Watch out Fishheads!, Atsinger says sell underperformers

[Link]

There's got to be a few fish in that group.

www.radioandrecords.com 11/7/07
"Christian- and family-themed Salem Communications will sell its underperforming radio stations, if it determines the stations can't be improved enough in their current formats or through a format change, to achieve a better bottom line, Salem CEO Edward Atsinger said."

Apparently the future of Christian Music Radio lies with EMF.

 

[jegrant]

Well, certainly, EMF and Way FM would be the top of the list to buy some of those stations Salem might want to get rid of, at least on the FM dial. On AM, how about Bott Radio Network, Jimmy Swaggart's Sonlife Radio, or perhaps Catholic radio?

I wonder if Salem would also consider moving Christian Talk formats to FM and selling off AM properties. Thing is, the FMs would be easier to sell at a higher price. I'm not convinced there is as much desire to own AM, except perhaps in certain situations where nothing else is available.

 

[anotherguyTN]

Somehow I think that if any Salem music stations were sold, EMF would be the best chance for a buyer, unless a local owner that would stay with CCM could be found.

Selling off Salem stations that are already talk to Bott would be OK, but PLEASE not Jimmy Swaggart!

 

[neutralobserver]

I don't think you guys are reading the statement correctly.

Even as overall broadcast revenue was down 1.2%, the music stations showed a revenue gain of 3.1%, and the "block programming" (teaching) stations were up 3.6%; that leaves the news/talk stations to create all of that loss and more.

Also note Atsinger's comment regarding the internet: "We remain confident about the stability of our business model as we continue to invest in new media businesses that give us the ability to repurpose content and leverage the promotional abilities of our radio stations." If you look at Salem's internet properties, all, with the exception of Townhall.com, are Christian-oriented and are much more likely to have traffic driven to them by the music and teaching stations than they are by the news/talk stations.

 

[actioncentral]

IMHO, the Salem secular conservative news/talkers are in trouble and SOME of the
Fish stations. The brokered preaching stations are cash cows, so they are probably safe. ALSO, I would bet some of Salem's in-house nationally syndicated talkers may be in trouble if Salem re-formats or sells off some of its talk stations.
action central

 

[War Of Attrition]

At this stage in radio broadcasting, Salem really should be a private company.

Here is what I would look for...

-Whole clusters being sold off (the bad ones). Milwaukee, Louisville, Omaha, and maybe Nashville (although it is the origin for their satellite formats).

- Underperforming "Fish" stations unloaded for the right price. I am primarily thinking of WFHM in Cleveland and KKFS in Sacramento (which is about to be eclipsed by a new K-Love station which has a significantly better signal).

- Oddball standalone stations like WRFD in Columbus that they could never find a sister station for and are more hassle than they are worth.

- Additional cluster stations that are not in one of the 3 strategic formats and/or have bad signals such as KRYP-FM in Portland or KTEK in Houston.

For now I think the NewsTalk stations are pretty safe. They very much believe in the format and it cost almost nothing to operate them since it is all (minus Chicago) syndicated product (most of which they own through SRN).

 

[The RadioFan]

Here is what I would look for...

-Whole clusters being sold off (the bad ones). Milwaukee, Louisville, Omaha, and maybe Nashville (although it is the origin for their satellite formats).

Although I appreciate Salem in many ways, I would not be surprised if the decide to sell the Louisville clusters consisting of Christian Talk/Southern Gospel WFIA-FM 94.7/AM 900; Newstalk WGTK-AM 970 and Christian AC WRVI-FM 105.9. Louisville is an ultimate liberal backwards city and conservative talk radio hasn't done well here in the past, except for Rush Limbaugh.

As far as Christian ACs, the competition is heating up for Salem's WRVI. Louisville has a heritage local Christian AC outlet with WJIE-FM 88.5, WAYI-FM 104.3 (WAY-FM) will enter the market soon and EMF has two LPFM K-Love signals in Greater Louisville at 95.1 and 97.9 along with the full-power fringe signal WJLR-FM 91.5, which covers a great portion of Louisville fairly well.

If Salem does decide to sell the Louisville cluster, it would be great if Bott Broadcasting purchases WFIA-FM/AM and bring their brand of Christian Talk to Louisville, sort of like Bott's KSIV-FM/AM in St. Louis. EMF could purchase WRVI-FM and place K-Love on a full-power signal in Louisville while moving Air1 to their current K-Love LPFM signals on 95.1 and 97.9.

