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WRKL for sale

L

luperm

WRKL AM 910 in Rockland County, NY is for sale, according to radio-info.com. The owner, Polnet, is asking $3 million(!) for the station.
 
Maybe Family Radio will buy WRKL-910 if all the zeroes in the asking price get removed.

In other words, $3.

That might be all they can afford. ;D
 
This sounds like a setup to a Polish joke.

$500,000 maybe. $3 million and they're either drunk or dreaming or a little bit of both.
 
WNTIRadio said:
$3 million and they're either drunk or dreaming or a little bit of both.
Click to expand...

I can assure you that I am neither.

Media Services Group has sold hundreds of stations worth billions of dollars. How many have you sold?

If anyone is interested in seeing the offering descriptive memorandum, please send me an E-mail.

Thank you.

Bob Heymann
Media Services Group--Chicago
[email protected]
MediaServicesGroup.com
 
Don't sell any stations, but have lots of clients who are interested in buying AM stations.

None would offer close to $3 million for that facility. I can find at least 2 someones that would offer $1.5 for it.

I'm very familiar with the area and the WRKL signal.

I can't see how that station is worth more than WMTR.
 
Dear WNTIRadio:

Thank you for your response.

However, I think you hit the nail on the head when you said that you "don't sell any stations."

With all due respect, you don't know the station sales process. Just because you have lots of clients who would not offer close to $3 million is completely irrelevant. I know thousands of companies who wouldn't pay one dollar for WRKL.

The key is to find the RIGHT company who WOULD pay close to or at the asking price. It only takes one.

And I can assure you that I have spent a reasonable amount of time researching the comparable values of stations. I would not waste my time (a very precious commodity in the brokerage industry) if I thought the asking price was not justifiable.

A nice aspect of our respective positions is that it will ultimately be settled: a transaction will either be closed, or not!!

Bob
 
WNTIRadio said:
This sounds like a setup to a Polish joke.

$500,000 maybe. $3 million and they're either drunk or dreaming or a little bit of both.
Click to expand...

Selling radio stations is like selling your house. You ask for what you hope you can get, and then look for people who will make offers... one of which you will likely have to accept.

Whether you and I believe that the underlying broadcast asset is worth in the $500 k to $1 million range, there may be real property or hidden opportunity involved. As with many metro area directional AMs, the land is often worth more than the station.

So the broker on that sale will bring the best offers to the table, and the owner will decide.

In 1994 the station got $1 million when Stu Subotnick sold, and then a distressed Big City Radio sold it for $1.65 million in '98. Given today's radio environment, and the fact the station billed, per the recognized source for data, an average of $325 k a year for the last 3 years, both of those prices sound high.

But the 5 mV/m contour of the facility covers over 600,000 people. There may be an embedded ethnic or special interest community or some other local "aspect" that can be served.

Or, if the station is in line to get a translator on FM, the value suddenly leaps into an area where several million is not unreasonable.

As a now-departed station broker used to tell me as I wandered around looking for stations to buy, "if a person wants a radio station really badly, I can always come up with a bad radio station to sell them."

And keep in mind that the broker, which IIRC, extends back to the heritage of MVP, includes some of the best station transaction specialists in the nation, starting with managing partner George Reed, who accompanied me on a couple of station searches and who is a brilliant analyst of station values and opportunities.

And the broker on this one is "top of the line" in his field, too... read this:

Robert L. (Bob) Heymann Jr., Director
Bob Heymann is the newest Director of Media Services Group, opening the Chicago office in 2008. Prior to that, Mr. Heymann has spent the past 24 years in the media brokerage business in Chicago where he successfully brokered various-sized radio and TV stations from coast to coast with a total aggregate value in excess of $500,000,000. A few of his record setting transactions include the sale of WNIB-FM (now WDRV) Chicago for $165,000,000, the sale of WPNT-FM (now WILV) Chicago for $75,000,000, and the sale of KOMA AM&FM Oklahoma City for $54,000,000. Among his other business enterprises, Mr. Heymann was co-founder and chairman of the nation’s first broadband cable system and chairman of the largest telecom information company partnered with Pacific Bell (now AT&T). Prior to beginning his brokerage business, Mr. Heymann managed KQAK San Francisco and previous to that, he held management positions and consulting relationships with some of the largest broadcasters in America including NBC, CBS, and Evergreen Media.
 
