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WECK ON THE BLOCK?

M

Mike Brewer

Guest
This was in "Tom Taylor Now" today. Sure sounds like WECK to me...except for the asking price. :-*


Station For Sale:
Buffalo/Niagara Falls –
Arbitron Mkt #56
Full-time AM with over 1,000,000 people in its 2 mV/m signal. FM translator with over 550,000 people in its 60 dBu signal and its antenna located on tallest building in downtown Buffalo. Unit operation with its attractive owned studio/office/transmitter facilities.

Asking price - $1,500,000

Contact broker: Dick Kozacko of Kozacko Media Services (607) 733-7138 or [email protected].
 
going to get my powerball ticket...
then I would not mind paying 1,400,000
too much for that signal... can the sale wait
til sat so I can win powerball and
monday morning to turn in my ticket...lol

sports 1230 lol
channel 12 news...hmmm??
 
Sounds like Dick is trying to escape unharmed. It would be interesting if Cumuless decided to drop a CHR onto that translator. They made a few bucks selling a fringe signal out of Canada some years ago. One of the reasons that 107.7 went for so much money is that Entercom was afraid then-Citadel would undercut Kiss and Star.
 
Dick was asking 2.3 mil back in September. Now it's a little more reasonable. Someone might pick it up for a million. The translator could make a savvy operator a few dollars with the right format.
 
"Sounds like Dick is trying to escape unharmed."

Can't blame Dick Greene for wanting to cash out while the getting is as good as it'll be. Although I wonder if he's ever considered programming both WLVL and WECK with common programming, with a regional focus. It'd cut costs and stretch the reach of whatever program schedule he uses, given that the two together could approximate the reach of a single 5,000 watter with a directional antenna--and maybe he could even acquire a third signal like WJJL at a deep discount to fill in the biggest blank (Niagara Falls) and put together a real regional combo.

"It would be interesting if Cumuless decided to drop a CHR onto that translator."

To compete with Kiss 98.5? That'd be more of a mismatch than the days when WYSL/1400 used to try to take on KB...
 
A translator can't originate programing. So 1230 would have to be a CHR, too.
 
Wasn't Culver's Lockport AM included in the $2.3M initial listing? Could be that WLVL is no longer part of the package. It takes only one offer, but even at the reduced price of $1.5M it's unlikely that buyers will be lining up for this "property and a half." Not so many years ago, the "greater fool" principle might have produced a buyer for WECK, which Culver Communications purchased for about $1.2M before the (financial) market collapsed. If a buyer materializes, the sale price will likely be considerably lower than $1.5M. I'm told WECK doesn't show in the Arbitron ratings. As a result, it's likely that billing is limited. The sticker price might be considered "stick value." WNED-AM (5kW @970), which had no commercial revenue, had a stick value of about $875 thousand. W275BB-FM, WECK's 220 watt translator on 102.7, is directional to protect a full power Canadian co-channel FM. Translators can be precarious endeavors, especially a translator on a Canadian frequency. If the CRTC receivers just one complaint of interference from a Canadian citizen to the full power Canadian FM, it could result in shutting down WECK's FM translator.
 
The translator's actually on 102.9, not 102.7. It's a second adjacent to Star 102.5. The way that the CTRC has been issuing LP licenses on Buffalo frequencies in the Niagara peninsula, they'd have a lot of nerve complaining about the translator. Buffalo FMs used to get into Toronto. Not so much anymore because of those LPs.

I understand that the translator would have to translate an existing frequency, which means that the AM - or an HD channel thereof - would have to be CHR. Would it challenge Kiss and Star (which challenge each other during much of the day)? Probably not. Would it annoy them, and maybe take away some listeners and some money? Citadel did that with the Canadian signal Wild 101 until the CTRC forced them to stop.

That translator could also translate WHLD, putting sports talk on FM for Cumulus. Hey, it could happen.
 
The FM translator is pretty useless in the Northtowns due to the Canadian protection issue. CHR like Wild 101, maybe, but 101.1 comes in great in the entire area, including the Northtowns, with the translator you are loosing half the market due to the poor signal. So I'd target the city. Use the signal to re-broadcast an HD2 of a niche urban format. Why leave everything urban for WBLS? The AM could be brokered or go to standards like Swing 1270 had. It used to be WECK's niche, and would certainly double or triple their current ratings. This way, 2 signals, two revenue streams.
 
