I firmly believe that the station would have fetched for $10million or more. That 99.5 reception is very valuable despite a weak reception in the Philadelphia area (50KW).
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WJBR sold to VCY???
- Thread starter ashman887
- Start date
WSTW is going to "segue" to Hot AC little by little.
I'm surprised Wilmington is not considered an imbedded market similar to how San Jose or Nassau-Suffolk are treated for Nielsen purposes.
Compared to the broadcast cash flow of WJBR, $5 million was probably lucrative. Wouldn't surprise me if that offer is close to 10x cash flow. VCY wouldn't care about that ratio, but Beasley as a commercial enterprise certainly does.
When one considers the recent sale price of KROI near Houston (which probably reaches more potential listeners with a 65 dBu), the $5 million price tag for WJBR doesn't seem too bad.
Compared to the broadcast cash flow of WJBR, $5 million was probably lucrative. Wouldn't surprise me if that offer is close to 10x cash flow. VCY wouldn't care about that ratio, but Beasley as a commercial enterprise certainly does.
When one considers the recent sale price of KROI near Houston (which probably reaches more potential listeners with a 65 dBu), the $5 million price tag for WJBR doesn't seem too bad.
More likely is that Wilmington is a market in faster decline than almost any other. The market's revenue is lagging behind both inflation and a station's operating costs such as labor, rent, insurance, power, etc.
Beasley has only one station there. The two big groups have 5 and 4 each, and take 80% of market revenue, so they have no combo to sell and lose out on many if not most buys as they can't combine stations to "get on the buy".
It takes as much management time to run a single station as several all in the same building. Just a no-go today.
Embedded markets have all been break-outs and not add-ins IIRC. In other words, a few suburban stations paid Arbitron to create a breakout report from the full market so they looked good in their smaller coverage areas.
In the AM dominant days, the Wilmington stations would have had littly Philly audience and only a couple of Philly stations had good signals in Wilmington (560, 610, 1060, and, maybe, 1210) so the listening had little overlap.
To combine now would require a vote of all subscribers, such as what we voted on in Miami in 1971. Do to coverage deficiencies of the smaller Philly stations and all of the Wilmington ones, that won't happen.
The station has been billing around $2.2 to $2.5 million a year for some time, and the market is in decline. It likely had decent cash flow given the format, but no growth and no strategic cluster set-up.
Again, nobody in the commercial world would want a stand-alone where two other players have 80% of the market revenue.
WSTW nowadays sound more Hot ax than CHR
Beasley must be making lots of money off of their Philly and Detroit stations
Um, ok…not sure what that’s got to do with the topic, particularly Detroit.
The issue right now is that there is a recession in the ad business that has affected new media and old radio and TV as well... and driven may magazines and newspapers out of business.
So essentially everyone is off this year, even though their stations are in good status in the ratings.
That’s odd because I’m in Montgomery county west of Philadelphia and WJBR’s signal is worse for me than WSTW’s. I’m not sure where either tower is located or if they’re directional/non-directional but I would think as the crow flies that center city is closer to Wilmington than King of Prussia. Maybe it’s not.
That signal covers the entire market less to north because they use a directional antenna sometimes WBAI can interfere north the turnpike
WJBR is directional with less signal to NE still covers most of the area.WSTW and WJBR transmitter is literally at pa state line most nortern tip of de primary signal covers all of Philadelphia
WJBR is non-directional.
As was already said, WJBR is non-directional but its 60 dbu misses much of Montgomery County, all of Bucks and Burlington, and parts of Gloucester and Camden counties.
Radio markets are based on counties, not cities. There are 8 counties in the Philadelphia Metro Survey Area.
My girlfriend lives in Bucks county and has WJBR on her presets
Not referencing the market boundaries and ratings. Car radio and listener prospective that station has listen range of about 50-60 miles Are there listeners outside of 60 dbu and 8 survey counties of course there are. We don't know how many because it's outside of the market. 
We know from extensive analysis of listening locations that 95% of home or work listening is inside the 65 dbu contour and 80% are inside the 70 dbu contour. Essentially none outside the 65 dbu contour. And even now over 50% of listening is indoor at home or at work.Not referencing the market boundaries and ratings. Car radio and listener prospective that station has listen range of about 50-60 miles Are there listeners outside of 60 dbu and 8 survey counties of course there are. We don't know how many because it's outside of the market.
In any case, stations from a separate rated market have a huge problem getting any revenue in a larger market unless they cover almost all or all of the nearby bigger market.
I guess there's no way to break down the non-car listeners by home or work. My guess that the at-work numbers crush the at-homes. Who the heck listens to radio at home these days? Cord cutters who want to follow sports but don't want to pay for subscriptions to streaming video services?
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