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WITH SANDUSKY SALE TO HUBBARD, WILL BONNEVILLE EXIT SEATTLE?

Hubbard Broadcasting purchased almost all of Bonneville International's radio properties in the past two years, save for Salt Lake City, Phoenix, Los Angeles, and Seattle. Hubbard will now own clusters of Sandusky stations in Phoenix and Salt Lake City, and Bonneville owns only three stations in Seattle and three in Phoenix; which could signal they sell off those properties to Hubbard in the near future, giving Hubbard a huge cluster and ratings in both Seattle and Phoenix. This is all assumption, but would fit what has transpired in the past between the two companies. Hubbard is BIG into news in its markets, and KIRO AM/FM and KTTH would complement, not compete with WARM 106.9, CLICK 98.9, and MOVIN 92.5. Owners in both markets can own up to 8 stations total.
 
discjockeyjohn64 said:
Hubbard will now own clusters of Sandusky stations in Phoenix and Salt Lake City, and Bonneville owns only three stations in Seattle and three in Phoenix

Actually Bonneville owns a fourth station in Phoenix, but doesn't run it. KMVP 8~Sixty is LMA'ed and programming Gospel music. They had a buyer a couple of years ago, but the deal tanked with the economy. It's a 1kw that's never been a player in the market. The whole Sandusky-Hubbard-Bonneville scenario makes sense as the former head of Bonneville now heads up Hubbard and still lives in Salt Lake City.
 
I think it's likely the KOMO Radio cluster could be picked up by Hubbard. And if that's the case, there could be a format change on one or more of the FMs.

Or Bonneville could sell off the KIRO group. But that may be more AMs than they want to deal with (Fisher at least has two FM signals.) I do see an AM or two spun off regardless.

The big question is the fate of KIXI and KKNW. I'd really hate to see KIXI go to all sports. Or another religious/conservative talk station. (Salem still has an opening before they're maxed out - KKMO was sold off to Sea-Mar a few years ago.)
 
If KIXI went all sports, I think that would just completely ruin the stations chances of being successful. I mean after all, how many more sports stations do we need? Personally I hope they would morph it to straight oldies and solid gold.
 
fordranger797 said:
If KIXI went all sports, I think that would just completely ruin the stations chances of being successful. I mean after all, how many more sports stations do we need? Personally I hope they would morph it to straight oldies and solid gold.

Seems like all further imagination is lost for AM. And there's still NBC Sports, which nobody has signed up for yet, AFAIK.
 
Bongwater said:
fordranger797 said:
If KIXI went all sports, I think that would just completely ruin the stations chances of being successful. I mean after all, how many more sports stations do we need? Personally I hope they would morph it to straight oldies and solid gold.

Seems like all further imagination is lost for AM. And there's still NBC Sports, which nobody has signed up for yet, AFAIK.

Even though its Clear Channel and mainly uses Fox Sports Radio, 950 KJR AM uses some NBC Sports radio content.
 
Sarkus said:
Bongwater said:
fordranger797 said:
If KIXI went all sports, I think that would just completely ruin the stations chances of being successful. I mean after all, how many more sports stations do we need? Personally I hope they would morph it to straight oldies and solid gold.

Seems like all further imagination is lost for AM. And there's still NBC Sports, which nobody has signed up for yet, AFAIK.

Even though its Clear Channel and mainly uses Fox Sports Radio, 950 KJR AM uses some NBC Sports radio content.

I stand corrected.
 
I would think that Hubbard would have to sell off one station if they were to buy either cluster. If I were Synclaire, I wouldn't sell KOMO, too tightly integrated with the TV side unless Hubbard wants to get into TV in this market. Here are two possible scenarios,
1. Hubbard buys Bonneville, and sells KKNW to Salem.
2. The same thing happens, with the addition of swaping KIRO-FM to Synclaire to be the simulcast partner of KOMO in exchange for KPLZ. Actually, I don't see that one happeining because they'll already have Click.
 
even if Hubbard buys KPLZ from the Fisher/Sinclair cluster, that'll cause a conflict with Warm as well. If anything, blow up and reformat Click, make it an active rocker to compete with KISW.
One of the AMs could go Progressive whether it be KKNW or KVI (not likely KVI since it's been sooo branded as a rightie talker) and KKNW is basically brokered programming 24/7, one of them could go to Salem. There were rumors that Salem made an offer for KVI a few years back.
 
Intriguing thread. Seems very likely that Hubbard will add to its cluster and Bonneville is the likely candidate since they have stations in Seattle and Phoenix that could round out the purchase of Sandusky in both markets. Adding Bonneville creates no conflicts with the formats Sandusky currently has in place. Should they buy the Fisher cluster one would think they would put KOMO on the KLCK 98.9 FM frequency making KOMO a much stronger AM-FM News Talk. At the same time with KLCK out of the way KPLZ, KRWM and KQMV all get stronger too. Guess it all depends on how much Bonneville wants to sell and if they don't how much Sinclair wants to sell.

Since we are just speculating a couple of scenarios are possible. Cumulus is rumored to buy all of CBS, they could easily add the Bonneville or Fisher stations to the CBS cluster here. One also has to wonder if Entercom wants to expand. They too could add the Fisher or Bonneville stations. We could actually lose two companies and be down to Hubbard, Clear Channel, CBS/Cumulus and Entercom when all is said and done.

Consolidation continues.
 
radioguy123 said:
Should they buy the Fisher cluster one would think they would put KOMO on the KLCK 98.9 FM frequency making KOMO a much stronger AM-FM News Talk.

That would bring 98.9 full circle - the original KOMO-FM was on 98.9 in the '50s.

radioguy123 said:
Since we are just speculating a couple of scenarios are possible. Cumulus is rumored to buy all of CBS, they could easily add the Bonneville or Fisher stations to the CBS cluster here. One also has to wonder if Entercom wants to expand. They too could add the Fisher or Bonneville stations. We could actually lose two companies and be down to Hubbard, Clear Channel, CBS/Cumulus and Entercom when all is said and done.

Consolidation continues.

.....and further down the spiral we go ::) ....Whee.
 
fordranger797 said:
It seems as if getting a career in the radio world is becoming a worse and worse choice each day ???

If you like job security forget it. If you like endless stress, it's perfect.
 
The thing I don't understand is Entercom had a full 8 station cluster here 10 years or so ago. In addition to the current cluster they had KHHO, KBSG, KTTH, and KIRO. Why did they get rid of all those stations?
 
I've read that Hubbard isn't looking to buy any stations the rest of this year and that they are not looking to buy any AM's going forward and don't want news stations.
 
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