These days, CHR actually targets both Kiss and WBLK. I agree that it's a limited FM signal. It's strongest in the city and eastern suburbs. That also happens to be where the bulk of the population is. It's not going to challenge Kiss. It's going to annoy Kiss. Big difference. Wild 101 already annoyed Kiss in the northtowns.
 
WECK's translator is on 102.9. Good catch Rox. The issue regarding translators remains, they are not protected. Full power FM stations, Canadian or US, receive the full protection under FCC and CRTC Rules. With 220 watts @ 568 feet, W275BB-FM is quite hefty as translators go. But it's only a translator, and it's directional. Although it covers the city, the signal is marginal in the northern suburbs. In cars, the translator signal receives interference from the HD splash of second adjacent full power FMs on 102.5 and 103.3. Culver can ask whatever it wants for the WECK combo, but the price will be set by the buyer. At this point, the value of AM is diminishing with each passing year. Having a translator helps, but WECK's value is nonetheless limited. If and when a buyer is found for WECK, the sale price will likely be far lower than Culver is seeking. At one time, the pray for pay operators might be interested in WECK. Today, the devout hucksters gobble up FM frequencies for translators such as W275BB-FM, which was owned by Calvary Chapel before it was purchased by Culver. Realistically, the value of WECK-AM and W275BB-FM is in the range of $650-750k.
 
Dick Greene is trying to get out for what it cost him to get into the Buffalo market. I agree that his asking price is too high. A journey through his books would be interesting - and likely not favorable to his asking price.

If he was asking $2.3M for the whole company in the last round, that means he thinks WLVL is worth $800K. The books would should that WLVL has been supporting the rest of the group, yet he's asking more for the Buffalo stations. That would seem to raise some questions.

Considering that stations are now selling at a pretty reasonable 6-7 times cash flow (not profit), Dick might be able to get back half of what he paid. Let's say $750K. High end would be $900K. Either way, he's going to get an expensive education in how the game is played with the big boys.
 
I am not that familiar with the Buffalo market. How dominate is WBLK? Sounds like WECK, with their translator, has a pretty good city grade signal. Maybe go after an urban audience in some way?
 
How dominant is WBLK? In many books, they're 3rd or 4th 12+. Translate that into demographic breakouts, and they own their constituency, and a lot of suburban ears as well.
 
Urban contemp is a very strong format in all the upstate markets. In Buffalo WBLK hits the top 3 pretty regularly. In Rochester WDKX is regularly #2 and even occasionally #1 12+ (a real achievement given its limited Class A signal) although neither they nor the Entercom stations buy the Arbitron monthlies, only the quarterly survey results, so you won't know about their winter numbers for another month or two.

Maybe the most interesting indicator of UC strength is Syracuse, where the only urban contemporary station in the market is an AM station (WHEN 620)...which nevertheless is consistently in the top 10 and enjoying their best numbers since the end of their heyday as a full service AC in the 1980s, and double the share and cume they got as a sports talker.
 
Bob1370 said:
Maybe the most interesting indicator of UC strength is Syracuse, where the only urban contemporary station in the market is an AM station (WHEN 620)...which nevertheless is consistently in the top 10 and enjoying their best numbers since the end of their heyday as a full service AC in the 1980s, and double the share and cume they got as a sports talker.
Click to expand...

Considering the number of kids who listen to bad mp3s through one ear-bud, AM may not be such a handicap for some kinds of programming.
 
Hindsight being 20-20 I think I would have contracted out for some sort of programming service(s); Oldies, Standards, whatever. WECK it its current incarnation is too all-over-the-road.
 
One can call me someone who romaticizes the past a bit too much, but I think what many of teh smaller AM stations should do is offer something unique the virtually none of the larger AMs will touch and virtually none of the FMs. Methinks there's alot of innovative material out there that does have an audience, but because said material is not 'commercially viable', too much of that material never gets airplay. I also think that some of these smaller stations should look to either alternative forms of revenue (i.e. donations, etc.) or utilize a hybrid revenue model where the station survives on both advertisement and donations and whatnot.
 
Drop all the on-air talent to cut costs and automate the "music of your life" format. Run a bares bones operation for the next 5-6 months and hope to sell it by Labor Day.
 
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