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What's Next For WWCS?

K

KeyTimes950

Around 3:30 p.m. today I heard dead air on AM 540, making me think Radio Disney's nightlight service had played its course and perhaps (1) WWCS is off the air permanently or (2) WWCS was about to resume life as something else.
Around 6:30 p.m. today I tuned in and the nightlight was back on.
If I were a betting man I'd suggest that Birach has no idea what to do with AM 540. (Not that there isn't a long list of possibilities as PBRTV recently noted.)
Any thoughts, folks?
 
Birach will broker it to SOMEONE.

And it doesn't have to be an ethnic programmer. In Johnstown PA, he owns WKGE/850, which he's brokering to the Pennsylvania Radiowerks folks (the former broker of the now-WLFP/1550 Braddock from Inner City) and they're programming a talk format along with their own WWGE/1440 Loretto PA.
 
Maybe Birach should form a network to simulcast his oldies format from WPON
in Walled Lake, Michigan (actually broadcast on 1160 in Fenton currently due to
a tower issue) and then broker local infomercials in around it. WPON is a popular oldies
streaming station on the web.
 
OhioMediaWatch said:
1250WTAE said:
He was getting $45,000 a month from Disney. Who in the hell is going to touch that?
Click to expand...

Probably no one, Chris...but Birach has to put something on the thing, or broker it to someone, or sell. :D
Click to expand...

So that $45K times 12 is $540K of what 1250 was "losing"....
 
Parttimer said:
OhioMediaWatch said:
1250WTAE said:
He was getting $45,000 a month from Disney. Who in the hell is going to touch that?
Click to expand...

Probably no one, Chris...but Birach has to put something on the thing, or broker it to someone, or sell. :D
Click to expand...

So that $45K times 12 is $540K of what 1250 was "losing"....
Click to expand...
Not Bad Considering he Bought the Station in June 1992 for $440,000. Bob Stevens had first shot but Passed Chooseing to Buy the License of WHJB instead. Birach wants to Down grade WWCS so he can have a Signal in DC with WGOP. at 1,000 watts fulltime, But Nimby is Fighting his Transmitter Site location, And WWCS was a Cash Cow.Birach also has 3 Stations off the Air, 2 In Va Beach WVAB 1550,WBAV 1450, Lost the Transmitter Site. And WDMV 700 in the DC Area. It will be interesting to see if he Sells WWCS?
 
PHIL Z said:
Not Bad Considering he Bought the Station in June 1992 for $440,000. Bob Stevens had first shot but Passed Chooseing to Buy the License of WHJB instead. Birach wants to Down grade WWCS so he can have a Signal in DC with WGOP. at 1,000 watts fulltime, But Nimby is Fighting his Transmitter Site location, And WWCS was a Cash Cow.Birach also has 3 Stations off the Air, 2 In Va Beach WVAB 1550,WBAV 1450, Lost the Transmitter Site. And WDMV 700 in the DC Area. It will be interesting to see if he Sells WWCS?
Click to expand...

This is the game a lot of AM owners are playing. Buy relatively cheap (as opposed to the millions an FM with that kind of signal would cost) and once in a while you hit the lottery and collect half a mil for a few years for doing nothing. But by the same token more and more of these properties are having real estate issues on their transmitter sites. And it's even harder to improve the facilities because the tower arrays would be horribly expensive to implelement, provided you can get land in the first place.

This will be what eventually kills AM, the simple economics of the facilities (see WZUM...).
 
Parttimer said:
This will be what eventually kills AM, the simple economics of the facilities (see WZUM...).
Click to expand...


As it killed drive-in movies. Of course, it could also open up a whole new future for AM
as the home of community broadcasters, schools and other micro-broadcasters running
off single towers nondirectional at 50-250 watts. Sort of a super-graveyard.
 
I'd like to see AM as a community broadcast band. However, the one thing I find wrong with LPFM is that stations there must be non-commercial. A mom-and-pop store could be a wonderful source of ad income for any station operating on flea power with a dedicated region of a few miles.
 
I wondered how long that darned Disney loop was going to play. The answer appears to have been 31 days.
As of 2 AM today (February 1), 540 is off the air.

C.
 
Given the fact that the station was essentially a computer at Ardmore Blvd, I would guess that either Birach will have to construct a studio, or that will be up to whomever buys or LMA's it.

My guess is that it stays dark until one of those two things happens.

He has a year before he would have to turn the license back in to the FCC.
 
would be nice if he could simulcast his oldies station in Michigan until he makes
up his mind what to do with it
 
FreddyE1977 said:
would be nice if he could simulcast his oldies station in Michigan until he makes
up his mind what to do with it
Click to expand...
Your Right Olidies Are big in western Pa. Simple Soulition, 1, Make Big Ray Edwards Sales manager. Give him along with candy and mike air time. filling the rest with his Michigan Oldies. Or 2. Broker the time to Oldies DJ's like 770 KFB. Between Big Ray, Candy and mike, Terry Lee, The Greaser From WANB, Suzie Q,Jerry Braverman,Charlie Apple, Dave Justice,Zeke Jackson, etc.On that Big Time signal. Talk to Beans from D&J Records, He will tell you how Before Radio Disney took 540 they were on the way to The Number One Oldies Radio Station In the Burg.
 
It is curious why he would program oldies in Flint/Detroit and not here. Although that is a good oldies
market as well (for reasons I don't quite understand...the typical Michigan retiree grabs his UAW
pension and heads to a state with lower taxes and better weather faster than you can say
Walter Reuther. Pittsburgh retirees on the other hand tend to stick around for the long term).
Maybe a lot of guys like me there who enjoy music a bit before their time.
 
1250WTAE said:
$15,000 a month minimum to get any LMA deal with 540.
Click to expand...

That's a big number, but that's a really big signal too.

Assuming you got past that in the conversations, what's the situation with studios? Renting space from Disney? That would account for some of that figure....
 
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