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RadioPhillyFan
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Or the best happens and Nassua doesn't sell it, and continues its programming! 
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Who might buy 94.5, WPST? Nassau asks for auction
- Thread starter radiophiler
- Start date
Nick said:aindik said:If the PST heritage really is valuable, and if Beasley buys 94.5, it might make sense to just move all the PST imaging/format etc. over to 96.5, (perhaps merging the best of the two air staffs under the PST name) and flip 94.5 to something else entirely. Perhaps something rock oriented, which is what was on 94.5 before PST moved there.
They could call the station 94 (point 5) WYSP.
Wired 96.5 did better than WYSP. So why bring back a failed station?
Could 94.5 be moved to Philly?
From a cluster perspective, you might prefer to have PST and YSP than to have PST and Wired.
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RadioPhillyFan
Guest
Whoever owns WAYV could also move WAYV 95.1 to 94.9 and make it a Class A in philadelphia, or Class B at the Media site (over 60 from WZZO and WDSD - checked cordinates) then they can buy PST and move it closer to philly, but not towards PA, and run another format, that'd cut the hurt in some of Delaware and Montgomery with WDAC interference.
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RadioPhillyFan
Guest
dlnj99 said:
WSJO comes in in every county PST has problems with, but WSJO is a CHR... then again, so is PST.
104.9 comes in in
Chester
Delaware (best in PA)
New Castle
Montgomery
Philadelphia
Bucks
some of Berks
... I can't say it comes in PERFECTLY (only Philadelphia, New Castle and Delaware) but it's #6 on my presets, and I never lost it completely, or had so much static it became unlistenable. I live in the norristown area, too, and I get it. But Montgomery is certainly it's trouble spot - now, I have to say this -
Why wouldn't an out of market company get it? I'm sure someone would be interested; however... Del Marva would be the best of the suggested, they're a suberb broadcasting company.
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RadioPhillyFan
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RadioPhillyFan said:
Cut this, I was wrong; although it's close, they still need another 5-15 miles to be a Class A or B on the 94.9, so it won't happen unless you push ZZO to North Allentown, and either push up the "94.9" or push down DSD further down, which may cause issues with "fresh 94.7" in DC, unless you put ZZO at least 20 miles north of where it is you can't run a 94.9 in Bala, and if you push 94.9 seven miles (or more) north, in... oh say Bromall or Haverton, you'll need to move ZZO at least 10-15 miles, and then with haverton worry about PST, plus DSD would need to be moved a very small amount south, ir a company really wanted a new Class B; they could - but a 99.7 or 94.9 won't be in philly till short spacing laws change, and a 99.7 won't happen unless JBR goes to 99.3, which may hurt Kiss in Harrisburg (i highly doubt 99.7 will happen, but i heard it as someone being interested in possibilties on it.
On this day exactly 7 years ago PST moved to 94.5 and The Hawk moved to 97.5. That set the wheels in motion to move 97.5 to Philly. If 94.5 could be moved to Philly, the frequency swap wouldn't have happened and we would still have n-n-n-n-ninety-seven-five PST!
I remember that they promoted the frequency swap since the beginning of that year, and even changed the words to some songs to mention the frequency swap. Example: Technotronic - Move This (People don't you know, don't you know where to find today's hit music on the dial. With all of the same DJs and good music. PST's your station and we're groovin', but we're movin', to ninety, four point five.)
And I gave my girlfriend at that time a Valentine's Day gift exactly at the moment PST moved to 94.5.
I remember that they promoted the frequency swap since the beginning of that year, and even changed the words to some songs to mention the frequency swap. Example: Technotronic - Move This (People don't you know, don't you know where to find today's hit music on the dial. With all of the same DJs and good music. PST's your station and we're groovin', but we're movin', to ninety, four point five.)
And I gave my girlfriend at that time a Valentine's Day gift exactly at the moment PST moved to 94.5.
bigjay said:
Or (just thinking outside the box here), you could leave 94.5 as it is...as a Trenton based station that sort of rimshots Philly.
You just have to accept the fact that more or less everything in the Northeast is what it is. There were a few small exceptions (the 107.7-107.9 South Jersey move-in, the 97.5 move-in, WFAS-FM and 96.7 in the Northern NY suburbs, 97.9 in Hartford, etc.) that come to mind, but the FM dial is pretty much locked in from Boston to Virginia.
A lot of what is there today is grandfathered, and would not exist given today's rules.
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RadioPhillyFan
Guest
Kinda thinkin' Greater Media's gonna grab it, they wanted a Hot AC station, or at least tried it a lot, so this gives them something that won't hurt any other stations at all they own, and it also runs into Philly, a city that really helped GM get on its feet.
Would be very interesting if 94.5 Trenton & 94.7 Newark were sold to the same company,
then we could have a simulcast on both for Philly & NYC. Better yet if Townsquare bought them,
I'd like to see a 94.3/94.5/94.7 trimulcast of the Point or PST. Of course that's very unlikely
but given the freqs are so close who knows what someone could come up with.
