T. Taylor, R-I.com: WCRB up for sale

[raccoonradio]

In his latest newsletter, Tom Taylor says he's hearing WCRB is up for sale. We know about the
failed effort by Entercom to get Nassau to carry WEEI in N. New England and Cape Cod, and
Entercom getting half of 99.5 was part of it. Now that that's fallen through, it looks like
the longtime classical signal's on the market. "But word in the dealmaking community is that Star Media Group’s Doug Ferber has the listing to sell WCRB" (free subscription by email)

So if the station's sold, is it possible classical will be ditched? There is that long term agreement made
after the original owner's death to keep it classical, but they could do something like put it on HD or
on an AM or a weaker FM signal. Stay tuned as they say.

 

[BRNout]

Raccoon, I think that another sale of WCRB would represent the last gasp of classical on standard (analogue) FM. There's just no way that anyone would spend that kind of money and keep classical on what amounts to a rimshot signal. There just isn't enough money in it, going forward.

The demos skew older and, even though the listenership is very high-income, older demos seem to be death in the advertising community. I don't like it either, but that's how it is. Any buyer would almost certainly flip the format to something else and relegate the classical format to an HD channel (thus keeping the agreement). I think that's it.

Another blunder by Nassau, who doesn't appear to be able to make a go of things when they cannot put one of their insipid McFormats (i.e. Frank, Wolf, Hawk, etc.) on a station. :

 

[raccoonradio]

I'd agree and it's been speculated (Fybush did, recently) that maybe someone could set up a sports
station, perhaps on the cheap (pick up ESPN, now on 890 and 1400--maybe do one local show). Wouldn't
match WEEI in ratings but could bill well ("could ESPN and Nassau team up to flip 99.5 into a sports competitor to WEEI? It wouldn't have the Sox, of course, or Dennis and Callahan, but it would have a fairly potent FM signal, at least.") http://www.fybush.com/nerw.html

Then again we're kinda parochial about our sports here, and even on a signal like that, would people
tune in or not (to an all- or mostly-ESPN product)?

In some places when deals were made involving classical stations, the classical signal wound up on
a rimshot or weaker signal (Cleveland comes to mind)

 

[JustinT]

In some places when deals were made involving classical stations, the classical signal wound up on
a rimshot or weaker signal (Cleveland comes to mind)

That deal already took place, though, when WCRB moved from 102.5 FM to 99.5 FM. And I'm sure Greater Media made less of a profit spinning off the intellectual property of WCRB with the 99.5 stick because they were able to avoid the PR disaster that they experienced in Philly and Detroit (with WFLN 95.7 and WQRS 105.1, respectively).

I thought Entercom was clueless in some of their decisions, but Nassau seems to have hit a high point, particularly this week. First the WEEI deal falls apart, then "Ray Brown" is out for unknown reasons, and now WCRB is for sale?

Who wants 99.5 anyway? CBS and Greater Media must be at their caps, and Clear Channel doesn't really appear to be in the mood to invest in people or facilities. Could Entercom make it a WEEI O&O affiliate? Could Salem make it a CCM "Fish" before K-Love and other religious broadcasters invade the market? Or could it become the market's first Spanish FM? Unfortunately, it doesn't seem too likely that the potential owners would make it the much needed rhythmic competitor.

 

[BRNout]

Who wants 99.5 anyway? CBS and Greater Media must be at their caps, and Clear Channel doesn't really appear to be in the mood to invest in people or facilities. Could Entercom make it a WEEI O&O affiliate? Could Salem make it a CCM "Fish" before K-Love and other religious broadcasters invade the market? Or could it become the market's first Spanish FM? Unfortunately, it doesn't seem too likely that the potential owners would make it the much needed rhythmic competitor.

Sadly, I must agree. Looking at the cards on the table, the most likely taker would be Entercom - who could use it to expand WEEI to FM. That would be a great move for them, if they did it. As for having a Rhythmic competitor in the market (which is SORELY needed), the players in this particular card game don't seem to support that. For one thing, the rimshot signal misses too many potential listeners.

