MyCountry 104.9 Gainesville/102.3 Ocala

[MN Maniac]

Finally, some NEW radio blood in North Central Florida! I'm excited and expecting good things from these JVC folks. After listening for the past 3 days, a few observations:

1) There is NO mention of the WTRS calls, except as required for Legal ID purposes. Since WTRS has always been associated with Marion County in the minds of listeners, this tells me the emphasis of MyCountry is going to be on Gainesville and Alachua Co.

2) The 104.9 frequency is always mentioned first in liners, sweepers, and on the website. More evidence the primary target will be Gainesville.

3) The simulcast was a no-brainer. However, I would have used the 100.9 frequency and moved Smooth Jazz to 104.9. Although 100.9 and 104.9 are both Class As, 100.9 has a city grade signal across all of Gainesville. 104.9 is too far away. Both 102.3 and 104.9 have coverage holes in parts of town. 104.9 is "there", but not nearly as strong as 103.7 or 93.7. As the third country station in the market, MyCountry will have to have a competitive signal in order to be successful.

My two cents' worth as a former Gainesville/Ocala jock and current armchair PD...

 

[jmtillery]

WYGC is going to be a challenge in attracting any meaningful Gainesville numbers and meaningful ad dollars for reasons you mentioned. The signal simply is not there. And furthermore the 104.9 signal cannot be improved upon in Gainesville as long as WYKS is operating on its second adjacent frequency. The closest WYGC can move its tower towards Gainesville is 19 miles from WYKS' tower and that is already pretty much maxed out. I agree that 100.9 would have made a better Gainesville signal partner for WTRS while 104.9 would be better suited for something other than a primary Gainesville signal. Perhaps JVC knows something that the rest of us have overlooked although I have no idea what that may be since I have already researched the market forwards and backwards and out of all the AM and FM market signals, I know which ones can be improved and which ones cannot. WYGC is on the "cannot" list.

 

[radiobum]

But for you folks who would've preferred WTRS on 100.9, that would've severely impacted Smooth if it returned to 104.9. I'm guessing it's making enought dollars and that's why no switch-unless they're considering an Active Rock for the freq since I believe their Long Island biggie has that format.

Will there be more jobs ? They're running John Tesh (who I always find interesting) PM drive on Smooth.

 

[MN Maniac]

My experience has been that listeners will not tolerate an inferior signal if the same programming can be received better at another spot on the dial. They will put up with signal limitations if it is unique programming which cannot be heard elsewhere. Smooth Jazz is a niche format and is available exclusively in Gainesville on 100.9. Moving it to 104.9 would likely have little negative effect on ratings or revenue. Moving the country simulcast to 100.9 could potentially have a large impact on the success of MyCountry in Alachua Co.

As a bonus, it would return the WYGC calls to their rightful place on 100.9. Even if they no longer stood for We're Your Gator Country.

 

[jmtillery]

All three Gainesville signals were underperforming with WTRS and WMFQ carrying the cluster. I haven't looked at the billing for the group lately; however, my best cognitive hypothesis is that WXJZ is the highest billing of the three Gainesville signals, and for this reason, WYGC was chosen for the simulcast instead of WXJZ.

Interstingly, WXJZ started out on 104.9 while 100.9 was still country formatted WYGC. Asterisk paid $1.4 million for WYGC 100.9 alone and another $800k for then WRKG 104.9. Over $2 million was paid for the 99.5 CP and another $2.9 million for WMFQ in 1995 when it was acquired from Greater Ocala Broadcasting Corporation. Asterisk paid $365,000 for its flagship station WTRS-AM-FM in 1983 when those two stations were 500 watts daytime on the AM and 3kw class A on the FM.

 

[Jeff2]

It looks like Asterisk sold all of them for $3.5 million.  This story makes it sound as if JVC is planning to operate all five stations from Gainesville. I wonder how that will go over with the Ocala listeners?

http://gainesvillebizreport.com/new-yorks-jvc-broadcasting-acquires-5-local-radio-stations/

 

[jmtillery]

It looks like Asterisk sold all of them for $3.5 million. This story makes it sound as if JVC is planning to operate all five stations from Gainesville. I wonder how that will go over with the Ocala listeners?

http://gainesvillebizreport.com/new-yorks-jvc-broadcasting-acquires-5-local-radio-stations/

The price is $3.5 million for all five stations which is close to the same price Marc Radio paid for the former Pamal stations. As for operating WTRS and WMFQ from Gainesville, it may be a cost savings in operations; however, JVC will still need a sales presence in Ocala for the two flagship stations which means keeping a "store front" sales office in Ocala. Otherwise, from a psychological standpoint, the Ocala business community and the Ocala / Marion County radio listeners will perceive My Country and Q 92 as out-of-market radio stations. I'm sure JVC has this well thought out and planned to the cluster's advantage.

