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WPFB-AM off the air

Moon Mullins, Lowell Thomas, Warren Johnson, Dan Humphries are just some of the legends of the history of 910 WPFB. This was a station that was embraced by Middletown, Monroe, Lebanon and the surrounding community for a great number of years. It is a true shame what has happened to the station.

I am sure this station can make money and service the area in news, sports and community involvement with the right owner and staff. The problem is NKU wants too much money for a stand along AM. I know there are peope who doubt this but there are AM's all over this country making its mark.

The problem is finding a buyer and hiring the right person to run the operation and make money.
There are broadcasters still in this business who realize that their station can be an important part of the community whie servicing them and making money at the same time.

I hope there will be a White Knight come along soon to bring 910 WPFB back to life.
 
pioneer71 said:
Moon Mullins, Lowell Thomas, Warren Johnson, Dan Humphries are just some of the legends of the history of 910 WPFB. This was a station that was embraced by Middletown, Monroe, Lebanon and the surrounding community for a great number of years. It is a true shame what has happened to the station.

I am sure this station can make money and service the area in news, sports and community involvement with the right owner and staff. The problem is NKU wants too much money for a stand along AM. I know there are peope who doubt this but there are AM's all over this country making its mark.

The problem is finding a buyer and hiring the right person to run the operation and make money.
There are broadcasters still in this business who realize that their station can be an important part of the community whie servicing them and making money at the same time.

I hope there will be a White Knight come along soon to bring 910 WPFB back to life.
Click to expand...

By the way, Pioneer...don't forget Charlie Reeder...and yes, NKU wants WAYYYYYYYY too much money for WPFB-AM from what I've heard...
 
Jason Roberts said:
pioneer71 said:
Moon Mullins, Lowell Thomas, Warren Johnson, Dan Humphries are just some of the legends of the history of 910 WPFB. This was a station that was embraced by Middletown, Monroe, Lebanon and the surrounding community for a great number of years. It is a true shame what has happened to the station.

I am sure this station can make money and service the area in news, sports and community involvement with the right owner and staff. The problem is NKU wants too much money for a stand along AM. I know there are peope who doubt this but there are AM's all over this country making its mark.

The problem is finding a buyer and hiring the right person to run the operation and make money.
There are broadcasters still in this business who realize that their station can be an important part of the community whie servicing them and making money at the same time.

I hope there will be a White Knight come along soon to bring 910 WPFB back to life.
Click to expand...

By the way, Pioneer...don't forget Charlie Reeder...and yes, NKU wants WAYYYYYYYY too much money for WPFB-AM from what I've heard...
Click to expand...

Yep, still remember Geri, Charlie, and John R Engineer. Still remember Bill Hart's Promo, Stick it in your ear, which was probably the best promo I ever heard. I wonder if NKU would consider an LMA for the thing?
 
knowbetter said:
Jason Roberts said:
pioneer71 said:
Moon Mullins, Lowell Thomas, Warren Johnson, Dan Humphries are just some of the legends of the history of 910 WPFB. This was a station that was embraced by Middletown, Monroe, Lebanon and the surrounding community for a great number of years. It is a true shame what has happened to the station.

I am sure this station can make money and service the area in news, sports and community involvement with the right owner and staff. The problem is NKU wants too much money for a stand along AM. I know there are peope who doubt this but there are AM's all over this country making its mark.

The problem is finding a buyer and hiring the right person to run the operation and make money.
There are broadcasters still in this business who realize that their station can be an important part of the community whie servicing them and making money at the same time.

I hope there will be a White Knight come along soon to bring 910 WPFB back to life.
Click to expand...

By the way, Pioneer...don't forget Charlie Reeder...and yes, NKU wants WAYYYYYYYY too much money for WPFB-AM from what I've heard...
Click to expand...

Yep, still remember Geri, Charlie, and John R Engineer. Still remember Bill Hart's Promo, Stick it in your ear, which was probably the best promo I ever heard. I wonder if NKU would consider an LMA for the thing?
Click to expand...

LMA's are for fools.

It makes about as much sense as redecorating an apartment or rental house. Invest tens of thousands of dollars, countless hours, and the damned thing doesn't even belong to you!... and someday, the owner will end your lease, and take it back!
 
stereolane said:
LMA's are for fools.

It makes about as much sense as redecorating an apartment or rental house. Invest tens of thousands of dollars, countless hours, and the damned thing doesn't even belong to you!... and someday, the owner will end your lease, and take it back!
Click to expand...
An LMA with a right of first refusal, maybe?
 
Time marches on, and great as WPFB may have been in the 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s, you still have an AM in a dying steel town sandwiched between a medium and large market with strong signals from both. More than likely a large number of people in Middletown work in Cincinnati or Dayton...not the case years ago. You can do an upper demo format and maybe make some money but for how long? Gone are the days when people lived, worked and shopped all in one bedroom community.
 
borderblaster said:
Maybe for the right price, but there are other AM's Mullins hasn't bit at (WULM, WPTW)
Click to expand...

WPTW has been sold to Rick Muzzy who worked there in the 1970s.

WULM was sold to Radio Maria in 2008.

For a 5 mill price tag with no bites,perhaps now is the time for NKU to drop the price down a bit.

910 AM would be the perfect repeater for Radio Maria since WULM fades in Dayton's southern portions..but the $5M is probably way too much for RM to afford,while at the same time I feel a local person SHOULD step forward if at all possible and save it since it is a good signal and a great spot on the AM dial. I have picked up WPFB-AM in areas north of Dayton since I was a teenager...and with southeastern Indiana (Liberty,Brookville and I-74 corridor) having no local radio voice,it's the closest thing they got between Richmond and Cincinnati. Another WBZI repeater would be illogical since there is 1090 and 1130 AM reaching the same respective areas.
 