Second problem is ownership. Clear Channel has "rhythmic" music locked up in the market and so would not be interested in picking up the 99.5 signal for such a purpose. CBS Radio is topped out in the market and certainly wouldn't sell off a city signal to pick up a rimshot. Greater Media is out as they just washed their hands of this last year. So, this would leave Entercom or a new player. Salem has been mentioned and all I can say is "I hope not." What a waste that would be.

A Spanish-language broadcaster is certainly a possibility but, again, I would hope not. Also, the 99.5 signal would not be ideal for this. Yes, its great in the Merrimack Valley but much less so inside of 128 and points south. So, you wouldn't even be able to serve the entire Spanish speaking population. Also, Spanish formats tend to sport a very poor power ratio - meaning that their income is not as good as their ratings would imply. In a place like New York or LA, its fine because big Spanish-language broadcasters do boffo numbers. So, there's a lot of $$ to be made. Not to mention that many of the owners are dedicated to the formats (i.e. SBS, Entravision, etc.). But, in Boston, unless one of them buys 99.5 - this may not happen. And, I tend to doubt that the ratings would be as good as you'd think - particularly once PPM is implemented. It would certainly do better than what happened in Philly, but not that great either.

Who does that leave? Well, someone who wants to get into the market and doesn't mind having only one station. And, someone who is buying (which would seem to exclude Emmis or Citadel). All in all, it will be very interesting.

If I had to bet on this, I'd put $5 on it going to Entercom and the new WEEI-FM. Even if they deny it, they have to be salivating at the idea. Unlike the proposed deal with Nassau, they'd have the whole signal to themselves. If there's an issue with the ownership cap, they could always jettison 97.7 but if my math is right, there isn't one.

The 99.5 signal would put WEEI on loud and clear in Boston's northern and northwestern suburbs - where a decent percentage of WEEI's high-income audience lives. Places where 850 doesn't do well - especially at night. And, it also gets WEEI into southern NH with a great signal - another hotbed of Boston sports fans that cannot get 850 well. By the way, southern NH (especially the parts in the Boston DMA) has an income level that is higher than most of Massachusetts and, unlike the Bay State, is actually growing in population. A great area in which to get a strong WEEI signal.

No other sports radio franchise has the ability to be a success in this market. Fox Sports Net or ESPN are pale poseurs when compared with what WEEI has become.

 

[Laurence Glavin]

Raccoon, I think that another sale of WCRB would represent the last gasp of classical on standard (analogue) FM. There's just no way that anyone would spend that kind of money and keep classical on what amounts to a rimshot signal. There just isn't enough money in it, going forward.

The demos skew older and, even though the listenership is very high-income, older demos seem to be death in the advertising community. I don't like it either, but that's how it is. Any buyer would almost certainly flip the format to something else and relegate the classical format to an HD channel (thus keeping the agreement). I think that's it.

Another blunder by Nassau, who doesn't appear to be able to make a go of things when they cannot put one of their insipid McFormats (i.e. Frank, Wolf, Hawk, etc.) on a station. :

When I've listened to KING-FM, Seattle on the internets, I have heard spots for local advertisers that seem to be of reasonably high quality...but KING-FM is a REAL classical music station. Like any person of intelligence and good taste, I never actually LISTEN to WCRB except for the Boston Symphony broadcasts in town and at Tanglewood, but the playlist is there for all to see at wcrb.com. Do you think "upscale" listeners are there for the "Skater's Waltz" or "Warsaw Concerto" nearly every day? As soon as Nassau stated they were going to follow in Mario Mazza's footsteps, it was only a matter of time before they failed.

 

[raccoonradio]

Dan S. on boston-radio-interest mentioned the idea of Entercom buying 99.5 and moving WAAF there (and
they could poss. move classical, then, to 107.3). There are all kinds of possibilities, including Entercom
themselves putting a WEEI simulcast on 99.5 (I was talking earlier about someone else poss. buying the
station and putting ESPN there, but why not Entercom?)
99.5 could even be a kind of "WEEI-2": overnights, for example, you would have Fox Sports on WEEI
but ESPN on 99.5. Sporting events could be bumped to 99.5, so you wouldn't have B.C. sports
or the Revolution being bumped to WRKO.