On a side note, I still haven't seen anything from the FCC database showing that the APA and Application for Assignment has been filed although I'm sure that is soon forthcoming. On a few stations I have sold, we were almost six weeks from executing the APA to the actual FCC filing.

 

[MN Maniac]

Moving WTRS and WMFQ to Gainesville with the other stations has obvious financial advantages. But in my opinion, JVC is running a huge risk here. If listeners and advertisers no longer perceive them as "local" Marion County radio stations, it could prove costly in the long run.

I would assume they will be using the Internet to deliver audio from the new studios to the transmitters. There's no way an STL would provide a solid link from Gainesville to either TX site.

 

[Kmagrill]

Moving WTRS and WMFQ to Gainesville with the other stations has obvious financial advantages. But in my opinion, JVC is running a huge risk here. If listeners and advertisers no longer perceive them as "local" Marion County radio stations, it could prove costly in the long run.

I would assume they will be using the Internet to deliver audio from the new studios to the transmitters. There's no way an STL would provide a solid link from Gainesville to either TX site.

Besides the Internet, which is not a good idea for critical service, there are other ways to deliver programming, such as a T1. However, I'm not so sure that an STL is impossible. You would use the existing hop from Gainesville to WTMG and then double hop down to Ocala.

 

[MN Maniac]

Good point re: T1 instead of conventional Internet.

I'm not a big fan of multi-hop STL links. We used one of these at KJJO/Minneapolis to get to our transmitter, located 45 miles away in Somerset, Wisconsin. (The owner didn't want to lease space on the Shoreview combiner project, so he built his own stick outside of the metro instead. MAJOR issues with multipath, but that's a whole 'nother thread.)

We used a 2-hop link. There were constant problems with interference, due to the distance involved. Because the receive dish on the transmitter end was necessarily mounted high on the tower, there were times when another co-channel link would override ours. Or, we would lose control of the transmitter. This occurred most often during the summer months, when tropospheric ducting would take place. In Florida, I assume this would be a year-round problem.

 

[Kmagrill]

True interference should rarely be a problem since the dishes, assuming they're properly aligned, have very tight beams and a lot of gain (assuming at least 6' dishes rather than paraflectors). This is not to say that interference is impossible. Another station on the same bearing as the transmitter or receiver can come over the horizon and cause interference, but these situations are uncommon.

More common issues arise from beam deflection as a result of atmospheric inversions. This can happen several times a month in the south and a poorly designed system will give very inadequate results. The good news is that there are effective ways to combat those kinds of problems. A diversity receive system or a redundant STL on another frequency band are both effective at suppressing inversion fading.

 

[Jeff2]

Sort of a related note…

Chuck Woods has another one of his columns in the Gainesville Sun blasting UF for the poor showing of WRUF-FM in the ratings. Of course, he wants a fine arts format but can't ever see that happening. He does say that the Entercom sales deal with the UF stations gives them first refusal if UF decides to sell 103.7.

http://www.gainesville.com/article/...s-station-that-offers-something-new-in-market

 

[jmtillery]

Sort of a related note…

Chuck Woods has another one of his columns in the Gainesville Sun blasting UF for the poor showing of WRUF-FM in the ratings. Of course, he wants a fine arts format but can't ever see that happening. He does say that the Entercom sales deal with the UF stations gives them first refusal if UF decides to sell 103.7.

http://www.gainesville.com/article/...s-station-that-offers-something-new-in-market

I have a PDF copy of the Joint Sales Agreement between Entercom and UF, and you are correct that Entercom has a First-Right-Of-Refusal clause to acquire both stations that is included in the JSA along with a few other things such as a guaranteed income to UF. In other words, Entercom is paying UF “X” every month to have the exclusive right to sell ad inventory for WRUF-AM and WRUF-FM. UF receives a minimum guarantee each month over the next seven years whether Entercom sells anything or not.

 

[MN Maniac]

The WRUF-FM flip to Country still doesn't make sense to me. Never has, never will. What were they thinking?

 

[jmtillery]

Assuming JVC plans to actually move WTRS and WMFQ’s main studios to Gainesville, and this is a big “if”, another factor has not been considered and that is an FCC main studio waiver will need to be applied for and granted before such a move can be implemented. Remember, the main studio of any FM station must be located within the station’s 70dBu service contour unless a waiver is granted allowing the main studio to be located outside the city grade service contour. Neither station covers any part of Gainesville with a city grade signal. WTRS has a weak 60dBu over Southwest Gainesville while WMFQ barley covers Gainesville with a 50dBu signal. An application for a waiver will need to show cause that the public interest is being best served as a result of the waiver being granted. Once again as stated in a previous post from me, I’m sure that JVC and its respective FCC attorneys have already considered all the legal issues, again, assuming this is part of the JVC plan.

