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Miami/Fort Lauderdale WINZ 940 to flea power at night

Just don't see them signing 940 off the air completely.
Any AM station chronically not getting sufficient enough advertising revenue to merely pay the power bill is in trouble.

Unfortunately, that's a lot of once legendary AM radio signals....
 
Any AM station chronically not getting sufficient enough advertising revenue to merely pay the power bill is in trouble.

Unfortunately, that's a lot of once legendary AM radio signals....
Would think 940 with the Dolphins, Marlins, and Gators would be able to generate enough revenue. Dolphins are on 105.9 and they mainly play during the day, so it's not an issue. The Marlins and Gators either have to move to 610 or some other place. Marlins last renewed in 2020 with iHM...wonder if they may move somewhere else like back to 560 after this season? The deal with 940 has been good for fans as they offer a consistent home with spring training games too.
 
WINZ 940, 50kw days and 10kw nights (though they've supposedly been using 25kw nights on a STA), has applied to downgrade significantly. Their daytime power stays at 50000 watts, but after sunset they'll be putting out a whopping 16 (sixteen) watts non directional from one tower. Right now WINZ uses six towers, which must be on valuable land. If this FCC application goes through, apparently iHeart gets to bulldoze all but one tower and sell the real estate reclaimed.

The power bill will be less, undoubtedly. But how far will that 16-watt nighttime signal go?
Just look station at IHeart app, better audio quality.
 
I thought iHeart had sold all their towers and leasing them back. Did they "forget"* this property?

*Went I worked for KMart management, right after they officially changed the name to KMart from SS Kresge on their organizational charts they "lost" several SS Kresge 5 and Dimes for a couple of weeks.
 
I thought iHeart had sold all their towers and leasing them back. Did they "forget"* this property?

Here is a link to the original announcement from 2014. It was for "select radio towers."

 
They still own many sites. This site shows the towers registered to Salem Communications Holding Corporation, Inc. & HeartMedia Entertainment, Inc. with ASR numbers 1249066, 1040075 and 1040079.
 
WINZ 940, 50kw days and 10kw nights (though they've supposedly been using 25kw nights on a STA), has applied to downgrade significantly. Their daytime power stays at 50000 watts, but after sunset they'll be putting out a whopping 16 (sixteen) watts non directional from one tower. Right now WINZ uses six towers, which must be on valuable land. If this FCC application goes through, apparently iHeart gets to bulldoze all but one tower and sell the real estate reclaimed.

The power bill will be less, undoubtedly. But how far will that 16-watt nighttime signal go?

While you may have meant your last question rhetorically, my guess would be one to two miles from the translator. I looked up the nighttime wattage of local Class D (Phoenix market) KAZG, and it's 52 watts. I live approximately seven to eight miles away from the transmitter and while I can hear the station's signal at night on its AM frequency from my residence, it sounds more like a DX catch than a local AM outlet.
 
Here is a link to the original announcement from 2014. It was for "select radio towers."

“This is a great example of how we continue to optimize our balance sheet and maximize liquidity -- and how we continually review our entire portfolio of assets to ensure we operate them in the most efficient way possible and invest our resources in the highest return opportunities,” said Richard J. Bressler, President and Chief Financial Officer of iHeartMedia, Inc.

LOL nice spin. It was pure asset stripping by the private equity firm that owned iHeart at the time.
 
LOL nice spin. It was pure asset stripping by the private equity firm that owned iHeart at the time.

At the time, they were $20 billion in debt to that PE firm. If you were in hock for that amount of money, what would you do?

This was a chance to meet a debt payment without firing more people. It was only good for one time. In the meantime, listeners continued to hear music for free. Neither Bressler nor Pittman were responsible for the debt. They were hired later. All facts, no spin.
 
Forced? It was their choice to sell the land. My suspicion is they already have another site. Perhaps near where the WIOD tower is?

They received $14 million for that tower land. It would take them a long time for that station to make that amount of money.
I was thinking the same thing....why not use that new facility for WIOD to diplex with WINZ. Makes sense to me.
 
Florida never did have a decent 50,000 watt clear channel frequency. Too late to the game I guess? WQAM does more with 5KW day / 1KW night.
 


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