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Merlin's Magic Runs Out in Philly: Will they dump Chicago?

R

RBRadioWaves

I know this was mentioned in the thread about the July 2013 ratings, but I figured it may as well have it's own thread.

After only one year and three months, Merlin Media is unloading News/Talk WWIQ IQ106.9 Philadelphia to EMF Media for an undisclosed price. Given that WWIQ was only in Merlin's portfolio for a short time (slightly longer than the station now known as WFAN-FM New York), it begs the question(s)...

Is Merlin just going to concentrate on and invest whatever resources they have in their stations in Chicago? WLUP is attracting decent 12+ numbers, although I'm not sure what the ratings in specific demos are. WIQI, while having low ratings, seems to have relatively low overhead, and did make a (very) slight bump up in the ratings.

Or is Merlin just giving up and going to sell off any remaining assets by year's end? And if WIQI and WLUP are sold off, what can we expect from the new owners? (Just a prediction: if they do wind up with new owners, it'll probably be Cumulus, as they are the largest owners under the limit in Chicago.)
 
I could definitely see them selling 101.1 FM in the not-to-distant future.

Low overhead really doesn't matter a whole lot in a market the size of Chicago. The bottom line is Merlin's investors have a ton of capital tied up in a station that probably generates Contribution Margin of $2 million per year at most. The current format is a guaranteed loser long term. The fact Merlin hasn't made any significant investment in programming or air talent suggests to me that "i101" is little more than a placeholder format until the station can be disposed.

If I were calling the shots and were interested in putting a format on that stick that could be at least semi-successful, I'd probably choose Rhythmic Hot AC.
 
seems LUP is performing decently and might even share many resources with wkqx-lp. For the signal limitations, pulling a 2.0 is pretty impressive, so I'd be curious what Merlin or any new owners d with both of those. The programming on kqx is some of my favorite rock radio in the country,and the personalities are pretty good as well.
 
tjolsen said:
seems LUP is performing decently and might even share many resources with wkqx-lp. For the signal limitations, pulling a 2.0 is pretty impressive, so I'd be curious what Merlin or any new owners d with both of those. The programming on kqx is some of my favorite rock radio in the country,and the personalities are pretty good as well.
Click to expand...

Since I live out of the area now I do not understand....what is WLUP-LP ??

OLD CHICAGO
 
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