STOP FIDDLING WITH PART 15- YOUR TIME HAS ARRIVED

[joshzz]

Now is the time to get off the Part 15 Train Ride and put yourself in a FULL POWER STATION.

Now you can own a real licensed radio station instead of being a FULL POWER WANNEBE. Prices for stations have never been lower. Here's one to consider today. Work out a favorable financial arrangement and make it a career.

Mississippi silent 1000w AM daytimer, very low expenses, on-air-ready for buyer.
Find an FM translator and turn this into an AM and fulltime FM. Good market, county seat, $34,900
For INFO contact Harold Bausemer 781-848-4201 ~ e-mail- [email protected] (anytime)

 

[Tom Wells]

I live in Chicago, and we still have no radio station serving the go-go faster-louder format.
I'm not going to Mississippi, where there are fewer faster-louder go-go people.
I mean, I like Mississippi, but I'm intent on eventually serving up this format to Chicago on a large scale.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

Now you can own a real licensed radio station instead of being a FULL POWER WANNEBE. Prices for stations have never been lower. Here's one to consider today. Work out a favorable financial arrangement and make it a career.

Mississippi silent 1000w AM daytimer, very low expenses, on-air-ready for buyer.
Find an FM translator and turn this into an AM and fulltime FM.

This looks like a good one for YOU, Josh.

This sounds like the same station that someone advised me about serveral weeks ago. Southern markets like this are not for just anyone. If you are going to live there and operate the radio station, you need to have a comfort level for living in that market. In fact, you probably need a PASSION for living in that market. If this is not the SAME market I reviewed, it has to be another one just like it. You check the yellow pages and you find about enough advertising prospects to keep you busy making sales calls about one day a month.

Now if you grew up in that part of Mississippi, you may feel insulted by my tone of voice when I ask following question: "And if you acquire the station and move there, who ya' gonna socialize with?" There is a lot to be said about how warm and welcoming the Southern Culture is, but really "connecting in" can be quite complex for some people.

I'm convinced this is a really great opportunity.... for someone. The puzzle is figuring out WHO is that right someone.

P.S. This is not a put-down message about the South or about Mississippi. Composed by a resident of the hills of North Georgia.

 

[WCWalker]

Now you can own a real licensed radio station instead of being a FULL POWER WANNEBE. Prices for stations have never been lower. Here's one to consider today. Work out a favorable financial arrangement and make it a career.

Mississippi silent 1000w AM daytimer, very low expenses, on-air-ready for buyer.
Find an FM translator and turn this into an AM and fulltime FM.

This looks like a good one for YOU, Josh.

This sounds like the same station that someone advised me about serveral weeks ago. Southern markets like this are not for just anyone. If you are going to live there and operate the radio station, you need to have a comfort level for living in that market. In fact, you probably need a PASSION for living in that market. If this is not the SAME market I reviewed, it has to be another one just like it. You check the yellow pages and you find about enough advertising prospects to keep you busy making sales calls about one day a month.

Now if you grew up in that part of Mississippi, you may feel insulted by my tone of voice when I ask following question: "And if you acquire the station and move there, who ya' gonna socialize with?" There is a lot to be said about how warm and welcoming the Southern Culture is, but really "connecting in" can be quite complex for some people.

I'm convinced this is a really great opportunity.... for someone. The puzzle is figuring out WHO is that right someone.

P.S. This is not a put-down message about the South or about Mississippi. Composed by a resident of the hills of North Georgia.

Excellent points Goat Rodeo Cowboy. Unless the purchase makes sound business sense and the station can show at least a modest profit to the point the new owner can not only keep the station operating but take a salary to survive, it would be foolish to just buy ANY radio station regardless of the location.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

Excellent points Goat Rodeo Cowboy. Unless the purchase makes sound business sense and the station can show at least a modest profit to the point the new owner can not only keep the station operating but take a salary to survive, it would be foolish to just buy ANY radio station regardless of the location.

Permit me a couple of "war stories" to illustrate a point.

