A friend passed along to me that Red Mountain Ventures has filed to acquire 1450 WZGX in Bessemer. As part of the deal, WZGX will be paired up with the 99.1 translator licensed to Fultondale, which is also owned by Shelby Broadcast Associates.
Shelby = Red Mountain = Great South Wireless = Reynolds Technical, so it's gonna be all in the Reynolds family.
This raises some rather interesting questions. For example, I'm curious how this nearly full-metro market translator is going to work with WZGX's tiny little 2 mV/m contour, which barely reaches downtown from what I remember. 1450 is more than likely on air with the regional Mexican "El Patron" format, so there's no clue just yet what this is all leading towards. Will it displace the sports on the translator? Will sports displace the regional Mexican format? Is this all a smoke screen to get 1220 WAYE's "La Hefa" regional Mexican onto a translator that isn't being threatened with being shut down? (Valleydale Broadcasting owns the 98.3 translator paired to WAYE, but Valleydale is yet another arm of the Reynolds empire.)
Unless I'm misunderstanding the rules of AM and translators being paired, something else is going to have to feed 99.1 to make it legit, and I suspect they'll continue leasing WDJC-HD3 and the sports format will continue. But I am just wildly speculating and I'm always wrong, so take it with a grain of salt. Or an entire salt lick.
The Reynolds people seem to be really long-term thinkers, so for all I know they could pair 99.1 with WAYE, then move 98.3 to a short stick closer to Bessemer to be fed by WZGX as a much more regional signal. That would certainly make the most sense at this juncture. I don't see WZGX moving to a more central location or increasing power to be a better fit with a metro-wide translator, though. That's just too wild.
Shelby = Red Mountain = Great South Wireless = Reynolds Technical, so it's gonna be all in the Reynolds family.
This raises some rather interesting questions. For example, I'm curious how this nearly full-metro market translator is going to work with WZGX's tiny little 2 mV/m contour, which barely reaches downtown from what I remember. 1450 is more than likely on air with the regional Mexican "El Patron" format, so there's no clue just yet what this is all leading towards. Will it displace the sports on the translator? Will sports displace the regional Mexican format? Is this all a smoke screen to get 1220 WAYE's "La Hefa" regional Mexican onto a translator that isn't being threatened with being shut down? (Valleydale Broadcasting owns the 98.3 translator paired to WAYE, but Valleydale is yet another arm of the Reynolds empire.)
Unless I'm misunderstanding the rules of AM and translators being paired, something else is going to have to feed 99.1 to make it legit, and I suspect they'll continue leasing WDJC-HD3 and the sports format will continue. But I am just wildly speculating and I'm always wrong, so take it with a grain of salt. Or an entire salt lick.
The Reynolds people seem to be really long-term thinkers, so for all I know they could pair 99.1 with WAYE, then move 98.3 to a short stick closer to Bessemer to be fed by WZGX as a much more regional signal. That would certainly make the most sense at this juncture. I don't see WZGX moving to a more central location or increasing power to be a better fit with a metro-wide translator, though. That's just too wild.
