Interesting that the chatter about WFMX hasn't spilled over to the Charlotte board. Because of that I didn't know what had happend until tonight. Wow they sure killed a big signal with that move and a log time format.
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WFMX
- Thread starter Mike Sheridan
- Start date
The discussion on it over in Raleigh/Greensboro has been extensive and vigorous. To folks who grew up with that station, they experienced more than the loss of a local voice...it was the loss of a friend. You would get the same reaction in Charlotte if WBT were transformed into a 5000 watt daytimer went Spanish.
As with the WFMX situation, some would see the change as a good thing, but lots of folks would have conniptions.
Later....
Matt Smith
WGSR-TV
As with the WFMX situation, some would see the change as a good thing, but lots of folks would have conniptions.
Later....
Matt Smith
WGSR-TV
I will never understand why CC had to buy it in the first place. If it was doing so badly let someone else own it. Do they have to own every radio station in the country?
The signal was downgraded, the long time format trashed, really what's the point? The FCC just rubber stamps this nonsense.
The signal was downgraded, the long time format trashed, really what's the point? The FCC just rubber stamps this nonsense.
M
mediaspeaks
Guest
In reality, CC DOESN'T own every radio station in the country. They're not the first to ever flip a format, fire staff, or move a signal.
Perhaps the blame does lie with the "rubber stamp" of the FCC, but not with ANY company (CC included) that chooses to try and make more money with a differnt approach or format
Perhaps the blame does lie with the "rubber stamp" of the FCC, but not with ANY company (CC included) that chooses to try and make more money with a differnt approach or format
Mediaspeaks is right. CC is not the only one to do it. In fact, virtually every radio company in business today has done it, or will do it! It is the nature of Big Radio (and that's not just Clear Channel).
I worked for CC several years ago - and it was a good company. The culture changed dramatically with the merge with Jacor! Randy wondered why Wall Street didn't respect his company yet loved Clear Channel. It was because of their style vs his!
By the way, the purchase of FMX by Clear Channel is just a paper thing. The owner, Mercury, is just a CC holding company and the station was "parked" with Mercury when the AM/FM merger happened. The station put CC over the limit in the Charlotte metro, but they didn't want to sell it to a real competitor (who might have made it more of a Charlotte station).
The holding company could only hold for so long and CC was facing the prospect of letting that 100kw signal go. Rather than give birth to another competitor, they decided to move it to Clemmons (Greensboro market). The downgrade in signal was worth it to them in the big picture.
I worked for CC several years ago - and it was a good company. The culture changed dramatically with the merge with Jacor! Randy wondered why Wall Street didn't respect his company yet loved Clear Channel. It was because of their style vs his!
By the way, the purchase of FMX by Clear Channel is just a paper thing. The owner, Mercury, is just a CC holding company and the station was "parked" with Mercury when the AM/FM merger happened. The station put CC over the limit in the Charlotte metro, but they didn't want to sell it to a real competitor (who might have made it more of a Charlotte station).
The holding company could only hold for so long and CC was facing the prospect of letting that 100kw signal go. Rather than give birth to another competitor, they decided to move it to Clemmons (Greensboro market). The downgrade in signal was worth it to them in the big picture.
Unfortunately, where CC screwed up with the WFMX move was in picking the format: After having already failed in one showdown with Entercom (CC's WGBT 94.5 The Beat vs. Entercom's WJMH 102 Jamz), they decided to go after Entercom again with the new WFMX format, this time targeting R&B/classic soul outlet 97.1 QMG. Especially considering the station's new name--- 105.7 Kiss-FM---it would have made more sense to go after 107.5 KZL. I suspect screwups like this as the possible reason for three--- count 'em, three--- format changes on 94.5 (from rock to country to The Beat to today's "La Preciosa") over the last five years.
