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New Voice, New Choice
- Thread starter jerry367
- Start date
Mike Sheridan said:
September 1970, moved to Vermont (parents' choice, I was 13), which is right in the middle of 'KB's nighttime skip wave. That's when I really started listening, after leaving the area. Not like I don't wear it on my sleeve or anything but 'KB was THE reason I took up radio. The other stations I listened to (WABC, WRKO, etc.) only reinforced that career choice.
The last time I saw Channel 7 was 1993, in a K-Mart in Fredonia off Thruway Exit 59. Traveling to the in-laws in Syracuse for Christmas, we ran into a white-out so bad that all traffic was crawling off the 90 as best they could...we and several other motorists wound up at K-Mart, in the TV section in the middle of the afternoon. And who should come on to do a wx update but Tom Jolls. Still there after all those years...talk about a "Rocketship 7" flashback!
I remember when Cap Cities bought ABC and hoped that somehow the combo could qualify as being grandfathered, which of course it wasn't...and I knew the TV was later sold but lost track since. If WGRZ, given NBC's weak lead-ins and absymal network numbers, is doing better than WKBW, that is profoundly sad.
You're correct. KB TV is profoundly sad.
RBW said:
D'oh! Yes, I certainly did! :-[
Still not an insurmountable obstacle - if WBTA can coexist with the current KB, it can certainly coexist with a relocated KB at a similar distance, especially if the "new" KB is a DA-1 like the existing KB with a null toward KOMA, since Batavia would fall in that null too.
All purely hypothetical, of course...
B
Bob1370
Guest
"Still not an insurmountable obstacle - if WBTA can coexist with the current KB, it can certainly coexist with a relocated KB at a similar distance, especially if the "new" KB is a DA-1 like the existing KB with a null toward KOMA, since Batavia would fall in that null too."
Might not even need that. Remember, when we talk about WBTA we're talking about a station that's in the main power lobe of KB now. Move the 1520 transmitter to, say, Hilton (if you're changing location and COL to Rochester and using it to go head to head with WHAM), operate omni by day, send the night null in the requisite west-southwest direction, and you still don't send a 25 mv/m city grade signal toward any third adjacent channel station even if you're on a single stick between sunrise and sunset. You may be able to operate your 1520 station as a 50 kW-U, DA-N with pattern change an hour past local sunset, coinciding with Oklahoma City sunset, when KOKC flips from non-D daytime to night pattern.
The night pattern would probably look like KB's current pattern. Maybe just a smidge looser because you're further east from anyone you have to protect.
Of course this only makes sense as a strategy for Entercom to use if it keeps KB and uses it to strengthen its cluster position in Rochester by knocking WHAM out of the box (easier to do than you might think these days since they're really living on their morning show and 5 PM news), picking up a few 35-64 share points, and leaving FM sister WBEE in the top spot 12+ to pick up more of the national agency business that a market leader always gets in any sizable town.
I hope they never do this, because I like working for the #2 news-talker and #2 AM in the market 12+ and hope it stays that way with no one to threaten that...
And I doubt they ever will. When you talk about setting up three 400 foot towers, a pair of 50 kW transmitters with phasor, transmitter building, all the land acquisition cost and all the cost of setting up studios (even if you're just putting new equipment in a few rooms in another corner of the Mill Street building) you're talking serious seven figure money and looking at years (if ever) before you amortize that investment.
Never happen...they'd be better off selling the damn thing to someone who wants to try to make a go of it in Buffalo, knowing the probability that they won't be able to make a serious dent in WBEN unless they spend an insane amount of money to do it.
Might not even need that. Remember, when we talk about WBTA we're talking about a station that's in the main power lobe of KB now. Move the 1520 transmitter to, say, Hilton (if you're changing location and COL to Rochester and using it to go head to head with WHAM), operate omni by day, send the night null in the requisite west-southwest direction, and you still don't send a 25 mv/m city grade signal toward any third adjacent channel station even if you're on a single stick between sunrise and sunset. You may be able to operate your 1520 station as a 50 kW-U, DA-N with pattern change an hour past local sunset, coinciding with Oklahoma City sunset, when KOKC flips from non-D daytime to night pattern.
The night pattern would probably look like KB's current pattern. Maybe just a smidge looser because you're further east from anyone you have to protect.