 

[JustinT]

The 99.5 signal would put WEEI on loud and clear in Boston's northern and northwestern suburbs - where a decent percentage of WEEI's high-income audience lives. Places where 850 doesn't do well - especially at night. And, it also gets WEEI into southern NH with a great signal - another hotbed of Boston sports fans that cannot get 850 well. By the way, southern NH (especially the parts in the Boston DMA) has an income level that is higher than most of Massachusetts and, unlike the Bay State, is actually growing in population. A great area in which to get a strong WEEI signal.

No other sports radio franchise has the ability to be a success in this market. Fox Sports Net or ESPN are pale poseurs when compared with what WEEI has become.

I also think Entercom buying 99.5 is pretty likely. The big disappointment here is to see a signal that is able to sustain itself, like 97.7 WILD, become half of yet another Entercom-operated Boston-area simulcast. Boston really doesn't have a lot of signals to call its own, and while I know WEEI is the one AM service that would benefit greatly from an FM dial position, it would a shame to see the company take two broadcast services off the air in two years.

(but, if in the swap 97.7 were to drop 'AAF and pick up WCRB's "waiting room music" listeners with smooth jazz, now we're talkin'!)

 

[BRNout]

Dan S. on boston-radio-interest mentioned the idea of Entercom buying 99.5 and moving WAAF there (and
they could poss. move classical, then, to 107.3). There are all kinds of possibilities, including Entercom
themselves putting a WEEI simulcast on 99.5 (I was talking earlier about someone else poss. buying the
station and putting ESPN there, but why not Entercom?)
99.5 could even be a kind of "WEEI-2": overnights, for example, you would have Fox Sports on WEEI
but ESPN on 99.5. Sporting events could be bumped to 99.5, so you wouldn't have B.C. sports
or the Revolution being bumped to WRKO.

But Raccoon, why can't Entercom simply simulcast 850's offerings on 99.5? No need to step on ESPN's toes here. Multiple game nights aside, where such flexibility would be useful, let's not mess with success. And, remember that this would be a different situation that what happened with 103.7 in Rhode Island. You may recall that another station (was it WPRO or WSKO?) initially had the rights to the Red Sox in Providence, so the games were pre-empted on 103.7 for that season - allowing the existing contract to run out.

However, whatever sporting events Entercom has the rights to in Boston could be placed on 99.5 with far less effort. It's an in-market station. Even the Red Sox (simulcast with WRKO or not) could end up on 99.5 pretty quickly. Certainly those Wednesday night games could be there as soon as a deal is wrapped up. In fact, I would imagine that this possibility would be very attractive for all parties involved. The 'Sox are already on FM signals in many parts of Maine, in RI and in Western MA. Why not Boston? Simulcast the games on AM for the folks on the South Shore who don't get 99.5 as well. Or, use that wasteful 97.7 signal as a fill in. Makes more sense than having WAAF there (yes, I'd like to see it with something different too - but it ain't happening). They'd kill with that combo of 99.5/97.7. Much more complimentary.

Truly a great opportunity for Entercom as WEEI's programming in New England is quite unique as a raving success story. No other sports radio franchise in the nation has the same relative level of appeal. An FM simulcast is the obvious next step and dovetails nicely with 103.7 Providence and 105.5 Springfield.

Let's see what happens......

 

[raccoonradio]

Red Sox on 99.5 or other WEEI offerings would be fine for me at work (N. Reading; 99.5 stick is in N. Andover)

It was WPRO who had the Sox.

>>Why not Boston?
Indeed

 

[Eli Polonsky]

CBS Radio is topped out in the market and certainly wouldn't sell off a city signal to pick up a rimshot.

CBS owns four FM's (WBMX, WZLX, WODS, WBCN) and one AM (WBZ) in this market. Wouldn't that leave them eligible to buy one more FM (if they wanted it)?

I thought the cap nowadays was five stations on one band, not to exceed eight overall total on both bands (AM & FM). Or, is that wrong?