 

[jmtillery]

The WRUF-FM flip to Country still doesn't make sense to me. Never has, never will. What were they thinking?

I would have placed Rhythmic CHR on WRUF-FM. It makes perfect business sense for reasons everyone is already aware, so I don't need to go into any detail here.

 

[Kmagrill]

Assuming JVC plans to actually move WTRS and WMFQ’s main studios to Gainesville, and this is a big “if”, another factor has not been considered and that is an FCC main studio waiver will need to be applied for and granted before such a move can be implemented. Remember, the main studio of any FM station must be located within the station’s 70dBu service contour unless a waiver is granted allowing the main studio to be located outside the city grade service contour. Neither station covers any part of Gainesville with a city grade signal. WTRS has a weak 60dBu over Southwest Gainesville while WMFQ barley covers Gainesville with a 50dBu signal. An application for a waiver will need to show cause that the public interest is being best served as a result of the waiver being granted. Once again as stated in a previous post from me, I’m sure that JVC and its respective FCC attorneys have already considered all the legal issues, again, assuming this is part of the JVC plan.

True, but this would be easily resolved by putting the official main studio at the Marion County sales office. No need for anything fancy, just a crude way to put the office on the air, a copy of the public file and a couple of employees during normal business hours (which I assume they would already have at a sales office anyway). That main programming can originate from anywhere.

 

[jmtillery]

Assuming JVC plans to actually move WTRS and WMFQ’s main studios to Gainesville, and this is a big “if”, another factor has not been considered and that is an FCC main studio waiver will need to be applied for and granted before such a move can be implemented. Remember, the main studio of any FM station must be located within the station’s 70dBu service contour unless a waiver is granted allowing the main studio to be located outside the city grade service contour. Neither station covers any part of Gainesville with a city grade signal. WTRS has a weak 60dBu over Southwest Gainesville while WMFQ barley covers Gainesville with a 50dBu signal. An application for a waiver will need to show cause that the public interest is being best served as a result of the waiver being granted. Once again as stated in a previous post from me, I’m sure that JVC and its respective FCC attorneys have already considered all the legal issues, again, assuming this is part of the JVC plan.

True, but this would be easily resolved by putting the official main studio at the Marion County sales office. No need for anything fancy, just a crude way to put the office on the air, a copy of the public file and a couple of employees during normal business hours (which I assume they would already have at a sales office anyway). That main programming can originate from anywhere.

While that is true, it also defeats the purpose behind any cost savings unless the main objective is to have the studio in Gainesville and not being done as a cost savings measure.

 

[Parttimer]

Assuming JVC plans to actually move WTRS and WMFQ’s main studios to Gainesville, and this is a big “if”, another factor has not been considered and that is an FCC main studio waiver will need to be applied for and granted before such a move can be implemented. Remember, the main studio of any FM station must be located within the station’s 70dBu service contour unless a waiver is granted allowing the main studio to be located outside the city grade service contour. Neither station covers any part of Gainesville with a city grade signal. WTRS has a weak 60dBu over Southwest Gainesville while WMFQ barley covers Gainesville with a 50dBu signal. An application for a waiver will need to show cause that the public interest is being best served as a result of the waiver being granted. Once again as stated in a previous post from me, I’m sure that JVC and its respective FCC attorneys have already considered all the legal issues, again, assuming this is part of the JVC plan.

True, but this would be easily resolved by putting the official main studio at the Marion County sales office. No need for anything fancy, just a crude way to put the office on the air, a copy of the public file and a couple of employees during normal business hours (which I assume they would already have at a sales office anyway). That main programming can originate from anywhere.

While that is true, it also defeats the purpose behind any cost savings unless the main objective is to have the studio in Gainesville and not being done as a cost savings measure.

How far could WMFQ and WTRS be moved? Maybe lease space on the WSKY tower?

 

[MN Maniac]

How far could WMFQ and WTRS be moved? Maybe lease space on the WSKY tower?

WMFQ cannot be moved further north. It is already at or very near minimum spacing with co-channel WAAC/Valdosta, GA. This is why the tower was built south of Ocala when they upgraded from a Class A on 92.7 to Class C2 on 92.9.

WTRS cannot be moved further north due to first-adjacent WQLC/Watertown, FL on 102.1. I *think* the WTRS-FM move from Dunnellon and upgrade from Class A to Class C2 was done prior to the 102.1 allocation (Mark, am I correct here?) So, they could have done so at one time. But this was before Gainesville/Ocala became a combined market. At that time, strong coverage of Gainesville wasn't a big consideration.