AMradiofan said:
I see absolutely no evidence of large broadcasters devaluing viable AMs.
But, again, keep in mind that there are very few viable AMs. Only about 1 out of every 11 AM stations in the top 100 markets is viable (150 out of 1600 AMs) because the rest of the stations fail to cover the entire market or are daytimers.
So when a larger broadcaster disposes of an AM, it is generally because it is not capable of generating a profit under that particular company's business model. If sold, there would appear to be someone who does believe they can find a profitable niche.
There are very few cases of AMs in trusts that have lasted more than what amounts to a reasonable amount of time to find a buyer who can actually close on the deal.
At present, Clear Channel has 7 AMs in the Aloha Trust, and CBS has one AM in a trust. There may be another couple of AMs in trusts created to facilitate grandfathered old definition market caps being disposed of after a new definition era sale, but overall, less than a dozen stations in trust out of just under 5000 AM stations is really not an issue.
That is a case not limited to big operators. There are now quite a few cases of AMs that have land worth more than the station. In the case where the station itself is not profitable, and the owner needs to get "out from under" it, such real estate stales have happened. I see more of them where a small operator, often looking towards retirement, can find no buyer for a station and they sell the land and cut the losses on an unprofitable station.
I don't thing there are more than a half dozen or so such cases. A good example is 1310 in Detroit / Dearborn. The land was worth more than the station, and the station facility has been a dog for decades... even in the 60's it couldn't really compete when the market was geographically more centralized and smaller.
The station might be able to downgrade to something like 1 kw / 250 w and serve a particular community... but even that is a long shot.
Quite recently, Clear Channel spent well into the 7 figures upgrading 1150 in Los Angeles and making a fairly decent facility out of it. It has not worked out financially, but they made a major and expensive effort to upgrade. And the very competent engineers at Salem have done some very creative, and expensive, things to upgrade AM acquisitions. Or look at the job Crawford did to move and increase power on KBRT in LA.
There are plenty of examples of stations that are close to being viable having costly upgrades to improve their competitiveness. But the 90% of metro area AMs that are not viable can't be saved unless there is a community worthy of a niche format and which lives under the umbrella of a lesser signal.
Good facilities in major markets are still viable, although they are declining in acceptance due to the rejection of AM by those under about age 50. And some small market AMs can still do a fine job of local service, but even those stations are getting to be a smaller number as time passes.