Who would pull the trigger?
The theory was they bought these stations to influence the election. Obviously that was wrong.
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KZFO KFLC Now Run By LMN
- Thread starter TheBigA
- Start date
Who would pull the trigger?
The theory was they bought these stations to influence the election. Obviously that was wrong.
I think Soros wanted the stations in order to prevent Salem from getting them. Salem did have an offer in, and that was apparently of concern to some Democrat circles.
That's not what the battle was about two years ago:
Six Lawmakers Urge FCC To ‘Thoroughly Scrutinize’ Univision’s Sale Of 18 Radio Stations.
The uproar over the sale of 18 radio stations by TelevisaUnivision to Latino Media Network (LMN) has a group of Republican lawmakers raising a red flag at the Federal Communications
Note the date on this article was almost 2 years ago. None of what was alleged ever happened. Call it chicken little syndrome.
D
Deleted member 76036
Guest
I think Cumulus should get 1270 and 99.1 and they should flip both of them to “The New Hot 99.1”.
What I am saying is that Salem was about to buy the Univision "dog" stations and the Soros interests did not want that to happen. That is what made his investment companies create LMN and recruit a set of total radio novices to run it.
That was after the sale was announced... to LMN... backed by Soros. That left Salem out of the picture. Past tense.Six Lawmakers Urge FCC To ‘Thoroughly Scrutinize’ Univision’s Sale Of 18 Radio Stations.
The uproar over the sale of 18 radio stations by TelevisaUnivision to Latino Media Network (LMN) has a group of Republican lawmakers raising a red flag at the Federal Communicationswww.insideradio.com
That's a different subject. The fact is that progressive / liberal investment groups did not want Salem to own those stations, and they put in a higher bid with Univision.
99.1 is even a stretch of the "rimshot" definition. It's useless unless cattle have radios.
D
Deleted member 76036
Guest
I was totally kidding! I’m in Grand Prairie by I-20 and 99.1 seemed to come in a lot better when they were running HD. LMN seems to have shut it off for now, but they’re still running HD during the daytime on 1270.
99.1 and 105.7 also seem to have very similar coverage areas. I’m guessing the demographics within the coverage area favor 105.7’s format, as there are some days where I can’t even pick up 105.7 in the car on the southern side of the metroplex. This even happens on days with minimal tropospheric ducting.
Or maybe it was the other way around. The radio novices wanted to use their minority status to get into media ownership, something the FCC is trying to promote, and they sought out financing that didn't come with high interest rates and a lot of strings. Something wrong with that?
Where can people go to get financing for broadcasting? Banks won't loan them money. The SBA won't loan them money. Bain won't loan them money. They all know radio is a bad investment.
And high powered politicians attempted to use their government positions to get the FCC to deny the transfer for totally bogus reasons.
They did the exact same thing in the Audacy bankruptcy agreement.
Since the politicians brought it up, why did Salem want to buy those stations? For public service or political purposes?
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Which would be a quick failure. I see Spanish language religion in the future for both, under new ownership.
The 99.1 signal does okay in cars in the core Metroplex, but will be a dog on cheap radios, especially in Dallas County and the eastern parts of Collin County.
The KFZO coverage has also been damaged by the co-channel KBEC translator in south Dallas County.
KRNB does amazingly well for a rimshot, proof that such facilities can be a success if programmed correctly. Play to the strengths of the signal coverage. “A good carpenter doesn’t blame their tools.”
Tropo may play a bigger role than expected, even if conditions are minimal. Doesn’t take much co-channel interference to severely degrade a desired signal in its outer coverage areas.
On the contrary, call it incompetence.
Most people already had low expectations, but Jesus Cristo! They've done absolutely nothing except pay themselves from the piles of money they got from investors.
What they did is potentially ruin and sabotage future opportunities for minorities that want to launch media start-ups. Investors could now think twice before giving minorities millions of dollars because of the LMN failure.
"Fool me once, shame on...shame on you.....You fool me, you can't get fooled again!"
- George W. Bush
Having said that, David raises a good point. For all we know, this investment was probably meant to sabotage the growth of Hispanic conservatism. So investors likely knew they were never getting their money back.
As well as their employees, and somehow kept a bunch of money-losing AMs on the air.
Oh come on now. Audacy, Cumulus, and iHeart are the reasons why investors think twice.
Next time you're in Houston, check out KYST. A family owned station that flipped from Hispanic music to American conservative talk. They get money from advertisers who are promoting conservative talk. The Hispanic owner had a personal meeting with Trump. There is no ''sabotage.'' And LMN didn't force anyone at Radio Mambi in Miami to change their views. You're making stuff up. Chicken Little.
D
Deleted member 108832
Guest
Both. Salem wanted to launch a conservative-based Spanish-language format to target a group that has, historically, been very liberal. With what's currently going on in the White House, since 2021, the iron was seen as hot enough to strike in targeting those who are now second guessing their allegiance to the donkey.
I would disagree with that, only because there is already a heavy saturation of this programming on the AM dial, and with MUCH better overall signal reach than 1270. 540 is a behemoth. So is 620. 990 blankets Dallas, and points east and north. I don't think, even combined with the FM rimshot, it would be in the best interest of any suitor for the facility(ies) to take that route. South Asian is pretty much out, too, given what's already pretty well established on the Metroplex dial.
You'd better believe it. The Tucks really scored a win with the build-out of K256DE. Not only does it scream into places like Lancaster and Duncanville, but also causes some grief for KNES down in Fairfield and Streetman, as well.
Well put.