Not too many years after the LBJ Administration implemented the medicare funding and encouragement, a new moder Nursing Home industry developed. I found myself working for what I am told was the 7th largest such company in the nation at that time. We had a "chain" of them and I worked at the home office where we had a specialist, and if needed, a staff, for every kind of detail you can imagine. Take the pressure and drudgery of such things as accounting, payroll and billing off the shoulders of the local staff. Let them focus on patient care and maintaining the happiness of the family members who tended to have guilt feelings about putting Mama "in the home". When one of our bright administrators would take off and buy a single nursing home on their own, they learned the brutal facts of having to do it all.

Fast forward a few years. One of my offspring developing a career in design, planning and architecture wandered away from the corporate beehive to join what I refer to as a "boutique" firm. It turned out to be an excellent career move, but I still remember that frantic phone call soon after the move. "Dad, I have a computer problem and I need your help. I didn't realize what a "kept woman" i was, just calling I.T. every time you turn around and saying: FIX THIS!"

All of that to say: Running the little "teapot" of a radio station in a Mississippi county seat or any other micro market situation may require more "smarts" packaged into one or two individuals than it takes to run a station or cluster of stations in a more populous market where you can have some "specialists" on your staff, or a phone call or e-mail away in the corporate home office. If you can only hope to bill $75,000 to 125,000 per year on the best day of your life, you will need a lot of skills in your own hip pocket.... or in your purse. I see a number of women making these small stations hum quite well.

 

[Flying-Dutchman]

I grew up in Springfield Ohio. If I was waiting for my chance to build a licensed station there,
I'd still be waiting. I had to be willing to move to get licenses in good markets. So, I understand.
Sometimes, you have to be willing to move to do what you want.

But, there are others who want to start a station where they live. There see people they feel
need service at home. The only way to get service to them may be LPFM or part 15 AM.
That's OK too.

 

[joshzz]

Problem with an LPFM is that to do it right it's going to cost you more than the price of many stations currently already for sale. I know this first hand and secondly it's MUCH more difficult to make a living at it than owning an AM.

Secondly Part 15 for all intent and purpose is really just a hobbyist experience. The very idea of a listenable signal that reaches 400 feet is not a viable signal. By the time you tuned in the signal in the car you will have passed it's reasonable reach.

The Mississippi Radio Station is just one of many being offered all over the US. For the person in Illinois, there are many stations in your region you just have to move beyond Chicago.

When I posted the station for sale, I was showing you an example of one station for sale. You can contact the broker and find stations available in your state.

If you're serious about radio, then it's time to turn in the training wheels and look for a real radio station. This is the time.

 

[TheBigA]

The key word to me in the offering is that it's silent. That means off the air. That means you start from zero. On-air ready means you put it on the air. I don't know how many of you have started from zero. I've done it three times, and it's not easy. You have to invest a lot in promotion, because no one knows you're there. You also have to be visible, in front of people's faces, perhaps spending a lot with little or no return for a while. Perhaps the reason why it's now silent is because the previous owner ran it with very low expenses. But that will have to change once it signs back on.

 

[Carmine5]

But you can find distressed radio properties, particularly AM, at a good price in your home state. It may not be in your city or town but possibly nearby or several miles away. Quite often these properties aren't advertised but is more a question of taking the initiative and asking a station owner if he/she wants to sell.

I found such a property in this very manner. I e-mailed the owner and discovered that he was willing to sell his AM station for 50K (half in cash and he would carry the rest). Had my wife not liked the area we would have moved there and I would be running the station right now. It had been poorly managed but I could see that the station and the area had potential.

Everything needed relocating but, while negotiations were going on, I had made friends with the local city council and found them very cooperative; finding someone for me who would lease some farm land for the antenna site and they even offered me space in the city's old town section for a studio at a very good price (it was in an enterprise zone). It was a dream situation (wives can be such a problem at times). I had to drop the deal but gave the owner some money for his time and we ended on good terms.

