wsbx am 1020

[Radio-X]

That's actually not bad...

Oh yeah, then there's:

-New rig and other equipment: ~75k
-Engineering studies and legal fees to move closer to FL: 20-50k

but it's still a decent enough price I reckon...all for less than a house in the 'burbs you too can play radio!

Now for some questions:
-It "currently" runs a spanish format...yet it's been off the air for years??? What gives???
-Why the WSBX "active rock" logo? Do you get the internet radio station too?

Even if you didn't move it closer to Tally and just did repairs, I can imagine you+small staff could eke a living out of it...which in today's small market radio is considered a "cash cow"!

Radio-X

 

[Bill Betten]

I recently heard it is for sale,,,,,,,,,,,,,real estate is not included. The asking price was rather high from what I remember.

 

[radioboy]

There's also an ad on the Valdosta, GA craigslist.

Asking $75k for station/license only, $339k for property included.

I am not sure moving it closer to Tallahassee would help much. This is a tough AM radio market
to survive in.

I have been to AM 1020 though..nice piece of property and was a nice facility, once upon a time.

 

[level42]

Full disclosure, before Woody Nelson got involved, I actually made an offer on this station...$200K for the whole thing, land included. I mainly wanted the land, but at the time, the station was still making a little bit of money. I probably would have put talk radio on, tried my best to get an FM translator in town, moved my businesses out to the buildings, and built a nice house on the rest of the property...seemed like a good idea at the time...of course the owners wanted over twice what I offered...so I didn't pursue it. From what I remember, there is really no chance for nighttime authorization on this frequency...though I was looking at changing frequencies for the potential for nighttime power. I'm afraid this station will go the way of WMGA in Moultrie...the license will get turned in and the property bulldozed. Such a shame, it had great coverage when it was at full power, and at one time the studios were very nice.

Not sure I'd even offer 100K for the station and land now though.

 

[jmtillery]

What happened to Woody Nelson and his plans to turn WSBX into Tallahassee's Big Talk station? Also, what is the current asking price for AM 1020? Does anyone know?

 

[radioboy]

Mark,

Sending you a PM

Alan

 

[redneckriviera]

AM daytimers--as a "service" or class of stations--date back to the 1920s when the FRC (predecessor to the FCC) was first trying to figure out how to minimize or eliminate night-time interference. Their number multiplied in post WWII years when the commission was focused on providing local service to as many "communities" as possible--a practice that has all but been abandoned in favor of... well, I guess it's just become a chess game of trying to move every FM to the largest nearby city, eh? And AM, as a whole, is completely off the radar screen.

Point is, before FM emerged, AM daytimers served a real function, particularly in small towns where night service was extremely limited. Having lived in small towns most of my life, I'll attest that in most instances night-time service in the sixties and seventies was the realm of the "clears"--WLS, WBT, WCFL, CKLW, WKBW--but daytime AM stations had a legitimate role. That ended about 35 years ago.

WSBX has no role to play in Ochlocknee, Georgia--or it's "real" community, Thomasville--much less Tallahassee.

Fulltime AMs? Yeah, in some circumstances, those babies can still be viable.

But the license for WSBX should be allowed to mercifully die in peace. At this point, it is nothing but an anachronism. It's time has come and gone.

 

[jmtillery]

I'm not so sure I can agree with simply letting any broadcast license "die in peace". Any license is very expensive to obtain and difficult to come by; hence a radio license of any kind is very valuable. And there are always options with any license; especially with AM. One such option is to add night service, even if that means changing frequency, moving the TL site and adding several towers to accomplish that objective. It can sometimes be an expensive undertaking, but it certainly beats the alternative of losing the license making it near impossible to receive a new CP for a new station. For one thing it can and does take years to get FCC approval for a new station, plus, you always open up the pandora's box of competing applicants for the same frequency through the auction process making it, sometimes, a much more expensive undertaing than the station will ever be worth.