 

[anotherguyTN]

If the Fish stations or 104.9 in Nashville are sold, I could see the possibility of Bott buying at least one of them. I don't think anyone would buy any of them to keep a CCM format though since WAY-FM is so strong there. Salem sold off 105.1 earlier this year to Grace Broadcasting, who changed it from Praise & Worship back to Southern Gospel with Salem's Solid Gospel network.

 

[rbrucecarter5]

how about Bott Radio Network, Jimmy Swaggart's Sonlife Radio, or perhaps Catholic radio?

I wonder if Salem would also consider moving Christian Talk formats to FM and selling off AM properties. Thing is, the FMs would be easier to sell at a higher price. I'm not convinced there is as much desire to own AM, except perhaps in certain situations where nothing else is available.

Oh please! Not more Catholic radio - we have two of those turkeys here in Dallas, what a waste of frequencies! Does ANYBODY really listen to those clunkers?

I wasn't aware Jimmy had enough money these days to buy much of anything - after his very public lapse of morality. I sure wouldn't go to his church if I was in Baton Rouge --- much less funnel money into it.

Talk is better suited to AM, it wastes the fidelity and bandwidth capability of FM - why does talk need stereo anyway? The top rated stations in many markets are AM talk stations.

 

[William_Yeager]

Any chance Trevecca Nazarene might pick up another station in Nashville? I know they have the WNAZ/WNRZ simulcast already, but they might be able to pick up improve WNAZ's coverage area with a different combination of signals. They could also move WENO to FM.

 

[anotherguyTN]

I like the idea of Trevecca possibly buying at least one of the Salem stations in Nashville. It's always been odd to me that the secondary station (WNRZ) has a stronger signal than the primary station (WNAZ). WNRZ comes in all the way to the Tennessee River on I-40, but then WNAZ barely gets out of Nashville in any other direction.

But I have some questions about if that could happen: First of all could they afford it? I'd think Salem would be asking a high price for any of their stations. Second, since it's in the commercial band would there be changes required by FCC rules? Also, would they keep the same CHR format they are now? If they had to go commercial, would they end up with sponsors who would put pressure on them to go more AC and at best be like the current Fish format?

The one station I don't think Trevecca should buy if any of this happens is 104.9, since it's Southern Gospel. I'd think there would definitely be a major listener (and possibly sponsor) backlash if that happened.

I didn't think of this before just now, but it could be possible that Salem could also sell 104.9 to Grace who would keep SG and start simulcasting with 105.1 again?

 

[anotherguyTN]

I also had a thought about Bruce's post about Catholic radio. I believe there are saved Catholics, but their stations that I've heard are pretty boring to me, probably even more than SG or most paid programming. Are there any Catholic stations that have CCM, at least on a part time basis?

 

[radioboy]

I also had a thought about Bruce's post about Catholic radio. I believe there are saved Catholics, but their stations that I've heard are pretty boring to me, probably even more than SG or most paid programming. Are there any Catholic stations that have CCM, at least on a part time basis?

There was one in the Tampa/St. Pete Fla., area that did play some CCM. My first radio boss, Tom Derzypolski,
helped start it back in the 80s, I believe.

A local station here plays EWTN off the satellite for their entire (daytimer) broadcast day. It's so boring..
which is sad, because this station used to play CCM in a former life I managed to buy the CCM library but
can't get a signal for it due to all the translator applications. I'm not sure classic CCM would have a huge audience, but a weekend show would certainly be nice.

The now-EWTN station also tried Christian talk for a while. The audience and revenue was best with a combo
CCM and teaching/talk 50/50 split. The talk format, which the owner wanted, sent it spiraling toward bankruptcy. That's why it's leased to a group playing EWTN. It's been silent once already under EWTN. I
expect it to go under at the end of next year...for a lot of reasons.

Salem probably has some profitable and some not so profitable stations in each of its formats. Without some inside information, it's hard to know exactly which stations are the poorest performers.

 

[rbrucecarter5]

I also had a thought about Bruce's post about Catholic radio. I believe there are saved Catholics, but their stations that I've heard are pretty boring to me, probably even more than SG or most paid programming. Are there any Catholic stations that have CCM, at least on a part time basis?