Very true, and as an example I'll mention your own KHCB-FM. Our co-channel Class C does fine in Longview no matter what, but here in Tyler, and especially down the road in J'Ville, KHCB-FM has been known to cause a substantial amount of interference to KYKX. Conditions haven't been favorable for it recently, but I am curious as to how KYKX's new digital signal fares when KHCB-FM is trying to overtake the channel up here.
To buy that, I'd have to believe that there'd be some sort of power to change the tide by Salem programming these marginal signals. The majority of listeners of any ethnicity or political views aren't looking for or listening to their programs.
People freaking out over the Soros/Audacy connection too, ignoring the fact Audacy owns relatively few talk outlets to begin with, and aren't suddenly going to flip to unknown, un-sellable shows simply because of an investor/shareholder. Come on. They still are attempting to make money. It's not Pacifica, where ideology is above all.
Salem was in no position to follow through on any such idea. In case you haven't noticed, they've been in SELL mode. They are not going to buy more bad-signal AMs in major markets for ANY purpose. They don't have the money.
If there was an opportunity for any Spanish format on these AM stations, Univision wouldn't have sold them. My take was Univision needed someone to show interest in order to get rid of the stations, and it worked. Good for them. But if Salem wants to start a Spanish language format, they don't need to buy any more stations to do it. They can start a national network and offer barter programming to other owners.
Exactly. It's called SDS. Audacy better hope its bankruptcy plan is approved before the end of the year.
D
Deleted member 108832
Guest
We need @ChuckTiller to chime in. This has been mentioned by him on the Houston board, and David Darling has echoed this same scenario for the two signals that were to be acquired in DFW. You say they are/were in no position to pull this trigger, but the company itself seemed to feel otherwise.
Not arguing that Salem has been selling at a brisk pace, but they certainly had the money to acquire what Univision was unloading, and only failed in the acquisition because LMN swooped in with a ridiculous number for only the purpose of stopping Salem from completing the deal.
I can't speak for the entire portfolio of Salem's holdings, but an acquisition of KFLC and KLAT to replace KBXD and KTEK would have been a marked improvement of secondary facilities for both Salem Dallas and Salem Houston.
Univision was going to get out from under the weight of these anchors, regardless. If it wasn't LMN, it would've been Salem. If not Salem, then we'd have probably seen nearly 2 dozen license surrenders hit the pipeline. Univision is predominantly Spanish-language, but if the right opportunity had come along, regardless of that opportunity being programmed in English, Vietnamese, Urdu, or Swahili, they certainly would not have stubbornly kept those signals speaking Spanish.
That's the right take. The original interest came from Salem, but then LMN stepped in with a bigger offer and outbid what Salem had put on the table. I agree. Univision gained everything in this deal, and lost only a pack of dog facilities. I'm sure high dollar cigars were lit, and attaboys were passed out like candy for those who were instrumental in striking the deal.
To my understanding, that was not the strategy. I guess if you and I were to ever become employed by Salem Media, either of us could further explore that idea. The chances of that particular scenario occurring on this end is slim to none, and slim hasn't been seen in a very long time.
I read Chuck's posts in that thread, and it didn't address the fact that Salem doesn't need to own stations to syndicate their shows. They've managed to get their English shows cleared in open markets. The fact that two years have passed, and they haven't moved forward on this idea in any way on any station shows how serious they were about it.
The only advantage of this package was that it was in fact a package. There are lots of individual AMs available right now at bargain prices, including two I know about in NYC. What we know is if you want to reach Hispanics, AM radio is not the way to go.
The fact is LMN bought the stations, and they're running them in a non-political way, not forcing opinions on anyone. Maybe that's a mistake. But to put a political spin on this ignores the fact that they're not running these stations to promote a political ideology.
KYST is an awful facility, and a nothingburger in the market. I’m in NW Harris County, and at night I hear KARN in Little Rock better on 920 than KYST. This is not a station that is going to make any impact or sway anyone’s political views.
The explosion of evangelicals among Hispanics, combined with longstanding conservative Catholicism, has been the right wing driving force in recent years as progress has been made in the more basic battles against discrimination and marginalization. More and more Hispanics now own their own businesses, and those are the demos that will be sympathetic to conservative philosophies.
I’ve said this before: One basic fact of broadcasting in the U.S. is that you can never, ever, have too many religious stations in any given market. There will always be some group that wants to add their voice to the airwaves, regardless of whether it makes any financial or social, or influential sense. If, say, the MediaCo stations in DFW were to go in the block, I would expect EMF, Hope Media Group, and several other national religious operators to go after them.
And what else could you do with 1270 and 99.1 that would keep them viable, unless the goal is to ignore the core of the Metroplex and program to exurban and rural communities, which is sort of what KFWR is doing. The 95.9 signal is even more of an “ultra rimshot” than 99.1.
That's not an achievement. They did this because they had politically motivated masters funding this charade. Their only achievement has been blocking Salem from profiting and growing the conservative Hispanic base (which seems futile IMO...a lot of Hispanics seem conservative outside of certain issues such as Immigration).
Audacy, Cumulus, and iHeart aren't minority owned or startups.
The owner taking over his dad and being Hispanic doesn't mean that the target audience is Hispanic. None of the programming is in Spanish.
There was sabotage to stop Salem from trying to profit and potentially grow the conservative Hispanic base.
Big money DNC saw the threat so they gave two DNC Hispanic puppets money and got them to outbid Salem.
I didn't claim this. Can you quote me saying this?
They just lost their ceo. At this point, anyone who still believes that they know what they're doing or that none of this was politically motivated is living in denial.
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