Anyone have any idea as to what the future holds to these stations? I cannot believe that Multi would abandon them despite losing the tower site....I know there's a CP for 1210, but hasn't it been quite a while? Most small town AM owners would be hustling to get it back on the air before totally losing all their listeners....I'm shocked it's still silent.
-
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
Miami/Fort Lauderdale WNMA & WJCC
- Thread starter johntherogger
- Start date
I don’t know how Multicultural Broadcasting is doing financially speaking.
In places such as NYC, they’re probably paying their bills and making a small profit of a few thousand a month. That profit gets turned around to prop up a radio station like their Seattle station which only has paying customers during the day (and runs adult standards at night last I checked).
Multicultural is property rich, but I’d imagine relatively cash poor.
Having worked a time brokered station, the money is made during the day. You hope to breakeven at night. In my market back then, we got $80-$100 an hour weekdays daytime and $100-$200 an hour weekends daytime. One station I knew sold a church 6pm to 6am 7 days a week for $15 an hour if they'd operate from the station's studio, teaching them the 'ropes' they'd teach any new hire. It's Multicultural East Coast holdings that have gone a couple of years with no clients that is likely hurting them most. While I was managing a station we saw contracts drop from a top rate of $39,600 a month around 2011 down to $25,000 and dropping by about 2017 so I got out. Clients weren't willing to pay more and the number of stations time brokering increased while a good client purchased a station. During this time the Multicultural AM daytimer was generally sold out. They had a flawless system requiring advance payment which generated a password that would tie in to the broadcast computer so your program would be on the air in your time slot.
It's been interesting watching them in LA. They sold KBLA to Tavis Smiley in 2000 for $7 million. The sale still hasn't closed. He's paying them on a monthly basis, and they still own it. They don't seem to be anxious or aggressive about it. They just collect the check, and they're happy. They did a similar thing with WNMA for a few years, leasing it out, but I believe that lease ended a few years ago. They applied for an STA in January. As with KBLA, they don't seem to be overly concerned about anything.