Urban can be a difficult sell. Urban AC usually brings-in more money. It's not a bad move at all. The only possible bad move was spanish on 94.5 (which has better coverage of the areas Kiss needs) and urban AC at 105.7 (which has better coverage of the Triad's hispanic areas), they had no choice, but those two need to swap formats. That could present a problem if attempted though? Now if only CC could buy 98.3 and take it gospel, they could have a nice package.
berlin201 said:
Actually, for what I understand both stations 94.5 and 105.7 are doing very well as they stand right now. La Preciosa billing is extremely good and the ratings are better that when the Beat was on. The reception for Kiss from the audience (in this short period) is excellent and the billing is also up.I think that is what the business of radio is… Listeners and money.
Mr Winston-Salem said:
I don't know how that would work; in 2001, when 94.5 and 100.3 (which at the time were rock and country respectively) swapped formats, rock did all right on 100.3--- and, in fact, still is rock as today's 100.3 The Buzzard--- but country didn't do as well on 94.5, hence the flip two years later to The Beat.
You may have a point about Spanish on 105.7 though; in fact, before 94.5 flipped to Spanish, CC was considering flipping WFMX to Spanish after moving it to the Triad.
tropicanamedia said:
Maybe I am too much old school but I don't think that the FCC has changed one thing about licensing:
Radio station owners are given a license to use the Public airwaves in the interest of the public. The license mandates that serving the public is thier primary trust. Commercial stations are allowed to sell advertising to cover the costs of operating the station and to allow them a reasonable profit. The FCC R&R's were never intended to allow radio stations to become "Cash Cows"
Almost everyone here defends the bean counters decisions as good business moves, but everyone here seems to forget that serving the public is the primary mandate of station ownership, not profit.
The rubber stamp FCC is the root of the whole problem, who knows what it will take to set things right again.
berlin201 said:
When I lived in Winston-Salem back in the early and mid-1990's, 94.1 WWGL's signal was so strong you could listen to it through your home's plumbing system. ;D I remember hearing it on my computer's speakers when the computer was turned-off and hearing it on cable TV, covering one or two channels. You could hear it on AM around 1350 and it sounded like a local AM, covering WPOL and I lived very close to WPOL's tower. At that time, you couldn't hear 94.5 The Rock Alternative at CC's studios on Fifth Street in Winston-Salem. Just gospel music from WWGL. If your radio could get 94.6 clearly, you could listen to it there. You needed an expensive, quality tuner, like what the guys on the DX Forum use to listen at home.
So why is that a big deal? Winston-Salem has twice the hispanic spending of Greensboro and High Point combined, the highest percentage of hispanic residents of any major city in the state at 15% and its hispanic population is growing fast. Winston-Salem is third behind Charlotte and Raleigh in total hispanic residents. 105.7 covers this area very well from its tower on the Stokes/Surry line, but gets weak over Greensboro. Once you go east of 68/airport area, 105.7 begins to give problems for listeners over Greensboro and in some parts of High Point. The lower signal strength also has problems with many of the buildings over there. Most of the potential listeners to Urban AC live around eastern Winston-Salem. The part of the city that is closest to 94.5's tower. 94.5 actually sounds better inside concrete/steel frame office buildings in Winston-Salem than it does in a house, since they reduce the signal strength of 94.1. 94.5 and 105.7 do need to swap.
I remember 94.5 Cat Country wasn't a very strong competitor to begin with years ago. Back then, it was hard to take on WTQR. 94.5 flipped to Alternative WXRA in 1994; a year or two before 100.3 WWWB tried a rock format to take-on WKRR and failed. It stayed with rock formats until it flipped to Classic Country. WKRR #3 (arbitron) was around 7, if I remember correctly, back then (mid-90's/pre WFXF days). Rock 92 had great numbers. When WFXF 100.3 The Fox failed, they tried country as Whistle 100. Whistle 100 did ok and had the John Boy & Billy Big Show. It later flipped back to classic rock and not long after, 94.5 flipped from Active Rock "The Rock Station" to a classic country format, that was different from what Whistle 100 had, so it wasn't a true format swap. Classic Country didn't do as well and then it flipped to The Beat.
The question is, though...who defines "reasonable profit"? Owners of radio stations pay an obscene amount of money for them. Contrary to a statement on another post here, we aren't "given" a license. We buy them, then pay fees to the FCC to keep them. They SHOULD make a lot of money. The trick is, who says that serving your community and making a lot of money are mutually exclusive? No, they aren't. There are plenty of folks out there who do a good job serving their communities, while making a lot of money.