Agreed David, and thank you to Bob as well for the response.

I wasn't dumping on your expertise. That price just seemed shockingly high compared to what it sold for in the past, and what other area AM's have sold for.

Still, I may have a client contact you regarding the station. I can assure you the offer won't be $3million, but it would be reasonable.
 
Thanks Bob!

You should hear from one of them in a couple of weeks.
 
WNTIRadio said:
Agreed David, and thank you to Bob as well for the response. I wasn't dumping on your expertise. That price just seemed shockingly high compared to what it sold for in the past, and what other area AM's have sold for. Still, I may have a client contact you regarding the station. I can assure you the offer won't be $3million, but it would be reasonable.
Click to expand...

Hasn't the asking price for WVNJ 1160 been quoted as in the $3 million vicinity? Besides covering Rockland County, WVNJ has a decent signal (at least during the daytime) in Westchester, the Bronx, and western Fairfield counties as well as parts of North Jersey. Why would someone pay $3 million for a station whose coverage is limited to Rockland, when roughly the same price buys coverage of several million more people--at least a few of whom would be likely to listen?
 
Why would someone pay $3 million for a station whose coverage is limited to Rockland, when roughly the same price buys coverage of several million more people--at least a few of whom would be likely to listen?
Click to expand...

One difference "might" be, how much, if any, real estate is included.

In addition to Rockland, WRKL puts its main signal into Bergen County in North Jersey and into Westchester day and night.

That said, WVNJ has a far superior daytime signal, and a nearly equivalent nighttime one.

In the end, either station is only worth what someone is willing to pay, and will likely be worth less next year than it is now.

It will be interesting to see what new owners will do with either station. Are there any unserved ethnic groups in the signal areas?
There is an upscale Korean and Chinese immigrant population in Bergen County around Fort Lee, either of these signals might work well there.
 
Neither of these would work for the Fort Lee area. WVNJ is okay during the day, but not great. At night it's gone in Fort Lee.

910 is the same situation.

For what they cover, 910 has the better electric bill.
 
TimeIsTight said:
Are there any unserved ethnic groups in the signal areas?
There is an upscale Korean and Chinese immigrant population in Bergen County around Fort Lee, either of these signals might work well there.
Click to expand...

Rockland County has long been home to an extremely devout community of Orthodox Jews. I suspect that most, if not all, of these folks can understand and probably speak English, but I think most of them prefer Yiddish or modern Hebrew. If you read about the history of Yiddish radio in New York (and especially listen to audio clips from the old WEVD 1330) you will understand how intensely commercial the programming was. Commercials I've heard appear to be mostly from small businesses in Manhattan's lower East side and Brooklyn. If the same entrepreneurial spirit that motivated the people who leased time on WEVD in the late '20s and early '30s could be rekindled in these folks' grandchildren and great-grandchildren, there would seem to be a real opportunity on either 910 or 1160.
 
In the early 90s Zev Brenner created All-Jewish programming for Rockland when he bought WLIR-1300. Today his Talkline Communications brokers on WSNR and WMCA.
 
Like the Haitians in Boston and Brockton, the Hasidic communities in and around Monsey seem to have decided unlicensed radio is the way to go. I hear several of their signals on FM whenever I'm visiting my relatives in the area. The community is also served by the "JM in the AM" morning show on New Jersey's WFMU 91.1, which has an Orange County relay on WMFU 90.1 Mount Hope and just put a new Rockland translator on the air at, if memory serves, 91.9.
 
Scott Fybush said:
Like the Haitians in Boston and Brockton, the Hasidic communities in and around Monsey seem to have decided unlicensed radio is the way to go. I hear several of their signals on FM whenever I'm visiting my relatives in the area. The community is also served by the "JM in the AM" morning show on New Jersey's WFMU 91.1, which has an Orange County relay on WMFU 90.1 Mount Hope and just put a new Rockland translator on the air at, if memory serves, 91.9.
Click to expand...

No kidding, they had a pirate on 102.5 for a while too in Kiryas Joel in Orange County.
 
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