Salem News: WESX Sale Gets Poor Reception

[raccoonradio]

...on North Shore

http://www.ecnnews.com/cgi-bin/05/snstory.pl?-sec-News+1k589g0+fn-wesx+page_0

The small AM radio station in Salem and later Marblehead has spent the last 67 years telling listeners who won the elections, scored the touchdowns and robbed the banks in their communities. But the WESX that generations have come to know and love will soon cease to exist.

The station, along with its sister station in Quincy, was recently sold for $4.5 million to a Connecticut businessman who plans to take down WESX's 180-foot antenna in Marblehead, move the studio to Chelsea and maybe even change its call letters.

The sale still must be approved by the Federal Communications Commission, but the station's final day will probably come sometime in May

(If the article is inaccessible try:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1580302/posts )_

 

[EWF]

Jay Asher gave up on Quincy and the South Shore years ago and had minimal local coverage and access. Asher was really an absentee owner most of the time. The sale to this right wing group will be a disaster. Someone should challenge the sale to the FCC but it is probably a lost cause.


> ...on North Shore
>
http://www.ecnnew> s.com/cgi-bin/05/snstory.pl?-sec-News+1k589g0+fn-wesx+page_0
>
>
> The small AM radio station in Salem and later Marblehead has
> spent the last 67 years telling listeners who won the
> elections, scored the touchdowns and robbed the banks in
> their communities. But the WESX that generations have come
> to know and love will soon cease to exist.
>
> The station, along with its sister station in Quincy, was
> recently sold for $4.5 million to a Connecticut businessman
> who plans to take down WESX's 180-foot antenna in
> Marblehead, move the studio to Chelsea and maybe even change
> its call letters.
>
> The sale still must be approved by the Federal
> Communications Commission, but the station's final day will
> probably come sometime in May
>
> (If the article is inaccessible try:
>
> http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1580302/posts )_
>

 

[HHH]

> > http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1580302/posts )_


Nice article.

The station was founded in 1939 and, at the time, had SEVEN (!) studios on three floors with a 180-seat audience studio. And this is just a local station.

Man, those were the days.

Now, it will just be another mindless property bought by a slum landlord who will rent it out to relgious whackos. Just what we need.

 

[MCarney]

> Jay Asher gave up on Quincy and the South Shore years ago
> and had minimal local coverage and access. Asher was really
> an absentee owner most of the time. The sale to this right
> wing group will be a disaster. Someone should challenge the
> sale to the FCC but it is probably a lost cause.
>
The FCC would only listen to a challenge if there were another group bidding on the station. They can deny a sale, but that has more to do with ownership caps or already proven previous violations of regulations and not formats. Bottom line - there's not enough advertising to keep the local stations afloat as they have been traditionally programmed. No one will keep these stations on as a community service and the demographics are not there. Ask anyone under 40, and they'll tell you that they shun AM and don't really care for local politics unless it affects them directly.

Many of these local stations have a lot of land or a large building with them, from the pre-satellite days when they had to be live. That's the key - developers would like the land but not the license. The people who want to own the license know they can operate out of one room if necessary and don't want the overhead of the property.

 

[Retro]

> > > http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1580302/posts
> )_
>
>
> Nice article.
>
> The station was founded in 1939 and, at the time, had SEVEN
> (!) studios on three floors with a 180-seat audience studio.
> And this is just a local station.
>
> Man, those were the days.
>
> Now, it will just be another mindless property bought by a
> slum landlord who will rent it out to relgious whackos.
> Just what we need.
>

I'm sorry, just exactly where does it say that the station is being sold to religious whackos?

 

[HHH]

> I'm sorry, just exactly where does it say that the station
> is being sold to religious whackos?
>

I never said "sold" I said "rent out".

All indications are that the station will be another brokerage operation, especially since the proposed new licensee said that the format will be "available for religious groups, among others, to purchase airtime".

Knowing the political leanings of the new licensee, you can expect some programming which just might fall into my description.

 

[LA_Guy]

I know for a FACT that the station(s) will be brokered spanish gospel/religion.

I heard this from Otto Miller himself.




> > I'm sorry, just exactly where does it say that the station
>
> > is being sold to religious whackos?
> >
>
> I never said "sold" I said "rent out".
>
> All indications are that the station will be another
> brokerage operation, especially since the proposed new
> licensee said that the format will be "available for
> religious groups, among others, to purchase airtime".
>
> Knowing the political leanings of the new licensee, you can
> expect some programming which just might fall into my
> description.
>

 

[fccfight]

One solution is for community people to band together, build a bunch of
low power AM stations - say 50 - 100 of them - and create a new voice.
Having an internet outlet will make those 50-100 low power AMs all the
more credible. Community stations like WESX should not go the way of the dinosaur.


> I know for a FACT that the station(s) will be brokered
> spanish gospel/religion.
>
> I heard this from Otto Miller himself.
>
>
>
>
> > > I'm sorry, just exactly where does it say that the
> station
> >
> > > is being sold to religious whackos?
> > >
> >
> > I never said "sold" I said "rent out".
> >
> > All indications are that the station will be another
> > brokerage operation, especially since the proposed new
> > licensee said that the format will be "available for
> > religious groups, among others, to purchase airtime".
> >
> > Knowing the political leanings of the new licensee, you
> can
> > expect some programming which just might fall into my
> > description.
> >
>

 

[inorm99]

>
>
> I'm sorry, just exactly where does it say that the station
> is being sold to religious whackos?
>

I believe the following is the paragraph that explains it.
Maybe you should read more than sluglines and not listen to just soundbytes

("Otto Miller, the Connecticut businessman who is buying WESX, along with Quincy station WJDA, plans to combine them into a station in Chelsea that will do "multicultural Christian broadcasting."

