• Get involved.
    We want your input!
    Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.

    After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
    If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.

    After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
    https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/

    Thanks in advance and have fun!
    RadioDiscussions Administrators

WNED to sell AM station to Crawford Broadcasting

I;m hoping this means that the programming will be geared soley towards WNY and not trying to appease our Canadian Neighbors...
 
Color me not at all surprised, although the asset price is interesting: $875k for a 5kw DA-1 signal on 970 with a nice lobe over TO, and land at the 970 tx site in Hamburg. The sale price is especially interesting considering 1 kw WECK sold for $1.3M not so many years ago.

A few points to consider: Did the substantially reduced price of WOR AM in market #1 impact the sale price of this facility? A number of sources have opined that the value of AM properties in markets large and small has been significantly lowered based on the WOR sale price.

Cumulus' AM 1270 also uses the towers in diplex mode. Are the land and towers on Cloverbank road part of the deal?

How will Crawford program 970? Will the AM programming compliment the programming of FM superstick, 99.5 WDCX? Will the WDCX-AM call letters presently attached to Crawford's AM 990 Rochester move to Buffalo's 970?

Lots of moving parts in this deal on which to speculate.
 
What coverage are you talking about? WBFO gets into the Niagara Peninsula just fine - both according to Radio-Locator and personsal experience:

http://www.radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/pat?call=WBFO&service=FM&status=L&hours=U

It does drop out as you head over the escarpment toward Hamilton, but it used to get into Toronto before the CRTC started killing off AMs and dropping LP-FMs into every possible hole on the dial. Don Boswell is counting on carriage of WBFO on Rogers Cable to make NPR programming a gold mine in Canada. The rest of the Niagara Peninsula gets it pretty well as far west as St. Catharines.

The plan all along was to sell off the AM to help pay for the FM. It sounds like a fair deal for both parties. Crawford will God-squad it with leftover content from WDCX. I don't think that they'll simulcast. 'DCX has a fine signal all over WNY that far outstrips the AM coverage.
 
SirRoxalot said:
What coverage are you talking about? WBFO gets into the Niagara Peninsula just fine - both according to Radio-Locator and personsal experience:

http://www.radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/pat?call=WBFO&service=FM&status=L&hours=U

It does drop out as you head over the escarpment toward Hamilton, but it used to get into Toronto before the CRTC started killing off AMs and dropping LP-FMs into every possible hole on the dial. Don Boswell is counting on carriage of WBFO on Rogers Cable to make NPR programming a gold mine in Canada. The rest of the Niagara Peninsula gets it pretty well as far west as St. Catharines.

The plan all along was to sell off the AM to help pay for the FM. It sounds like a fair deal for both parties. Crawford will God-squad it with leftover content from WDCX. I don't think that they'll simulcast. 'DCX has a fine signal all over WNY that far outstrips the AM coverage.
Click to expand...

Or God-squad moves to AM and 99.5 is shopped. I can think of a company based in Bala Cynwyd, PA that might grab it. Sports on FM is working everywhere now. Then you put ESPN Radio fulltime on 550.
 
Re: WOR. According to published reports, Buckley bought the 50kw NYC AM on 710 in 1989 for $22.5M. In 2000, the station was valued, by purchase offer, at approximately $150 million. Clear Channel paid $30 million.
 
I don't see Crawford letting WDCX go. They've had offers that are a lot higher than they're likely to see now.
 
Maybe they (Crawford) are planning on moving the FM programing over to the AM and have some new plans for the FM, like they did in Rochester. They have created a new corporation, in famly, to run the non religious stations.
 
The Buffalo News site has the story including comments from some readers who have their skivvies in a knot http://www.buffalonews.com/business/article1028685.ece about WNED-AM and WNYPBA.

It's said a significant portion of the FM station's revenue comes from Canadian advertisers. It wouldn't be a surprise if Crawford chose to use the 970 signal for Christian Teaching while maintaining the present WDCX-FM format. Then again, Christian Contemporary would be a fit. The format on a 100 kw signal would give Family Life and its 13 (only a slight exaggeration) translators a run.

Country? Let's not go crazy.
 
Crawford shuts down WDCD (1540) in Albany, NY because of financial issues, yet they have the funds to buy, and operate, another AM station? Sounds fishy to me.
 
