K
Kevin
Guest
Whoever was responsible for the sale of a 12 million dollar radio station for a profit of 38 million dollars is a pure genius. Especially for an AM station, how many AM stations today can you sell for 50 million bucks?
-
Get involved.
We want your input!
Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.
After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.
After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/
Thanks in advance and have fun!
RadioDiscussions Administrators
They did not sell the AM station. They sold the land where the transmitter is. They still have the license for the station, and can rebuild it at a different transmitter site.
See and hear the final hymn and sign.off
This is not the highest price paid for the land where a transmitter once lived. Two in LA have gone for nearly $60 million for the old KHJ site and nearly $100 million for the KABC sites; both stations came back from new, shared sites.
In DC, several stations have sold their land for more than the station is worth. I believe the most valuable was the WMAL 630 site, around $80 million IIRC.
In all cases, the station license is not part of the land sale. So it's not a "station" sale... these are real estate deals.
Family Radio has already come back from a near death experience. Recall that the failure of Harold Camping’s “end of the world” predictions for 2012 had a huge negative effect on fundraising. The resulting fallout killed off their international shortwave service, WYFR. Many thought the ministry would never survive that fiasco.People who buy what Family Radio is selling will bet their very souls on the ability of WFME to rise again after being left for dead beneath (or behind) a mere rock.
Is there a copy of this video without the "dark screen" and playback controls on top? It's very difficult to see anything here, and someone's messages keep appearing at the top of the video!
This topic is 10 pages long, so I don't know if anyone answered this. Was WFME still changing from Day to Night Pattern at Sunset at KNZR Bakersfield, CA, or did that end? A few years ago, the FCC told WTIC 1080 Hartford, CT that it had to go DA at Local Sunset, rather than Sunset at KRLD 1080 Dallas, TX. The delayed pattern change for WQXR/WQEW/WFME kind of mitigated the null over Lower Manhattan, and a transmitter move to New Jersey would allow an improvement in that situation, regardless of pattern change time.
The newbies in radio, and I'd say that's the radio people who have been in it less than 30 years or so, don't understand the value of the protection as a Class A AM signal, both groundwave and skywave, and don't understand why they shouldn't just abandon 1560.
The newbies in radio, and I'd say that's the radio people who have been in it less than 30 years or so, don't understand the value of the protection as a Class A AM signal, both groundwave and skywave, and don't understand why they shouldn't just abandon 1560.
My recollection is they switched to night power 24/7 when their antenna suffered some damage a few months ago.
Actually, maybe they should abandon it. What will it cost to engineer and build a new (or diplexed) facility, and what is the expected return on investment? Is it really worth it at this point? Would it make more sense for Family Radio to buy another underperforming AM like WLIB and just go with that? Time will tell. 1560 was always at somewhat of a disadvantage to the other big NY signals with it's high on the dial location.
You mean turn in the license.
I'm not convinced it matters. In six months, WFME is going to be just another radio station that signed off semi-permanently. If they come back, their audience will be out of the habit of tuning to 1560.
If Family had an intention of coming back on 1560 WFME, I would have urged them to buy or lease another signal in the city starting Feb 1st, and redirect their listeners via that 11-minute loop to 1190 or 1660 or where ever. And when they light up the new 1560 transmitter, do the same thing again to direct their listeners back to the stronger signal.
But they didn't. Which makes me believe they aren't dedicated to bringing 1560 back.
The video from the transmitter site linked earlier in this thread showed the RF output meter running at 45~50 kw at sign-off
It's worth more than zero. Someone would still pay for it, even if not a lot.
Last edited:
This was from the station engineer Tom Ray a few weeks ago:
"Regarding the damage to the antenna system - a drilling contractor, testing for soil compaction, accidentally took out the control wiring to two of the three towers involved in the directional antenna (they were told not to drill in that area and were on site without my knowledge). By the time we could have repaired it, we would have been close to the January sign off date, so it was chosen to simply stay on night pattern for the time being."
That was in answer to the question "Was WFME still changing from Day to Night at Sunset"
The Authorization to operate with the Daytime Pattern until Sunset in Bakersfield, CA, is still in effect.
I would think that if Family Stations doesn't want the 1560 frequency, one of the high dial position stations in the New York/New Jersey area with towers over in the Meadowlands Area that is limited in power, Day and/or Night, would be interested in taking it over. In Toronto, for instance, every entity imaginable wants any available facility, AM if not FM. AM in Canada is not "dead" in major cities. Many are foreign language/unique ethnic formats.
I would think that if Family Stations doesn't want the 1560 frequency, one of the high dial position stations in the New York/New Jersey area with towers over in the Meadowlands Area that is limited in power, Day and/or Night, would be interested in taking it over. In Toronto, for instance, every entity imaginable wants any available facility, AM if not FM. AM in Canada is not "dead" in major cities. Many are foreign language/unique ethnic formats.
Last edited:
I can't imagine Family Radio's demographics are particularly young, so one might wonder what NYC audience will be left when either 1560 reactivates or another facility is purchased or leased.
The same or even worse could have been said back in 2012~13 when WFME had to sell off their NYC FM station to make ends meet, only to limp back 2 years later on AM after the embarrassment of Camping's failed doomsday prediction.
Somehow people found them again and presumably kept sending money, even after all the high profile news reports about gullible listeners who had lost everything in Family Radio's rapture scam. I don't get it but there seem to be enough zealots out there to keep the business going against all odds.
Last edited:
Yes, yes and yes.
The increase in land values in areas suitable for "last mile" warehousing and shipping is proportionate to the change in retail sales patterns and the increasing dominance of on-line purchasing.
Obviously the pandemic is the root cause, but since March of last year my family has not gone into a single retail establishment. Everything we want and need can be ordered online and delivered, from a pizza to all the parts needed for a computer build. That change will endure significantly after the pandemic is controlled or over.
That means more delivery consolidation points for both online sellers and for product manufacturers who want to have their warehouses near the reseller's facilities.
You might know this because you're in southern California, but the company developing the former KABC site has named it The Cumulus District: Cumulus District | The Future of LA is Here.
That's absolutely hilarious. I wonder if that was in the contract when they bought the land.
- Status