 

[fybush]

It's a little more complicated than that - there are also revenue-based market-concentration limits, and the scrutiny is especially strict when the company also owns two TV stations (WBZ-TV/WSBK). The Justice Department might raise an eyebrow if CBS tried to add a fifth FM in town.

 

[Retro]

If you all recall, CBS begged Al Gore to keep Mix in the fold after the purchase of American Radio Systems. I highly doubt that Infinity can purchase another FM in the market at all.

 

[DanStrassberg]

If Entercom were to buy 99.5, does it REALLY follow that they would not move the content around to match their various FM signals? Not sure I'm not missing at least one station, but I believe Entercom's Boston cluster (which includes Worcester and vicinity but NOT Providence/Westerly or Easthampton/Springfield) would include 93.7, 97.7, 99.5, and 107.3 on FM and 680, 850, and 1440 on AM. Of the listed FMs, the one with the fewest signal deficiencies in Boston is 93.7. Since sports is the biggest moneymaker, wouldn't it make sense to put the WEEI programming there and move Mike to 99.5 with or without the simulcast on the puny Class A 97.7? If I have not missed any stations, there is no ownership-cap issue, but if Entercom had to sell one of the listed signals, one would think that the station to go would be the signal-challenged, Worcester-based 1440. Of course, if the reason for selling a station were to raise money to buy another station, 1440 might drop off the bottom of the list; it just wouldn't bring in that much. (My guess: no more than $2.25 million in this depressed period for station sales.)

And while I'm talking about shuffling content among the various signals, is there a strong reason that WAAF's format is married to 107.3? Maybe it would make more sense to have rock on 99.5 and Mike on 107.3. I mean, since Entercom gutted the 107.3 signal in a failed attempt to improve its reach into Boston, what is 107.3's big attraction signal-wise? Both ratings-wise and billings-wise, isn't Mike the weakest of the formats that Entercom runs on FM in Boston? (That's a question; I really don't know the answer.) If so, why not have the weakest format on the poorest signal? That arrangement might also make 97.7 available for Classical. Food for thought.

 

[JustinT]

And while I'm talking about shuffling content among the various signals, is there a strong reason that WAAF's format is married to 107.3? Maybe it would make more sense to have rock on 99.5 and Mike on 107.3. I mean, since Entercom gutted the 107.3 signal in a failed attempt to improve its reach into Boston, what is 107.3's big attraction signal-wise? Both ratings-wise and billings-wise, isn't Mike the weakest of the formats that Entercom runs on FM in Boston? (That's a question; I really don't know the answer.) If so, why not have the weakest format on the poorest signal? That arrangement might also make 97.7 available for Classical. Food for thought.

Mike is actually Entercom's best FM billings-wise, according to the BIA figures released last March. WEEI (AM) billed $36.5 million, Mike billed $13.5 million, and WAAF billed $11 million.

Taking a quick look at radio-locator, the signals of 93.7 and 99.5 look to be very similar; WMKK's TX is closer to the city but not by too much, and both stations have 1st and 2nd-adjacents to the south (93.7 has WSNE, WFQR, and WHJY; 99.5 has WPLM-FM, WSKO-FM, and WQRC). Considering the amount of marketing and new promotional materials needed to move Mike to the only slightly poorer 99.5 facility, seeing that move take place would seem unlikely.

 

[LA_Guy]

Here's what I'd do...

First, I'd move 107.3 back to Paxton. Then I'd put the sports on 107.3. It's a PERFECT compliment to 850, BUT only from Paxton. It nicely fills in the hole between Springfield and Metro West-but again, only from Paxton. It also gets up into NH fairly well from Paxton too.

Next, I'd put WAAF on 99.5. PERFECT compliment to the 97.7 signal. The two together make a great full market signal.

Finally, 93.7 isn't broken, so I'd leave it as is. If they wanted to, I suppose they could also put WRKO on one of more of their secondaries as well.