Heck...WOSU on a much better frequecy (820) with MUCH more Day and Night Power in the LARGEST City in Ohio sold for only $2 million which included the night transmitter site (6 towers on about 20 acres)... What are we missing here?
 
stereolane said:
LMA's are for fools.

It makes about as much sense as redecorating an apartment or rental house. Invest tens of thousands of dollars, countless hours, and the damned thing doesn't even belong to you!... and someday, the owner will end your lease, and take it back!
Click to expand...

I can't agree with you here....an LMA is a good thing, if you have the right to purchase the property (which most of them are, btw), it allows for limited or a low financing option for the right people...and it's better than letting something valuable go to waste!

On the other hand, if they are as clueless as the past few here in Columbus, they are bad, but you have to consider the experience of the potential owner. Middletown is enough of a separate market, that a real hometown broadcaster should be able to do well, especially, if they have some connection or understanding of PFB's past.
 
borderblaster said:
Time marches on, and great as WPFB may have been in the 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s, you still have an AM in a dying steel town sandwiched between a medium and large market with strong signals from both. More than likely a large number of people in Middletown work in Cincinnati or Dayton...not the case years ago. You can do an upper demo format and maybe make some money but for how long? Gone are the days when people lived, worked and shopped all in one bedroom community.
Click to expand...

What about giving the locals something to listen to? I believe the locals will listen to local news, wx, and sports, even if they are commuting. To me, at least, the first thing in bring a town back to it's roots, is the bring the pride of the community back..PFB always did that very well.
 
KR4BD said:
Heck...WOSU on a much better frequecy (820) with MUCH more Day and Night Power in the LARGEST City in Ohio sold for only $2 million which included the night transmitter site (6 towers on about 20 acres)... What are we missing here?
Click to expand...

I don't know how much property is left, there was a lot a one time, but i suspect that has been scaled way back. I suspect they are putting Cincinnati pricing on it, but 910 was simply a great 270 north signal in Cincinnati, they did better in Dayton, but they preferred to deal from Miamisburg on down. They never spent a lot of time trying to be a big market station, just true to the area they served.

It would be nice if they could be saved, I haven't looked at Middletown in years, as far as revenue and the like, but my gut would like to think it's far from dead!
 
KR4BD said:
Heck...WOSU on a much better frequecy (820) with MUCH more Day and Night Power in the LARGEST City in Ohio sold for only $2 million which included the night transmitter site (6 towers on about 20 acres)... What are we missing here?
Click to expand...

The WOSU-AM 820 tower site included 38 acres of land.

borderblaster said:
5 mill? What is NKU's board of trustees smoking?
Click to expand...

There is no way NKU would ask that much money for WPFB-AM. Where did you get this figure from? ???
 
borderblaster said:
5 mill? What is NKU's board of trustees smoking?
Click to expand...
Took the words right outta my mouth...
 
WPFB has quite a history. An addition to the station personalities that were previously mentioned, you should put Stan "Rusty" Reed there, too. How many remembver the syndicated religous programming that was aired on weekday afternoons? While those shows were scoffed at by some, they did bring in a good amount of revenue.

I easily recall the station identifying itself by the phrase....."This is 910 in the middle of the dial".
 
gabigley1 said:
The WOSU-AM 820 tower site included 38 acres of land.
Click to expand...

Maybe my numbers are off since housing fell off a cliff, but I think that 38 acres of land could easily fetch $20,000 an acre based on where it is located (practically on I-270 if I remember correctly). So you could say that St. Gabriel really paid $1,240,000 for a 5,000-watt daytime (1,000-watt nighttime) signal.
 
XtraXtra said:
gabigley1 said:
The WOSU-AM 820 tower site included 38 acres of land.
Click to expand...

Maybe my numbers are off since housing fell off a cliff, but I think that 38 acres of land could easily fetch $20,000 an acre based on where it is located (practically on I-270 if I remember correctly). So you could say that St. Gabriel really paid $1,240,000 for a 5,000-watt daytime (1,000-watt nighttime) signal.
Click to expand...

Kinda off topic but there is housing development around most of the WOSU-A Night time site... I wouldn't be surprised if someone wouldn't like to knock it down and put up houses... Also .. kinda off topic but funny.. a Mormon church sits on the road next to the tower site enterance... LOL Gotta wonder how they feel at night bout' catholic programming beaming out of those towers :)
 
I heard the asking price was $600,000.. The station is not worth it when you consider there is now no billing on the books, no audience and no staff in place.

Can the station come back? Yes it can as I said before you have to have the right management in place who understands the market and understands what AM radio is all about.

The problem we seem to have today is for someone be willing to invest in radio. The big boys don't want the WPFB's of today.

By the way for the fun of it - if you had the station what format would you go with?
 
Would buying a stand-alone AM in Middletown really be an investment? The best possible scenario would be an owner gets in, does a Classic Country format with local news and high school sports. You get an upper demo audience that still will listen to AM (probably well over 50...and those who remember the WPFB of the 1960s and 70s are even older. So they work their tail off, get some respectable billing. Meanwhile even WLW starts simulcasting on FM within10 years. What is WPFB going to be worth in 10 years? Are you buying an appreciating house or a depreciating trailer with a $200.000 note?
 
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