But deals in your home state do exist, you just have to seek them out.

c5

 

[Desert Ear]

Josh is just trying to be helpful.
I'm a Part 15 AM broadcaster and also have a CP for a full-power NCE in another town.

I'm planning to commute and already have local people there who have volunteered to learn to, and operate the station.
And, I started advertising, a little at a time, a year ago. When we sign on, we'll have an audience.
I also started a Part 15 AM, there, too. It's already gaining an audience and we'll use that to advertise the NCE.

If you really want to do broadcasting- as a career, as Josh stated- you can always find a way.

Oh- my very first broadcasting job was in Mississippi. Nice folks.
And, I went there as a yankee from the north!

Think outta da box, folks!

DE

 

[joshzz]

DesertEar,

Thank you for that great post!

Desert's living proof of someone that's taking action.

There will be always things that are uncertain. Life indeed is uncertain. We can make up a million reasons why we shouldn't invest in real radio and some are reasonable but if you truly love radio, then this is the time.

You only have one life. There will never be a better time to buy, I believe than within the next year. Do you want to remember the opportunities you COULD HAVE HAD 20 YEARS AGO or are you ready to take action?

I'm not a fan of the show SURVIVOR but I did watch the finale and was impressed with the young woman that won the million dollars. She gave up her lucrative position as a pharmaceutical sales person to go on the show Survivor. She said that sometimes, you just have to take risks.

She's right.. and so is DesertEars..

We can talk this to death or you can take action now and move ahead with a great future in radio .. it consumes a lot of time .. I can you tell this firsthand but if you love the business, you'll enjoy it.

josh

 

[WCWalker]

Don't worry. There will be ample opportunities to buy licensed radio stations in the years ahead. More and more companies will be going bankrupt and many stations will be going dark. Simply purchasing a radio station because your "feelings" may tell you to do so is not a prudent move. I have a very good story to reinforce my point that you need to know what you are doing from the business end before taking the plunge into business ownership.

In 1992 I had the opportunity to become part owner of a small restaurant in the Italian South End of Hartford. The primary owner had just left the AETNA Insurance Company after 30 years in middle management at the company HQ. His life long dream was to start up a restaurant He took his life savings and retirement package and opened up this little shop without bothering to do any research and gain some experience at another restaurant first. He had no background in food service work let alone small business or restaurant management. Worse still, he picked a location that has more Italian eateries per square mile than anywhere else on the planet outside of Italy. He had Trinity College at the top of the hill behind the business and that could have been his best market to tap into for business but he chose to ignore it. Instead he tried going head to head with the established eateries that had been around for a century.

When he asked me to become part owner I had to decline because I knew the restaurant was not going to make it in this location. I told him exactly what he needed to do in order to make it but he didn't want to listen. He didn't want to try to market his business to the thousands of college students at Trinity. He didn't. He should have taken at least a part time job working at another restaurant to learn the in's and out's of running a kitchen or hired an experienced restaurant manager. He didn't. He should have found a location in a suburb that had little or no competition of this sort and could have used this kind of restaurant. He didn't. Well, six months after he asked me to become part owner I drove by the place only to see it had closed.

Moral to the story? Forget what your "feelings" tell you to do. You have to make a sound business decision based upon common sense, logic and instinct. If I followed my feelings when making decisions concerning career I'd probably be homeless right now. In a nutshell, to anyone that wants to buy a licensed station. Make sure you have some real hands on experience before taking the plunge and make certain you will have a chance at making enough money with it to stay on the air. And don't forget the old saying that the key to success in business is "location, location, location". It's true. I could use another story to reinforce this position even more so, but I believe this one is the best one to illustrate my points.

BTW. A Part 15 AM station using a FCC Type Accepted transmitter has a range that far exceeds 400 feet.

 

[joshzz]

Dear William Walker,

Appreciate you reply, but must humbly disagree. Restaurant business is not radio. As a leading radio broker once told me, "The Restaurant Business is a terrible business to invest in. It's nothing like radio."