 

[BRNout]

Dan's ideas aren't bad. However, they do run the risk of creating a lot of short-term listener upheaval with so many flips at once. It's pretty rare to see such a thing done in a major market. And, as I'll describe below, 99.5 makes the most sense in this potential scenario:

I'm sure that it's not lost on Entercom that 99.5 and 97.7 perfectly compliment each other. So, whatever they would put on 99.5 would go well on 97.7 as well. Apparently, Mike bills reasonably well and the signal isn't a whole lot better to the south than 99.5 - so why flip that one? Very little would be gained by flipping WEEI to 93.7 and Mike to 99.5. The 93.7 signal isn't strong enough in Boston proper to be preferable to a 99.5/97.7 simulcast. You'd still end up needing a 93.7/97.7 simulcast. Again, with no real gain.

And, 107.3 has a heritage with WAAF. No need to mess with that. Not to mention that plunking WEEI on that signal (rather than 99.5) would be less effective because of overlap with other WEEI network stations in Providence/Westerly (103.7), Worcester (1440) and even Springfield/Northampton (105.5). No, 99.5 makes the most sense as it covers areas that are currently underserved by WEEI's programming.

Frankly, I agree 110% with those who think that the 107.3 signal needs to be moved back to Paxton - but I don't know that it is even being considered. Moving it was a HUGE mistake - not just because of out-of-market listeners lost, but because it's weaker in most of the market too. Big blunder. And, the 97.7 WKAF simulcast is a waste of electricity.

As for classical, I would foresee it being relegated to HD only. If Entercom had an FM signal on the Pru, it would be different - you'd stick WEEI on that one and classical on 97.7. But they don't. WEEI is their most profitable programming property right now and I would think that they would want it on FM throughout the market. With 99.5, they have an excellent signal north, northeast and northwest of the city. Add in 97.7 for good coverage south and southeast - and only the far SW is left out. But, they can still get both signals and there's 103.7 there too.

At this point, 850 would become an afterthought and a good location to dump the occasional low-rated college game that conflicts with better stuff.

 

[raccoonradio]

Taylor's column today says that Nassau's Lou Mercanti is interested in keeping the format (hoping
revenues will improve) but perhaps taking on a partner (50 per cent, as was proposed w/ Entercom?)
to help him out...?

 

[DanStrassberg]

I read--very recently--that Entercom has an LMA to buy Classical KDFC San Francisco from Bonneville and that, under Entercom's stewardship, KDFC has been accomplishing great things both ratings-wise and billings-wise. I have no specifics on these feats, and would like to hear more about them if anyone can supply details, but until Entercom accomplished them, they reportedly were thought to be impossible under the Classical format in the 21st century.

Now, if I'm not mistaken, SF/Oakand/Silicon Valley/San Jose is Market #4 and Boston is Market #10 (today, anyhow). I also understand that KDFC is as much of a full-market signal as any Bay area FM (meaning that it may not City Grade San Jose and probably has serious multipath problems elsewhere in the market) but is nevertheless in a somewhat better signal situation relative to any competion it might have than is 99.5 here or any other signal that Entercom might consider using for Classical in Boston.

Nevertheless, if Entercom really knows what it takes to make $$$ with Classical in a major market in 2008, it would probably be Mr Mercantante's best partner for keeping a commercial Classical format alive in Boston. However, how strained have relations between Entercom and Nassau become? Is there any hope of a partnership? Assuming that a new partnership arrangement between Entercom and Nassau is actually still possible, and if Entercom really has the recipe for the secret sauce that can save commercial Classical, it appears that Mr M would have to cede control of programming to his partner. Would he be willing to do that? Comments from someone who is familiar with the parties involved would be most welcome!

 

[BRNout]

Here's the thing: if you're Entercom and you have a very successful and lucrative AM format (WEEI), why would you play around with classical on your new FM acquisition? Particularly when you pay 10's of millions of dollars for it. You need to make it profitable and fast. The best way to do it is to use the signal for something that you know will be successful. Look at Entercom's other moves in the region lately. What do they tell you about their motives?

San Francisco is a different market with different competition. Comparisons with Boston are unfair.

Lou Mercanti may be interested in keeping classical around, but the market conditions may not make that possible. He can't always have his cake and eat it too. Besides, if he loves the format so much, why is it listed for sale? Sell the 106.3 signal in Nashua instead - if you're so dedicated to it. And this 50-50 partnership thing? It may not be workable.