The thing about serving the public interest is this: We may not all agree with how an owner runs a station, but most of the time the station IS serving the public interest. If his station is billing well and has good ratings, obviously he's offering a service to those advertisers and listeners. Just because a station isn't programmed exactly the way you want it to be certainly doesn't mean it isn't serving the public interest. It's just a matter of what segment of the population they are serving. Nobody can serve all the public, all the time, and since people are so different, there's no way to guarantee that ALL the people will always be served. That's just reality.
Look at it this way...if radio stations weren't profitable, why would anybody on earth want to own them? If the FCC mandated that stations couldn't become cash-cows, then the folks who DO provide good radio would stop doing so, just as the folks who provide bad radio would. Then, you'd be stuck with the entire spectrum sounding like public radio, and being run by non-profits. I can think of few things which make me want to throw up more than this thought.
The thing about serving the public interest is this: We may not all agree with how an owner runs a station, but most of the time the station IS serving the public interest. If his station is billing well and has good ratings, obviously he's offering a service to those advertisers and listeners. Just because a station isn't programmed exactly the way you want it to be certainly doesn't mean it isn't serving the public interest. It's just a matter of what segment of the population they are serving. Nobody can serve all the public, all the time, and since people are so different, there's no way to guarantee that ALL the people will always be served. That's just reality.
Look at it this way...if radio stations weren't profitable, why would anybody on earth want to own them? If the FCC mandated that stations couldn't become cash-cows, then the folks who DO provide good radio would stop doing so, just as the folks who provide bad radio would. Then, you'd be stuck with the entire spectrum sounding like public radio, and being run by non-profits. I can think of few things which make me want to throw up more than this thought.
The one postive development from all this: I can pick up Mix 106 better at home.
Not that this is a good thing. The station's music is going downhill.
Locally, they're pandering to the former Magic 96.1 crowd by playing stuff that only belongs on oldies radio, though I suppose it's not being heard unless 95.7 The Ride is doing it. Though "Lite" (in name only) 102.9 and K-104.7 play so many old songs.
The people in charge of the satellite format seem to be forgetting what made that music so good. I suppose they, too, have to appeal to people in markets without oldies.
Not that this is a good thing. The station's music is going downhill.
Locally, they're pandering to the former Magic 96.1 crowd by playing stuff that only belongs on oldies radio, though I suppose it's not being heard unless 95.7 The Ride is doing it. Though "Lite" (in name only) 102.9 and K-104.7 play so many old songs.
The people in charge of the satellite format seem to be forgetting what made that music so good. I suppose they, too, have to appeal to people in markets without oldies.
XTalker said:
It's funny I happened to read that question this morning...I happen to be in just the mood to answer it, as well as give my opinion, whether anybody asked or not, about a couple of related issues. So here goes...
I would say debt service is a HUGE problem. That, and there's just a genuine lack of talented radio managers out there these days. When radio consolidation began, most of the larger radio groups surrendered their companies to the Wall Street gods. They loved the endless supply of money Wall Street could provide. Problem is, Wall Street expected radio stations to perform just like a normal "merchandise-on-shelves" company would. Well, it doesn't. Now, every time you pick up a trade-publication, all you hear is doom and gloom from some stupid stock market analyst who probably wouldn't know good radio if it slapped him on the ear.
Today's high asking prices are also, at least in part, a result of consolidation. Companies were routinely paying as much as twelve to fourteen times cash flow for stations. Hey, they had the money to spend, in the form of practically limitless lines of credit with the big Wall Street investment banks. Problem is, that money's gotta be paid back eventually. When you over-pay initially for a station, you start out behind the curve, obviously. The solution? Well, on Wall Street, you cut expenses, of course. Problem is, cutting expenses in radio means cutting back on local, relevant content...what people listen to radio for in the first place. Then guess what happens? Yup, ratings shrink as listeners go to other stations still providing the service they want, or they leave radio all together. Then, advertisers jump ship or spend less money. So the net result is that you have a note payment big enough to choke a horse, and now you have less incoming revenue to pay it with. Of course, Wall Street has the solution...restructure the debt! That's why you get into the situation we have now where every time an ad buyer at Home Depot gets indigestion after eating onions on his Philly Sandwich at lunch, you hear about doom and gloom and the end of radio from Wall Street.
