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Ron Cameron

U

umfan

I've heard he moved his show (he buys brokered time) to 1090, WCAR which otherwise airs the NBC Sports Radio national feed.

He's not listed on their schedule. WCAR doesn't have a website of their own. The former WCAR Radio site still points to ESPN Radio. There is an NBC Sports Radio Detroit site, but it only shows the national programming. Just curious when he might be airing. He was on at 2 PM Sunday when he bought time on WDFN.
 
Nah, his show isn't that awful. Mostly I just wondered when he might be airing more than anything. I doubt he was drawing much on WDFN which at least had him listed on the schedule. He'll likely do less than a small fraction of that on WCAR because of the inferior signal and zero indication from the station that he's even on.

Considering your expertise, do you think WCAR just clearing the NBC content generates enough money to even pay the electric bill for the station? Do they get to share in any revenue from the clearing of ads that comes along with the NBC content typically?
 
Umfan...
I doubt there is any "comping" going on here. Sometimes they will for the large markets (provided the station has some coverage). CAR may be parking NBC there until they sort out the 1160 move.

Sima makes BIG MONEY with a few of his stations and not so much or none with the others. I had told one of his guys that he should just peel off the losers and keep the cash cows. Why erode all of your good cash flow on a couple of losers. Less work-more money in the pocket. Heck, if he donates some of them, he is better off.
 
Is the 1160 move even going to happen? Did the Milford Twp council approve it, despite Wixom's whining? I think that is a dead move, but you would know better than I. I want it to happen, but sooner or later the construction permit will expire and it appears the NIMBYs have the upper hand, unless I missed something.

Even with the change, and even if he adds local hosts, if the plan is to add yet another sports talker to the market, he'll have what, a station that draws maybe a 0.1 or 0.2 6+ share, at best? That's all WXYT-AM is drawing with superior content, occasional clearing of live sports on the station and the backing of CBS Radio. I have to agree with you that his strategy of hanging onto the losers seems questionable. I suspect he plans an ethinic programming mix if and when 1160 gets built, which I doubt will happen.
 
He might do more Ethnic. 680/690 is loaded.
They canceled the old CP and resubmitted another one. It was granted in October of 2013. 15KW days and 216 watts, night. 3 towers day, 2 night.
We'll see how it goes. I'd like to see them move, as well. Back in the day, when Deno was selling it, we almost picked it up. We had the same studies done and the plan was to move it in to the Detroit Metro and run it along side WLQV.
 
Well, I guess when Salem made you rich, that plan didn't make much sense anymore. I wish you had gotten it, it would already be built and the area would have another great outlet as opposed to an existing one (WPON) being dark while this gets sorted out.
 
Don't Believe M-3

Looking through all the applications, it appears that WCXI 1160 could have increased power considerably at its licensed site. The new site is likely to as absorptive of signals as the licensed WPON site. The CP site is about 3 miles west. The whole Northern and Western part of Oakland County has poor conductivity. Only the SE corner has better conductivity, and that even decreased as you went from the old WWJ site to the old WXYT site. The Square Lake and Telegraph site of WPON was quite good. They should have figured out a way for dual use of the site before they sold it. They've put complex directional antennas on top of industrial parks out West.
 
We looked at doing a power increase at its existing site. At the time is was more beneficial to move it towards The D. We should have picked it up in the late 90s.

I had a non compete with Salem, WSNL being the only exclusion. Actually, looking back on things, i would have been just as fine without selling to S. 6 of 1, a half dozen of the other.
 
The upside of the Oakland site would be that once they did the proofs, they could probably get close to 50000 watts. The downside is that it would be a 50000 watt daytimer. Another downside is that it still wouldn't get out that well, even with 50000 watts. Another downside is that if it is licensed as a Class D, it would be subject to more interference and a higher NIF unless they immediately applied for Class B again. The latest applications were done after the measured WYLL contours were done. It would have been better if the measured WYLL contours had been done before your study from the North Rd. site. Combined with the WFEN proofs done in 1985, a more substantial increase would be possible. The CP site is only three miles from the Benstein and Loon Lake Rd., site, which proved to be a big disappointment compared to the Square Lake and Telegraph site. There was a thread on this site about disappointing AM upgrades, and this is not an unusual situation. I think it has to do with the fact that cities tend to be built at low elevation where the soil is better due to proximity to large bodies of water. When facilities move further out, they usually go to higher elevations that are dry much of the time, and have sandy or gravelly soil rather than the clay loam farmlands near cities that DAs were built on in the 1940s and 1950s.
 
Back when we were looking at it, WYLL was still doing everything from Des Plaines. The word is that, at some point, the start broadcasting, 24/7 from the night site. Right now it is there Aux daytime site as well as their permanent night site. WYLLs day pattern from there, at 16KW, is almost as good as their current coverage with 50KW. The other thing i am wondering is what would a 50KW WCXI do to WDFN.
 
SamePattern: FCC won't issue any more Class D daytimers on AM whatsoever, so they'd have to request a different class of license. Nobody has mentioned grabbing the big 50KW Mouse Ears from Disney's 910AM?
 