Crawford shuts down WDCD (1540) in Albany, NY because of financial issues, yet they have the funds to buy, and operate, another AM station? Sounds fishy to me.
Click to expand...
WDCD is owned by Don Crawford, Jr.. The Buffalo property is owned by Don Crawford, Sr.
 
theradiokid said:
Crawford shuts down WDCD (1540) in Albany, NY because of financial issues, yet they have the funds to buy, and operate, another AM station? Sounds fishy to me.
Click to expand...

WDCD in Albany was blowtorch WPTR back in the day - but while it could be heard at night as a local in Boston and Montreal, you could not hear it at night in Schenectady.

The old WPTR was popular in Boston at night in the Top 40 days as people would fiddle with their radios to get WMEX (1510), WKBW (1520) and WPTR (1540). WPTR was by far the most popular station at night in anglophone Montreal at night as CFOX (1470) had major signal issues. CFOX wound up hiring a WPTR evening jock ( the late Roger Scott ) to stop the bleeding.

Irony was that in Albany itself WTRY (980) was king. It is similar to what happened in Buffalo where WYSL clobbered WKBW in Erie County but KB was a Northeast powerhouse at night. Now 1540 is silent and 1520 might as well be.
 
If Buffalo's lucky they'll move the preaching to AM and turn that blowtorch FM into a personality-driven classic hits station, like they did in Rochester.
 
Fenway1912 said:
theradiokid said:
Crawford shuts down WDCD (1540) in Albany, NY because of financial issues, yet they have the funds to buy, and operate, another AM station? Sounds fishy to me.
Click to expand...
WDCD in Albany was blowtorch WPTR back in the day - but while it could be heard at night as a local in Boston and Montreal, you could not hear it at night in Schenectady. The old WPTR was popular in Boston at night in the Top 40 days as people would fiddle with their radios to get WMEX (1510), WKBW (1520) and WPTR (1540). WPTR was by far the most popular station at night in anglophone Montreal at night as CFOX (1470) had major signal issues. CFOX wound up hiring a WPTR evening jock ( the late Roger Scott ) to stop the bleeding. Irony was that in Albany itself WTRY (980) was king. It is similar to what happened in Buffalo where WYSL clobbered WKBW in Erie County but KB was a Northeast powerhouse at night. Now 1540 is silent and 1520 might as well be.
Click to expand...
Good recollections of the WPTR days and the era of 50kw AM radio stations' impact in Boston and Montreal.

As to Buffalo, Whoa! 1400 WYSL, competitive as it may have been, never "clobbered WKBW" in Erie county. WYSL had its day in Metro Buffalo and the first ring suburbs, but WKBW's weekly cume, at one time greater than 250 thousand, was three to five times greater than that of WYSL in the two county (Erie and Niagara) MSA. WYSL had some competitive dayparts in the late 60s and early to mid 70s (dayparts hosted by Jack Sheridan, Tim Kelly and Kevin O'Connell), but WKBW regularly and easily surpassed WYSL in AQH share, Mon-Sun, 6 a.m. to midnight.
 
JustPastBuffalo said:
Color me not at all surprised, although the asset price is interesting: $875k for a 5kw DA-1 signal on 970 with a nice lobe over TO, and land at the 970 tx site in Hamburg. The sale price is especially interesting considering 1 kw WECK sold for $1.3M not so many years ago.

A few points to consider: Did the substantially reduced price of WOR AM in market #1 impact the sale price of this facility? A number of sources have opined that the value of AM properties in markets large and small has been significantly lowered based on the WOR sale price.

Cumulus' AM 1270 also uses the towers in diplex mode. Are the land and towers on Cloverbank road part of the deal?

How will Crawford program 970? Will the AM programming compliment the programming of FM superstick, 99.5 WDCX? Will the WDCX-AM call letters presently attached to Crawford's AM 990 Rochester move to Buffalo's 970?

Lots of moving parts in this deal on which to speculate.
Click to expand...


I can answer the questions regarding 970 AM> The plans are to simulcast 970 & 99.5. As for the calls there are no plans to transfer the WDCX-AM calls from 990 AM in Rochester to 970. 970 will likely adopt the WDCW calls that were once held by their Syracuse outlet in the 1990s.
 
I don't think so spt87...Its been tried. It won't pass through the tuning circuits for the 5 tower array......Like most of us thought would be the case.
 
Really, a simulcast? They might as well turn it off and use it as a tax write off. I'm sure 970 doesn't give then any extra coverage.
 
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.


Back
Top Bottom