW!!! I wish I had known they would take that little for it!!! But then Collier and Proctor have known each other for decaces......and considering the earlier transaction, I think it was a brother-in-law deal anyway.
The tower and studio still stand.....the tower still has the original 101.7 antenna on it last time I looked (about 2 months ago on a trip into East Texas)....I didnt think the studio was that bad...I looked ok but just dark (so is the tower!!! No lights and the meter was removed and a blank face plate was in its place)

As to KUHD, one tower company was contacted about rebuilding the array; they submitted a proposal...and they never heard from the owner again! Its license was not renewed yet because:
1) They filed LATE..after the expiration!...AND
2) There was a lot of complaints filed on their technical issues (no tower lights, the tower had never been FCC registered..EVER!, the monitoring loops were not connected so there was NO legal monitoring of the 2 tower array parameters, thus NO way to ensure compliance, etc)...

BTW, KLOI's sale to Cumulus has NEVER been closed....it is still pending...the STL antenna at their original Beaumont studios is still standing..and about to fall down since it was not guyed. I called the lawyers to see if they wanted to sell it....and they said "nope! Cant until the sell is finalized"...(sure enough, the FCC still shows HILCO as owner...NOT Cumulus).
I have a feeling this could be the reason Cumulus wants to move 96.1 over from Lake Charles.

 

[dx7]

So does this mean that the KUHD license is toast? And if so, won't the FCC permanently delete this frequency in the Golden Triangle?

 

[Mike O]

So does this mean that the KUHD license is toast? And if so, won't the FCC permanently delete this frequency in the Golden Triangle?

100000watts.com lists KUHD as silent since September 1st of 2005, unless the station is back on the air by September 1st of this year the license is automatically revoked. I would say from what I read above that KUHD is indeed toast. The frequency is deleted, but the next Major Modification Window the FCC has for AM the frequency could be applied for by any group anywhere in the Golden Triangle.

One big catch is that KMGS 1160 Highland Park (Dallas) will likely file for a change in their pattern and send much more power down towards the vacent 1150 in The G T, making it impossible for any new station to fit in without causing interference to 1160. For some time now the metroplex stations have been agressively upgrading their stations to as close to 50000 watts as possible on every area frequency and bringing the interfering contour as far south as possible.

KHSE Wylie (Dallas) just filed their third amendment to increase their pattern to the south bringing the intering contour as close as regulations allow to KSEV 700. This will effectively prevent KSEV from ever sending any more power to the north than they do now. KJON 850 Carrollton (Dallas) has done the same thing to KEYH, a station that really needs to send more power to the north to cover Montgomery County effectively, but KJON has them boxed in. KNIT 1480 Dallas prevented KLVL from increasing power any greater than 3000 watts daytime.

Unfortunately the owners of nearly all the AM stations in Houston metro have sat on their fat asses and done nothing to increase the coverage of their stations, most which sorely near a huge boost in power and coverage, but for many it is too late, the metroplex has beat Houston to the punch. KLVL's increase has put a much better siganl over the city days; KGBC's upgrade to 2500 watts daytime is nearly meaningless, except for the fish; KYND's nighttime upgrade will likely serve only a small portion of the city at 260 watts; KILE's 1000 watts nighttime will serve only a fraction of the city and daytime is yet to be seen. Those pending KHCB 1400 Galveston or League city will increase the signal in the city daytime, if ever approved; KCHN 1050's bid for nights is insanity as the 460 watts wouldn't even cover the COL going up against the 1050 powerhouse from Mexico; KRCM 1380 if the move to Shanandoah is ever approved will serve a small area daytime and very few at night; KGOL's nighttime aplication for 3000 watts nights will mean very little to very few people. KGOL will have a deep null over the city because Mexico objects, tough titty, 1180 is a US Clear Channel and KGOL should be allowed the power and pattern to cover Houston at night.

The FCC is so spineless, they allow US stations to get trampled by Cuba, Mexico and other countries to the south, yet refuse to give US stations the power and patterns they need to effectively serve their communities because it violates an outdated treaty by sending to much power over Cuba! Or Mexico objects, yet Mexico has taken every frequency and placed a future station on that frequency along the US/MX border in any town they can come up with and the US stations have to protect these phantom stations , many that will never be built!

As to 1300 Lumberton upgrading to 5000 watts, they do not have to wait for the next Major Mod Window, an upgrade from 500 watts daytime to 5000 or 50000 watts fulltime on 1300 is a Minor Modification and can be filed at any time. I agree that Lumberton/Silsbee could support a locally run station that SERVES the cities. Take a listen to KULP 1390 El Campo as a station that serves Wharton County and does just fine.

 

[stan]

BTW, KLOI's sale to Cumulus has NEVER been closed....it is still pending...the STL antenna at their original Beaumont studios is still standing..and about to fall down since it was not guyed. I called the lawyers to see if they wanted to sell it....and they said "nope! Cant until the sell is finalized"...(sure enough, the FCC still shows HILCO as owner...NOT Cumulus).
I have a feeling this could be the reason Cumulus wants to move 96.1 over from Lake Charles.

Why would this still be pending, 5 years later? So, what would HILCO do with 101.7 if 96.1 became the new KAYD? Nothing seems to be happening with 96.1 supposedly moving to Sour Lake, or wherever the heck it was supposed to go. I think the tower would have been in Texas, somewhere east of Beaumont?