We had at one point decided thought it would be a good thing to supplement our radio station income by investing in an IHOP. We discovered through extensive research that one could gross $ 2 million dollars by owning an IHOP restaurant and still be losing money. I checked out other restaurant opportunities and realized what the broker said was true. One thing he pointed out to me which was of the utmost importance, there is a limit to the number of radio stations in any given area. There is no such limit with restaurants, etc & the fact is most restaurants go out of business in the first year.

Our FCC engineer refers to Part 15 as hobby radio. It's a good way to get your feet wet but he said you'll never be able to derive any income from it. joe

 

[WCWalker]

Josh. Someone without any appreciable experience in radio management should not attempt to buy a station unless he can find a qualified manager to run the facility.

The most successful people that I have known over the years all started on the ground floor of a business and then worked their way up to a higher position or the top. Starting out with a professional Part 15 AM is the perfect way to gain real world experience while keeping the financial risks at a bare minimum. I know more than one licensed station owner that started out this way and eventually they were able to achieve success in not only running a successful Part 15 AM station (commercially at that) they then were able to obtain a licensed station and succeed with that endeavor.

 

[Timewarp]

Once upon a time a very wealthy man bought an FM radio station in a majot market. He got the
station at a very low price and he had way over $20,000,000.00 in his personal bank account.

He was known in this radio business as a very bright operator and spent millions on a nice
studio building. he hired the best jocks, all known names in the city. He bought the ratings
and his station made the top ten.

He boasted in the media that he was going to show everyone how radio should be done.

And, he had enough money that he could have run his station forever without ever selling an ad.
He could have established a new inovative sound without ever doing any business.

But,, he was losing way over $100,000 every month. The bright ideas that had worked so well
in the past, no longer worked . Trying to run the station as a business was a much bigger loss
than not trying to be a business at all.

He was a single stick. The deck was stacked against him. He sold the station at a huge loss.

This is just one of thousands of such stories. Even the big boys are losing money now. The value of licenses has crashed. Donations to religious broadcasters are way down and they are not buying many out anymore. The big corporations will no longer buy you out either. If you lose your ass in this business today you have no lifeboat.

So, if you want to become a mom and pop station owner, you should be prepared to work like a dog to survive. You will be chained to your business like a dog too. Pay yourself after you pay the bills. Don't
live high on the hog using credit.

Cost of running a part 15 AM. $300 per year for electricity to run computer plus $500 for music
royalties. That's less than $1,000

Cost of LPFM. Add $300 more for music union dues plus extra $300 electricity for the LPFM transmitter.

Cost of commercial broadcast station may be $250,000 or more per year for 1,000 watts and a few employees. A commercial broadcaster will pay about $100,000 more per year in taxes and fees over
a non-com.

I know many guys who started new radio station under docket 80-90. Only one of them still has a
stick today.

This business can make a bragger very humble.

At least in the case of William Walker, I suspect he can operate his Rangemaster for life without
financiel worries while others will lose their butts.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

Cost of running a part 15 AM. $300 per year for electricity to run computer plus $500 for music
royalties. That's less than $1,000

Cost of LPFM. Add $300 more for music union dues plus extra $300 electricity for the LPFM transmitter.

Cost of commercial broadcast station may be $250,000 or more per year for 1,000 watts and a few employees. A commercial broadcaster will pay about $100,000 more per year in taxes and fees over
a non-com.

You seem to have a mind that is made up, and willing to use "pretty paint" on things you like, and hit things you don't like with an "ugly stick" as we say out in the country.

I have considered the purchase of commercial A.M. stations that were perking along on $70,000 to $120,000 in gross business. And generating a very, very small profit in the process. Your suggestion that "a commercial broadcaster will pay about $100,000 more per year in taxes and fees over a non-com" is a thought woven from pure fantasy and whiffle-dust.

Granted there are problems operating low-gross stations. I backed away because these were towns that were not appealing to me as a place to live in most cases. I have a very comfortable little cottage of a home that is mostly paid for in a tolerable community within driving distance of medical care for instance. If I had come across one of those deals back when I was, say, 35 years old, I would have been all over it.