I'm not going there with the saved Catholic vs. unsaved Catholic thread. But the stations in DFW - one is Spanish, the other English. Spanish stations I never bother with. Every time I tune in the English one, it is talk or broadcasting a mass - which is largely dead air (no audio content except faint sounds of shuffling around). Somehow - I doubt it would have the same impact on Catholic faithful as attending in person. Especially when it is impossible to actually consume the elements over the radio.

People shuffling around radio. The most BOR-RING format I could imagine.

 

[War Of Attrition]

Oh please! Not more Catholic radio - we have two of those turkeys here in Dallas, what a waste of frequencies! Does ANYBODY really listen to those clunkers?

Come on Bruce, you know better than this. Just because you don't like the programming doesn't make the station "a waste of frequency". How pretentious can you be?

Talk is better suited to AM, it wastes the fidelity and bandwidth capability of FM - why does talk need stereo anyway?

Maybe in a perfect world you would be right. But have you listened to AM in the last decade? It is a disaster. The AM radios are garbage. The interference is beyond horrible, from both non-radio sources and other stations that should have never been licensed. And the stations are way underpowered.

Worst of all, young people are not listening to AM and as they get older their listening habits are not changing. If you really care about making the Gospel available to the people, then you want to be on FM. That is where the market is and at some point may be the only market.

The top rated stations in many markets are AM talk stations.

Yes, most markets do have one AM near the top of the pile. After that it drops way off and the rest of the AMs are usually in gutter. Coincidentally, most markets only have one (sometimes 2) AM stations that cover the whole market. Some markets have none.

What is sad is when a major market Christian FM swaps it's frequency for cash and an AM station with a secular company. Because what this means is that the Christian format is now relegated to AM and the likelihood of it moving back to FM is nil. At least in the major and large markets the Christian stations can not produce enough cash flow to service the debt. It is priced out of the market.

I hope Family Stations is very careful in their future decision making. They have a lot of terrific assets that once lost, will never be gotten back.

 

[rbrucecarter5]

Come on Bruce, you know better than this. Just because you don't like the programming doesn't make the station "a waste of frequency". How pretentious can you be?

And WHERE are they in the ratings? The books are out, go look them up. Low ratings = low impact for the gospel.

I could probably get better ratings playing Christian polka.

 

[xmusicmatt]

There was one in the Tampa/St. Pete Fla., area that did play some CCM. My first radio boss, Tom Derzypolski,
helped start it back in the 80s, I believe.

Tampa still has a station owned by a Catholic group. BISHOP OF THE DIOCESE OF ST. PETERSBURG owns WBVM Tampa an FM that is primarly Christian CHR.

 

[radioboy]

Matt..

WBVM..that's it.

My first radio boss, Tom Derzypolski, moved from Tallahassee to Tampa/St. Pete to get it launched.

 

[bigtalkradiofan]

how about Bott Radio Network, Jimmy Swaggart's Sonlife Radio, or perhaps Catholic radio?

Oh please! Not more Catholic radio - we have two of those turkeys here in Dallas, what a waste of frequencies! Does ANYBODY really listen to those clunkers?

Remember, Catholic radio is at least 20 years behind their Christian radio brethren in the evolution of getting on radio and creating a better radio product - so it is but a youngster in comparison to its' older siblings.

Rome wasn't built in a day, and similarly Catholic radio will take some time to build. The Catholic radio "product" could definitely use some improvement - and will eventually - just give it some time.

The past decade or so has seen the rise of several Catholic radio networks throughout the country (EWTN, Relevant Radio, Ave Maria, Immaculate Heart, Guadalupe, Sacred Heart, Covenant, etc.): they've set up/acquired some stations, learned ins/outs of the radio industry, and worked on sustainable fundraising - and eventually, these networks will have evolved to a point where they focus more on putting out a "better produced radio product" that hopefully will someday be comparable to what you hear on Christian radio.

I readily admit that I regularly listen to Catholic talk radio (in my area it is Relevant Radio) - and, yes, I'm Catholic.

 

[anotherguyTN]

I hope Family Stations is very careful in their future decision making. They have a lot of terrific assets that once lost, will never be gotten back.

Considering Harold Camping's bizarre teachings and his attitude toward most other Christians, I get the impression that he'd just as soon sell to secular owners than to sell to Christian stations that don't follow his teachings. :