The potential new owners thought that 60s/70s music was not commercial viable so they changed to 80s/90s with a few 60s thrown in. I thought the station sounded great and would be more commercially viable. Since the deal to sell the station fell through, Larry and Tony went back to 60s/70s which drove the station to be sold for $1 plus transfer of the debt in the first place. Makes no sense. Anyone know how much the debt was and why is Larry Justice off the station while Tony is still on?
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WMEX
- Thread starter Motown
- Start date
It was never going to be commercially viable in the Boston market with that signal (AM and FM). Advertising money is being funneled away from radio in general, and what spending remains will go to the full-power, full-coverage stations in the limited number of formats that hit the demographic sweet spots.
You are correct about "agency" money. I don't know how much "local" non agency money is in this market. Apparently various Hispanic operators in Houston do local "Mom and Pop". I am not saying they should go a form of Hispanic, but there might be an some smaller merchants that they can get some results for. It won't be easy. Instead of sales folks hanging around waiting for agency orders, they will have to. "beat the streets". The real drawback is it takes time. Most folks have to have money soon. The old "draw against commission" is a tough way to make a living.
So, the owners of WMEX are just going to keep collecting debt while keeping this on the air? If the debt outweighs the value of WMEX, then there is only one solution... bankruptcy, and handing it over to the creditors that are owed money.
its like a smaller version of WBAI in NYC... they are their own worst enemies and make worse decisions just to feed the egos, inspite of themseklves.
Focus on towns south of boston.... thats enough power at night to do HS FB and basketball.. and move the studio to a place within the listening area.
Could they make it if they had a local morning guy who also did prod and an office person who did traffic/billing and a couple hungry sales people? maybe
We make 4 stations work with 1 on air/prod person, the owner working 6 days a week, handling engineering, an office person and 2 1/2 sales p eople.... in a much much smaller market
High school football and basketball are not even close to as big in New England as they are in other parts of the country. Even when AM stations in the Boston suburbs used to carry high school football, many of them only covered the Thanksgiving games against traditional rivals, not the whole schedule. WMEX would only dig a deeper hole for itself if it were to get involved in largely irrelevant New England schoolboy sports.
The playlist of mostly '80s/'90s would not have made it on WMEX against established successful full-power Boston FM stereo stations 105.7 WROR and 103.3 WBGB playing the same '80s/'90s music. No one would tune away from those powerful FM's for the same songs on WMEX in AM mono (or it's low power FM translator), and it would have lost the small niche (older) audience it had for '50s/'60s/'70s, it would've ended up with virtually nothing.
Now having returned to only '60s/'70s hits it may allow WMEX to keep a niche (older) audience. Whether that can float the station remains to be seen. There are no other stations in the Boston area specializing in only hits of the '60s and pop (not classic album rock) of the '70s.
It's not the same as before the brief '80s/'90s attempt. It's a much tighter playlist of major "greatest hits" of the '60s and '70s, lower charted songs they used to play are dropped. No more '50s except for LaGreca's specialty "Friday Nifty Fifties" hour at 4pm. Fewer and shorter live DJ breaks.
what dont you get? that niche doesnt me diddly squat if they cant sell it.. which when a staton goes for $1 plus debt, says they cant sell it.. plus how many commercials have you heard?
Why do you think some marjkets have 2 or 3 country stations? Because thats where the money is
A niche FM can do something uniqu when you have a full pwoer signal covering a decent amount of people. youve got an AM here with peanut whistle power at night, an even smaller translator and music thats all over the place played by people who thuink 5000 songs... and an italian show on a friday afternoon in drive time is a good idea
Maybe it can't help anything, but for the record, sounds like the playlist has just been shrunken down to maybe a few hundred "greatest hits" of the '60s and '70s, no more thousands of lower charted songs, and the Italian show hour has just been moved to Sunday mornings at 8 am.
Sounds like their live DJ's are following the playlist from this national "Super Hits" of the '60s/'70s feed, which they're now airing from the feed weekday mid-days and at night.
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It serves a niche market and is a Boston rimshot, but WPLM-FM, with its huge playlist, works for its audience.
i work for a station with a large active playlist and a wide variety but it’s done with careful thought, music rules in place with the scheduling software and more…… it’s not just thrown up in the air and letting us djs have at it.
the super hits format from LRN is a good choice to still play some of the hits they had been and aome
more updated ones.
the average listener is who they are or should go after. the listener may know bigger stations with a similar format exist but if they like this one they’ll listen.
listeners don’t wanna hear stiffs or the C side of a okaysions record.
If a person bought this station thinking they were going to break even in a couple of months, they might be disappointed. But they should break even cash flow (paying all bills plus servicing debt) in a couple (2 to 4) years, unless this station is a hobby.
Based on all of the above, this station has far less than zero value and I suspect it’ll be a bankruptcy filing fairly soon. It’s playing with money from its creditors now, will probably cease ops, and I’m pretty sure they know that. Cynically it’s free money for them: new layers debt each month-that won’t ever be re-paid.
There’s no one dumb enough to sink real money assuming debt into an AM station with that signal in this market. Maybe it emerges out of BK, with debt erased, as a religious station or pay-to-play brokered shows. But it likely needs a clean slate economically and that usually means BK. Just imo…
Any guesses when the station will go Bankrupt and go dark? Or perhaps survive as an on-line only station?
Are you booking bets on these events? If so, I take the "under" on one year, and "no" on "online only."
Hey, if radio's going to die, at least give us the chance to make some money before the funeral.
How much debt did the new owner take on?
None, because the transaction is cancelled. See post #81 for the FCC filing.