So I'm going to get up tomorrow and buy a Part 15 transmitter and install it so I can have maybe seven listeners.... and generate how much income to cover that $1,000 per year cost you talk about? I can hardly wait!!! ;D

 

[joshzz]

PLEASE STOP THE SKY IS FALLING SCENARIOS! 8)

I get it. Some people just want to play radio and not ever actually own a real radio station.

For every story of failure you provide me I can give you great stories of investing in radio. I know a guy who started with a few thousand dollars and was able to grow that from one puny little lousy full power station to a radio corporation worth many millions of dollars. Indeed, there are many such inspiring stories.

It seems whenever I post of great opportunity someone has to come back and rain on the parade. If you like at life this way, you will never get ahead... part of investing in radio and owning a radio station is the CLIMB...

One can complain about all the hours it requires to run a REAL Radio Station, but if you love it & it's in your heart, then you enjoy it... Trust Me there are many that do.. but if you don't I suspect you wouldn't be spending your time reading this message.

josh

RADIO - YOUR TIME IS NOW!

 

[WCWalker]

You'd be surprised at just how many commercial Part 15 AM stations are out there and making some money.

Two friends of mine accomplished the following. One in Westerly, RI ran a Part 15 AM for a few years until he had enough money to obtain a 100 watt non commercial FM. Now a decade later he owns a 1kw AM in that market. He was grossing between 25k and 35k a year with the Part 15 AM and had only about $300 a month in expenses.

Another friend, a former GM of a 5kw AM started a Part 15 AM in his hometown. Within six months of hitting the air he was grossing $1500 a month including one automotive dealership account that billed $840 every month. Monthly expenses were only a few hundred bucks a month. Within a few years he took the profits from that station and obtained a licensed LPFM. Sadly, he had to give up the LPFM this past year due to declining revenue in this rotten economy.

More and more people are following the lead of these guys and are starting their own commercial Part 15 AM stations. They can lead to bigger and better things.

 

[joshzz]

THANK YOU FOR THE MESSAGE COWBOY..

I completely forgot to mention this. The person wrote>

"Cost of commercial broadcast station may be $250,000 or more per year for 1,000 watts and a few employees. A commercial broadcaster will pay about $100,000 more per year in taxes and fees over
a non-com."


THE TRUTH IS, You can run a full power station for far less than this (I know a guy on Radio-Info that runs a full power for about 20k and makes a salary of 40 k ) & derive a nice salary at the same time. I think no matter how easy it gets for people to become owners, there will always be people that will have their reasons for not buying a radio station.
jos

 

[WCWalker]

PLEASE STOP THE SKY IS FALLING SCENARIOS! 8)

I get it. Some people just want to play radio and not ever actually own a real radio station.

For every story of failure you provide me I can give you great stories of investing in radio. I know a guy who started with a few thousand dollars and was able to grow that from one puny little lousy full power station to a radio corporation worth many millions of dollars. Indeed, there are many such inspiring stories.

It seems whenever I post of great opportunity someone has to come back and rain on the parade. If you like at life this way, you will never get ahead... part of investing in radio and owning a radio station is the CLIMB...

One can complain about all the hours it requires to run a REAL Radio Station, but if you love it & it's in your heart, then you enjoy it... Trust Me there are many that do.. but if you don't I suspect you wouldn't be spending your time reading this message.

josh

RADIO - YOUR TIME IS NOW!

You must be joshing. While I am not saying that the sky is falling scenario is playing out clearly the industry is in a state of flux and we are going to see many stations go dark in the years ahead.

From an engineering standpoint it is not possible for many communities to obtain a licensed LPFM or a full power AM or FM station. The only option that is left is Part 15 AM. In fact, I will likely be moving to just such a community to start a station. I already explored the idea of AM, FM and even LPFM and it won't be possible to shoe horn anything into that market. I've been in contact with a former area station GM and currently an afternoon drive time jock at an FM outlet about 35 miles from that area and he being a former resident of that community thinks the Part 15 AM option is a great concept and better than having absolutely no local radio choice.