Of course this only makes sense as a strategy for Entercom to use if it keeps KB and uses it to strengthen its cluster position in Rochester by knocking WHAM out of the box (easier to do than you might think these days since they're really living on their morning show and 5 PM news), picking up a few 35-64 share points, and leaving FM sister WBEE in the top spot 12+ to pick up more of the national agency business that a market leader always gets in any sizable town.
I hope they never do this, because I like working for the #2 news-talker and #2 AM in the market 12+ and hope it stays that way with no one to threaten that...
And I doubt they ever will. When you talk about setting up three 400 foot towers, a pair of 50 kW transmitters with phasor, transmitter building, all the land acquisition cost and all the cost of setting up studios (even if you're just putting new equipment in a few rooms in another corner of the Mill Street building) you're talking serious seven figure money and looking at years (if ever) before you amortize that investment.
Never happen...they'd be better off selling the damn thing to someone who wants to try to make a go of it in Buffalo, knowing the probability that they won't be able to make a serious dent in WBEN unless they spend an insane amount of money to do it.
Did somebody say that KB costs about $40K per month just for electricity? Wow. Nearly half a million a year just to keep it turned on. You have to figure that it would cost a new owner a million a year to run it. My guess is that it will remain as a flanker for WBEN until they finally decide to simulcast it on 107.7.
So that's roughly in the neighborhood of 450,000 per year for the electric bill? Most of their ads sound like the regular Entercom/Bflo bulk buys I hear on the other stations in that cluster. Taxes and high finance are not my thing, but perhaps they've gone "Gordon Brown" and use KB as a tax write-off, to somehow balance off the (assumed) profits of the other stations?
Umm...no. Checking the PDF on the Harris 3DX-50 AM transmitter, we find power consumption to be 57.5kw @ zero modulation and 86kw at 100% modulation. Let's assume a high-side demand guesstimate of 75kw with average voice (talk format) modulation.
75kw per hour at .12 per KWH means just the transmitter burns $9 bucks of juice every hour. That's $216 per day, or $6480 per 30-day month....for the transmitter. Then you've got three towers - IIRC there are two code beacons plus obstruction lights per tower. Even if the tower lights have been retrofitted to LED lamps, the heating and building lights plus the towers and HVAC...I'm pretty comfortable with my estimate the Big Tree site costs Entercom something like $8K per month for utilities.
75kw per hour at .12 per KWH means just the transmitter burns $9 bucks of juice every hour. That's $216 per day, or $6480 per 30-day month....for the transmitter. Then you've got three towers - IIRC there are two code beacons plus obstruction lights per tower. Even if the tower lights have been retrofitted to LED lamps, the heating and building lights plus the towers and HVAC...I'm pretty comfortable with my estimate the Big Tree site costs Entercom something like $8K per month for utilities.
Of course, one of those three 1520 towers would still have to be standing and lit even if KB went away completely, since it's also part of the WGR night array, so at least that bit of the tower-lighting budget could be attributed to 550's costs.
I wonder, too, if some conversation with the FAA might yield a reduction in the lighting requirements at Big Tree. Much as I love seeing all those blinking lights while driving down the Thruway at night, they could probably get by with only the four outer towers lit...or at least without having to light the middle KB tower.
I wonder, too, if some conversation with the FAA might yield a reduction in the lighting requirements at Big Tree. Much as I love seeing all those blinking lights while driving down the Thruway at night, they could probably get by with only the four outer towers lit...or at least without having to light the middle KB tower.
I believe your numbers, Bob. Those numbers make even more likely that Entercom will keep KB as a flanker for both WBEN and WGR.
Savage should go on The Price Is Right (Yeesh! Just remembered Price Communications once owned KB and more than a few employees refered to it as Half Price Communications. Remember the rules? Closest to actual number without going over wins. Ironically, Tom Atkins and I had lunch with Danny on Monday and this topic came up seemingly before being broached here. As Tom remembers, the bill for the Harris solid state 50 runs a smidge under $8k a month and the WGR box is a smidge over $1k a month. Aside from the towers, there are ancilary expenses such as HVAC, lighting and security. Savage wins the trip to Cancun with Airfare and four nights at the luxurious Sweaty Palms Hotel. Tax and tips not included.
B
Bob1370
Guest
"Savage wins the trip to Cancun with Airfare and four nights at the luxurious Sweaty Palms Hotel. Tax and tips not included."
LOL!
Of course, you really need Rod Roddy to make the announcement....
LOL!
Of course, you really need Rod Roddy to make the announcement....
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