Public Airwaves Outdated

[TheBigA]

So if a company owns six stations in a market, one or two of those stations may be really good...and the rest are just out of the running. In the past, at least, it was possible that new ownership would come in and do something with those "dud" stations, but today the status quo is pretty much frozen in place.

The fact is there are a lot more stations in any given market than there were 25-30 years ago. And I don't see a lot of new owners rushing around trying to buy "dud stations." Everyone wants to buy top properties at fire sale prices. There remain a ton of duds at the bottom of the barrell, and from what I see, new ownership does nothing to change the situation. Specifically in terms of lower power AM stations. They start at the bottom, and they stay there, regardless of ownership.

Sure, you have "strategic programming" going on, where a company may be in a format simply to take listeners away from another competitor. But that's competition. In today's business environment, increasing ownership limits won't improve quality, because there simply aren't enough quality companies interested in station ownership. Just a lot of bottom feeders. That won't fix the "dud" quota.

 

[SirRoxalot]

Maybe if the ownership limits weren't so generous, some of those "dud" stations would move back to their original city of license and serve a local population instead of being a fringe player in a larger market at the edge of their listenable contour.

Consolidation hasn't been good to anybody as far as I can see. The idea of consolidation that was sold to Congress was that some stations would go bankrupt if they weren't supported by other stations in a group. Well, let 'em go bankrupt. Either somebody else will come along with a programming idea that will pay the freight, or they'll go dark. Either way, it's better than having them run as a flanker for some corporate group, just another hard drive sitting in a closet.

 

[TheBigA]

Maybe if the ownership limits weren't so generous, some of those "dud" stations would move back to their original city of license and serve a local population instead of being a fringe player in a larger market at the edge of their listenable contour.

Maybe if pigs had wings they could fly.

Suppose I told you right now there are such stations available at an affordable price, but they can't be moved to a major market. You have to put your personal money into it, and you have to serve your local market of 30,000 people. Would you do it if it was your personal money? Not relying on some corporation? That option gets offered to lots of people every day. There's no shortage of "dud" stations on the market right now. No one's buying, because no one wants to lose their shirt. It's not about government regulation. It's about the fact that most people don't want to take a risk. The people who want to serve the public don't have any money. Those who have the money want to make a profit. You can't force or regulate people to lose money.

Right now, Cumulus would love some former broadcasters with great ideas to offer them a few bucks for their dud AM stations in rural areas. Make them an offer. A dollar and take it off their hands. I promise you they'd accept. But no one wants to do the thankless job of building a station from zero. No one. You can't regulate that.

 

[SirRoxalot]

Suppose I told you right now there are such stations available at an affordable price, but they can't be moved to a major market. You have to put your personal money into it, and you have to serve your local market of 30,000 people. Would you do it if it was your personal money?

Not a chance, especially since so many of the corporates have sold off the towers & land, and allowed the transmission equipment to fall into disrepair. And wait until those sweetheart tower leases that were negotiated as part of the tower sale start to run out.

There are a lot of those little properties out there that are doing just fine, thank you. Most of them are the ones owned by small groups or individuals who reinvested in their properties and didn't sell out to Cumulus and their ilk in the first place.

 

[TheBigA]

Either somebody else will come along with a programming idea that will pay the freight, or they'll go dark. Either way, it's better than having them run as a flanker for some corporate group, just another hard drive sitting in a closet.

Actually there is an interesting story on one of the local state boards that caught my eye. A small daytimer was just sold from one of the larger groups to a small local owner for $2.5 million. That's a lot of money for a rural daytime station. Turns out the station is brokered programming for a small passionate Asian community, and they have revived what was a money loser when the station attempted to serve the mainstream community. As I've been saying, the concept of "serving the community" has changed.

 

[TexasTom]

The idea of consolidation that was sold to Congress was that some stations would go bankrupt if they weren't supported by other stations in a group. Well, let 'em go bankrupt. Either somebody else will come along with a programming idea that will pay the freight, or they'll go dark. Either way, it's better than having them run as a flanker for some corporate group, just another hard drive sitting in a closet.

Amen! It's the "creative destruction" that advocates of free markets tend to talk about a lot...but seem to fear in actual practice, where instead the priority goes to changing the rules to minimize the risk of failure for the large incumbent operators. Sometimes, a bankruptcy and fresh start can be the best thing that might happen to a frequency, because it lets someone new -- with new ideas -- come in and program the station without the burden of the previous owner's cost structure.