Miller said the station will lease air time to preachers or doctors or acupuncturists -- anyone who "likes to get on the air and help people."

"Our whole basic premise is that every man, woman and child has a special talent to offer," Miller said. "We need to know about it, we need to share it.")<P ID="signature">______________
Norm Rosen
</P>

 

[Retro]

> >
> >
> > I'm sorry, just exactly where does it say that the station
>
> > is being sold to religious whackos?
> >
>
> I believe the following is the paragraph that explains it.
> Maybe you should read more than sluglines and not listen to
> just soundbytes
>
> ("Otto Miller, the Connecticut businessman who is buying
> WESX, along with Quincy station WJDA, plans to combine them
> into a station in Chelsea that will do "multicultural
> Christian broadcasting."
>
> Miller said the station will lease air time to preachers or
> doctors or acupuncturists -- anyone who "likes to get on the
> air and help people."
>
> "Our whole basic premise is that every man, woman and child
> has a special talent to offer," Miller said. "We need to
> know about it, we need to share it.")
>

Well I find the term "religious whackos" to be quite offensive.

 

[raccoonradio]

> One solution is for community people to band together, build
> a bunch of
> low power AM stations - say 50 - 100 of them - and create a
> new voice.
> Having an internet outlet will make those 50-100 low power
> AMs all the
> more credible. Community stations like WESX should not go
> the way of the dinosaur.

There's always the expanded band--and, indeed, I hear "community" stations
(unlic. ) at 1690, etc.<P ID="signature">______________

</P>

 

[raccoonradio]

> I know for a FACT that the station(s) will be brokered
> spanish gospel/religion.
>
> I heard this from Otto Miller himself.

Some posts on boston-radio-interest are adding an interesting twist to this:
the new owner may want to put the 'ESX stick in Lynn, but he'll still need to
cover the COL (Salem) BUT may have to reduce power to protect the new!
improved! WKOX signal, too...

 

[DanStrassberg]

> > I know for a FACT that the station(s) will be brokered
> > spanish gospel/religion.
> >
> > I heard this from Otto Miller himself.
>
> Some posts on boston-radio-interest are adding an
> interesting twist to this:
> the new owner may want to put the 'ESX stick in Lynn, but
> he'll still need to
> cover the COL (Salem) BUT may have to reduce power to
> protect the new!
> improved! WKOX signal, too...(though is the 30kHZ separation
> enough so that
> he might not have to worry about it?)
>
The rule for third adjacents is no overlap of 25 mV/m contours. Overlap that occurs over open water doesn't count. WKOX's daytime 25 mV/m will just reach the water's edge in Dorchester, I believe. I'm not sure of the distance from the WESX site in Marblehead or from the WLYN site in Lynn to the water's edge in Dorchester but I do know that the WLYN site is 7.4 miles closer to downtown Boston than is the WESX site. I also know that the distance from WJIB in Cambridge to WLYN is 9.6 miles, so I suspect that the distance from WLYN to the water's edge downtown is about five miles. It might be six miles from WLYN to Dorchester. That's approximately 10 km. WESX's RMS field strength at 1 km is almost exactly 300 mV/m. If WESX were to move to the WLYN site without cutting back its power to reduce the field strength below what is is now, there would be prohibited overlap with WKOX's new Newton operation. The distance to WNEB would also be reduced by about 7.4 miles causing an increase in prohibited overlap with WNEB and I believe that the distance to WBUR (AM) would also be reduced increasing prohibited overlap with that station. The FCC rules require a REDUCTION of prohibited overlap when an AM changes its facilities. Increases are definitely out, and even maintaining the status quo won't cut it. The reductions are supposed to total 10% but I think there may be some leeway on the percentage.

Now, the distance from the WLYN site to WESX's current site is apparently not salt water all the way. Moreover, the distance from the WLYN site to downtown Salem appears to be geater than the distance from the WLYN site to the WESX transmitter site in Marblehead. In addition, there is apparently some land between the WLYN site and downtown Salem because according to the V-Soft signal strength by Zip code Web site, WLYN's signal in Salem is a lot lower than it would be if there were salt water all the way. So it does not appear that WESX could diplex with WLYN and deliver the necessary signal to Salem at night. In other words, the FCC would not approve a move of the WESX transmitter to the WLYN site unless WESX changes its COL.

Where else might WESX go to allow the new owner to cash in on the valuable land under the transmitter site? I don't know the territory well enough, but solving the problem doesn't look easy. If the goal is to serve Lynn, the WLYN site would be a good choice, but it looks as if that move would require WESX to change its COL and no such change will be possible until the FCC opens another AM major change filing window--which won't happen for several years. A move inland might solve the problem of interfernce with other stations, but then maintaining an adequate signal in Salem while delivering a better signal to Lynn looks impossible--and then there would be the cost (either purchase or rental) of the new site, the cost of the move, and the difficulty of getting permission to construct a tower.

AFAIK, the new owner owns only one station, WDJZ, and he hasn't tried to move the transmitter. Few people who view radio simply as a business have the patience for all of the FCC's technical/legal fol-de-rol or for the local environmental/legal/zoning fold-de-rol associated with AM transmitter moves. Yeah, it's only one tower in this case, but for most people that's one too many.