I doubt Disney would be interested in selling that. Birach wouldn't pay any kind of money for the asset and the Mouse gets to clear Radio Disney in a major market for a pretty reasonable cost. I know they've unloaded other RD outlets in other markets but generlaly only when they get a premium for the station. An AM outlet in Detroit just wouldn't fetch too much. I think jry would get less than half he did a few years back for what he sold to Salem.

Jry, a question, what do you think a fair price for WCAR would be in the current market? I'm talking license, studio and transmitter. Any idea what Birach picked it up for?
 
The 25 mV/m contours of WCXI and WDFN can't overlap. I'll have to look to see how close the latest application is to that.
 
A Licensed Class B can become a Class D, you just can't have a new Class D. In other words, there can't be any NEW stations that are daytimers.

WYLL needs to cover Chicago with a 5 mV/m. Aside from the costs of maintaining two sites, there are advantages to the Des Plaines site in the daytime. It covers the Northern suburbs better for instance. Stations like WLS and WYLL do not have as solid a signal as WSCR, WGN, WBBM, and WMVP do in the Northern suburbs.

I was just looking at the WDFN overlap situation. If the site were just 4 mS/m rather than 8 mS/m, with inverse field of 2500 mV/m, the 25 mV/m would be reduced from 29 km to 20 km (12 miles). If it was 2 mS/m, it would be just 14 km, or about 8.7 miles. And 2500 mV/m that would be just a little less than the minimum field for a 50 kW Class A nondirectional.

I'll look to see what WDEO proofs showed out that way, from the WMVP application.
 
I don't remember what he got it for. I do know that one of my associates was approached by the licensee to sell the property. Personal opinion... I don't see this being worth more than a mil. Basic rule of thumb is take the 12+ population count within the 2 MV/M and multiply that by about 50 cents... That is what we call stick value. There is a bump for being in a major market. If it cashflows, you're looking at 6 times net CF.
An FM Translator is worth 75 to 90 cents for the pop count within the 60 DBU. A full FM can fetch 2 to 3 bucks, on a good day. It seem that at one time, we had someone interested in 1270. CBS would have let it go at the time for about 11 Mil....
I don't see 910 being on the block. That was an interesting move and they are enjoying some value by being in The D.
Before doing that WFDF deal, RDs head of engineering was getting ready to suggest that they buy 600 AM in Flint and do the same thing. We couldn't agree on price. Then we got close and they got spooked by all of the asbestos in the old studio building. I could have gotten creative and sold them the license and the property to someone else. After that blew up, they made an offer for 1500. There was NO WAY i was going to dump the Christian format for those guys. There was no where to move it to. I ticked off a lot of their corporate mouseketeers. John Hare being one of them. I was loud, he was loud, great conference call.
 
Wow, a $1M asset Birach has just sitting there that is likely not generating anything.

I can't even concieve of any bank or investor giving a loan for that property. Possibly something could be made of it, I think, if it cleared talkers not currently cleared in the market (Stephan, Beck) and businesses in and around GC (Canton, Westland, Livonia) were approached in face about trying advertising. Recurring segments with local mayors could also be added, but even assuming 20% down, you'd have to carry a note for $800k. Interest alone would be $56k a year, so assume $120k a year in debt service. The place would cost at least $500k a year to run. I doubt that much revenue could be generated. I'm surprised Birach bought it. As you noted, they're likely getting nothing or next to nothing for clearing the NBCSN content, so this must be losing him money. I didn't think Sima lost money on anything.

If it could be had for $250k, I'd take a run at it, but not for a mil.
 
Same Pattern All Hours said:
A Licensed Class B can become a Class D, you just can't have a new Class D. In other words, there can't be any NEW stations that are daytimers.

WYLL needs to cover Chicago with a 5 mV/m. Aside from the costs of maintaining two sites, there are advantages to the Des Plaines site in the daytime. It covers the Northern suburbs better for instance. Stations like WLS and WYLL do not have as solid a signal as WSCR, WGN, WBBM, and WMVP do in the Northern suburbs.

I was just looking at the WDFN overlap situation. If the site were just 4 mS/m rather than 8 mS/m, with inverse field of 2500 mV/m, the 25 mV/m would be reduced from 29 km to 20 km (12 miles). If it was 2 mS/m, it would be just 14 km, or about 8.7 miles. And 2500 mV/m that would be just a little less than the minimum field for a 50 kW Class A nondirectional.

I'll look to see what WDEO proofs showed out that way, from the WMVP application.
Click to expand...

If you look at the patterns, they're close. They can put YLL on the Aux site and tweak things to match the two. My guess is that 22 or 23 KW matches the Des Plaines coverage, spot on. The new site is much more efficient.
Heck, I'd buy WCAR for $250K.....
 
Keep in mind that the contours shown are usually low values. You need 25-50 mV/m at least to get into the buildings and electrically noisy areas. WLS has a hard time on the north side, and that's on a lower frequency. WYLL's signal is overwhelming inside places like O'Hare Airport in the daytime. Reminds me of the 1430 and 1540 50 kW stations in Toronto on the Toronto Islands just South of the Central Business District.
 
Yup. We used to LMA 930 in the market.... I know all of those signals, intimately.

Funny thing with noise. I usually detect it more with the stations with low dial positions.
 
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