The 106.3/106.5 simulcast helps with promoting 2 adjacent frequencies.
then we could have a simulcast on both for Philly & NYC. Better yet if Townsquare bought them,
I'd like to see a 94.3/94.5/94.7 trimulcast of the Point or PST. Of course that's very unlikely
but given the freqs are so close who knows what someone could come up with.
The 106.3/106.5 simulcast helps with promoting 2 adjacent frequencies.
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RadioPhillyFan
Guest
Nick said:
PST is a Hot AC, actually.
And PST's version of Hot AC wouldn't hurt Ben or Magic - GM should pick up PST, they can run it well! (I actually hope Nassua keeps it)
Unfortunately, PST is probably the most valuable station that Nassau has to sell, and it doesn't have many others that even come close in appeal to buyers.
In this economic climate, and with what Nassau has to sell, it is more than likely that everything Nassau owns will be sold and the lenders still will not get back anything near the reported (All Access Feb. 12) nearly $300-million that they are owed.
Unfortunately, Nassau Broadcasting is very likely to be nothing but a memory once this process is finished. It's probably not keeping anything, even the desks in the offices and the pictures on the walls. Sometimes, when you bite off more than you can chew you can choke yourself to death. That's what happened here.
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RadioPhillyFan
Guest
Nick said:
How did this happen exactly? Nassua seemed like a pretty decent company.
This is a quote from the Tom Taylor Radio-Info e-newsletter from last Friday: "Don’t be surprised if CEO Lou Mercatanti winds up owning some of them again, under a different company."
Either he has the funds on his own to buy some of the stations, or he'll find investors who will put up the money.
So, it wouldn't technically be Nassau anymore, but one of its principle players might find a way to hold onto some of the stations in a new company.
That raises two questions for me:
1. Would Mr. Mercatanti's new company actually be bidding against others who might want some of the "big sticks" like WPST and WODE Easton/Allentown?
2. When a company fails like this, who would put up the money to let them try again?
Either he has the funds on his own to buy some of the stations, or he'll find investors who will put up the money.
So, it wouldn't technically be Nassau anymore, but one of its principle players might find a way to hold onto some of the stations in a new company.
That raises two questions for me:
1. Would Mr. Mercatanti's new company actually be bidding against others who might want some of the "big sticks" like WPST and WODE Easton/Allentown?
2. When a company fails like this, who would put up the money to let them try again?
radiophiler said:
I would think so, considering that many of Nassau's current assets have little value. I can't imagine Mercatanti's investors would allow the purchase of the very same assets (the Northern New England properties) that got his company into trouble in the past.
Nassau's mid-Atlantic stations (PST, Hawk, SBG, the Maryland cluster) have never been run badly, and neither were the stations Nassau bought and sold along the way (the Shore cluster, WSUS, WHCY, WSJO). It was in the Northern New England markets that the company got into trouble. They grew too fast up there, paid too much for each station, and bought too many lousy signals. When the economy tanked, the debt was just too much.
A Mercatanti-led company that only bought the core Nassau assets would do just fine. Their biggest issue is going to be that the assets they want are the assets every other company is going to be bidding up too.
Obviously, its a long and complicated situation that has been going on now for several years.
The simple answer is that when radio stations were selling for top prices Nassau went out and bought as many as it could on borrowed money.
Then when the economy slowed down, and radio station revenue and prices fell it found itself in a squeeze.
There may be situations where it was essentially required to get a new mortgage on some stations every X years, and lenders require collateral, but when you owe twice as much as the station is worth nobody is going to loan you that amount.
Then there may have been situations where Nassau got behind on its monthly payments, and its a process that adds fees and interest like credit cards and can mean the total amount is suddenly all due.
Nassau borrowed most of the money from the likes of Goldman Sachs, and finally the lenders all got together and forced the company into bankruptcy.
At first, Nassau wanted Chapter-11 reorganization but news reports last Friday indicated it had asked the bankruptcy court to put it into Chapter-7, which means everything is "liquidated" or sold off. If the reported $284-million of debt figure is correct, it would appear that auctioning off "everything" will still leave the lenders with huge losses.
There are reports kicking around that Nassau CEO Lou Mercatanti may form a new company to bid on some of the stations. Nassau is going bankrupt, not Mercatanti so this is possible.
He may have enough money on his own, or gotten together with other investors, to buy some of the stations at fire sale prices. Potential lenders may see the business numbers working at these lower prices, and lend him the money to make it happen.
Some analysts may see him as a guy who generally knows what he is doing, but that he got caught in a down market that he had little to do with creating.
He is kind of in the same situation as a guy who bought a house at the peak prices, then took a pay cut and couldn't pay the mortgage, and found that he owed way more on the house than he could sell it for. So the house was foreclosed on and the bank took it back.
There have been people who have then gone out and bought the house back at a much cheaper price in foreclosure. The only difference here is that Mercatanti is not in a personal financial squeeze, the company is.
RadioPhillyFan said:
Pretty sure Equity, which owns WAYV, wouldn't move the station down a frequency just to move to Philly to appease PST. AYV is almost always No. 1 or No. 2 in Atlantic-Cape May. I think the company's owner likes being the big fish in a little pond. I don't foresee them making a switch so they can be the number 19 station in Philly.
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