Radio can be a hugely profitable business. However, the business model is dramatically different than any other business I've ever personally experienced. I'm blessed to have had the opportunity to buy my stations free-and-clear. I don't have debt to service. However, I have plenty of friends in the radio business who do. A note payment can truly choke an owner these days, especially in a small market. I stopped taking all the trade pubs a while back, simply because I got tired of hearing the Wall Street morons telling me my business is headed to hell in a handbasket. Guess what...I don't owe them any money, and I don't care how they think I should run my radio stations. If radio station owners would bite the bullet and stop buying stations they don't have the managers to run properly, they'd have the freedom to have the same opinion as me. Instead, a whole lot of folks are stuck running their stations the way the investment bankers on their boards say they should.
This, of course, is just my opinion. Some folks may see it differently. Debt has a very valid place in local broadcasting. It can be a great tool to help good, local owners buy stations. However, debt is BAD in the sense that it has allowed a whole lot of companies to over-extend themselves. When you over-extend yourself, you do a dozen things poorly, instead of doing four things very well. I think this pretty much sums up corporate radio these days, for the most part.
As an aside...just before I pressed the "Post" button this morning, I got the daily RBR update in my email inbox. I honestly normally delete it without reading it, because the pessimism they are famous for makes me want to scream. However, the headline "No Magic Bullet For Radio" caught my eye. The first half of the first sentence? "Wall Street has a negative view of the radio business...". Pardon my frankness, but Wall Street can kiss my ass. When Wall Street gets up at 4am in the morning to prep for local news and record the obituaries, delivers a three-hour morning show with at least a hundred phone calls, deals with an hour of Tradio, does the music and commercial logs for two stations, sells a couple thousand dollars worth of advertising, four dollars at a time, makes sure all the part-timers show up to run their appropriate ballgames while not destroying any of the equipment, and deals with at least three phone calls from some poor lady who just lost her kitty and is convinced that WFXY is the ONLY hope for saving it, then goes home at night and sits down on the couch only to get a call from the alarm company because the tower site on top of the mountain has a power outage, then Wall Street can tell me what I'm doing wrong with my business. Until then, though, I really don't give a damn what Wall Street has to say.
How's that for a rant?
Great rant and right on target.
Now, what's the solution. Seems like I remember a price bubble for radio in the middle-80s. I recall Metroplex (now part of Clear Channel) purchasing the Bernie Mann stations in Raleigh (WYLT and WKIX) for something like 10-million. They sold them a few years later for something like 7!
Here's the question - like the housing bubble, when will the radio bubble pop? And will there be opporutunities for local ownership again?
Now, what's the solution. Seems like I remember a price bubble for radio in the middle-80s. I recall Metroplex (now part of Clear Channel) purchasing the Bernie Mann stations in Raleigh (WYLT and WKIX) for something like 10-million. They sold them a few years later for something like 7!
Here's the question - like the housing bubble, when will the radio bubble pop? And will there be opporutunities for local ownership again?
thebroker said:How's that for a rant?
I would say that is Most Excellent!!!
I believe that you hat hit the nail squarely on the head.
Now that we know the problem, will there be a solution? Will real radio ever return to the masses, or will it remain the select few privileged to still have local ownership that cares about the community? We need more of those who realize that radio may be a business, but like "thebroker" says, it is a very different business, it is the "entertainment business with emphasis on entertainment. That means standard business practices don't always apply. In fact some business practices never apply to radio simply because those practices kill the business!
96.9 has always been a Statesville station. It was "Triple O 97" in the 70s, then Capitol Broadcasting in Raleigh bought it and decided to go up against Jefferson-Pilot with WLVV "Love 97." That didn't last too long, the station was sold, and has been country for a long time as WTDR (Thunder Country) and now WKKT (Kat Country).
wncmacs
wncmacs
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