OK, let me define what I meant by the word "marginal". An example would be when EMF bought WPLJ, a station in NYC that in the was worth a lot more in the 1980's than it was when EMF bought it 30-odd years later.
The same could be said for any radio or TV property. The bottom fell out of overall valuations back in the 2008 recession. By your definition, that means every FM station could be considered marginal, at least by comparison with those decades.
How could EMF manage to bag a top signal in market #1? Why were there no other radio companies stepping in to buy WPLJ so they could make millions?
Because: 1. EMF is one of the few broadcast organizations with a lot of cash available. 2. EMF is a non-profit that carries little to no debt, and because of that, isn't constrained with having to sell traditional lenders or investors on loaning money to grow. 3. EMF doesn't rely on the advertising environment. It makes money by being available to 'spread the word'. The way you make yourself available is by being everywhere.
FM isn't the monster media it was in the 70s, 80s, and 90s.
Well duh. The same could be said for radio in general. Lot's more competition than back in those decades.
A lot of commentators here think the FM band in most metros has too many stations for all of them to stay solvent.
And to an extent, I would agree. Although I wouldn't use the term staying solvent.
Starting back in the late 90's, it became apparent that if you wanted to be a successful publicly traded company in the radio/media biz, you'd better give the advertiser's what they want in every market you can. That includes a wide spread of sought-after demographic reach. And in turn that means maxing-out station ownership count within multiple markets in an attempt to own the radio listening demo spread. Being limited to onezy-twozy AM-FM station ownership meant you were about to get run over.
Fast forward to 2008, and the access to investors or bank-lending came to a grinding halt. The days of running up a lot of debt to pay 14X cash flow money for radio properties ended. In my personal example; that meant a station valued at $5M in a matter of one year, suddenly was now worth $500K. None of that meant companies were on the verge of insolvency. It meant that when that snapshot in time occurred, there were a lot of FM stations shoehorned into the band all dooking it out for the same reduced advertising dollar.
Then you add in 'sandbox' LPFM stations which, in my view, is like having a neighbor with a bunch of dead cars and trash in his front yard. Now include a bunch of AM's on FM translators, and the FM band is more congested and more difficult to enjoy as compared with streaming.
The cluster model seems to be keeping a lot of them afloat. But how long is that going to work? Ten more years? 20 more years?
And all for the reasons I mentioned above. But if you consider all the changes since clusters were allowed, just being in radio isn't where the advertisers are anymore. That's why companies like iHeart have diversified where advertiser's moved by building streaming/digital assets, and concert promotion.
