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WYAY -- purchased by EMF from Cumulus

Rick Rose 2.0 said:
....can two Christian AC stations broadcast from the same transmitter and two major Christian radio station owners agree to continue sharing the tower. More details are sure to come.
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I'm sure they are just leasing space from the owner of the tower. It's not an issue at all.

And remember, for EMF, it's all about reach. How many people can they get to listen and spread God's word. It has NOTHING to do with ratings or revenue. I'm not familiar with Salem's "Fish." I got the impression that they operate that station a little more like a commercial operation. But I could be wrong.....
 
MarkW said:
I now see that the stations Cumulus divested are all cash flow laggards. Only $5 million to $7 million in annual EBITDA generation between all of them! I think they were cherry picking the losers and dumping them. How could they not? They received a massive 16x - 20x EBITDA multiple for those stations.
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Correct. So before you sell Detroit or LA, what are their cash flow situations?
 
yes. but not as powerful as WYAY. EMF recently purchased WATG in Rome. these 2 moves will give very good coverage on I75 from TN line to FL line
 
AMRocks said:
I'm sure they are just leasing space from the owner of the tower. It's not an issue at all.

And remember, for EMF, it's all about reach. How many people can they get to listen and spread God's word. It has NOTHING to do with ratings or revenue. I'm not familiar with Salem's "Fish." I got the impression that they operate that station a little more like a commercial operation. But I could be wrong.....
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The Fish is a cash generating commercial station. It is an AC station that plays Contemporary Christian instead usual wimpy pop songs. They do not have commercials for bars, night clubs, beer and wine, but they have a lot of car dealers. I don't remember the exact amount but IIRC someone posted they bill around twice what 106.7 sells.
 
secondchoice said:
When is the deal final and is there going to be an LMA?
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The EMF deal is reported to go into effect with a March 1 LMA and then it will be final after the FCC approves the transfer.
 
WFSH and WYAY not only share the same tower, they also share the same antenna. With a height above average terrain of 505 meters, as a C1 WFSH can run now more than 24,500 watts. As a C, WYAY could run the full 100,000 watts but they are short spaced to a 106.7 station in Douglas, GA; a 106.7 at Orangeburg, SC and WTSH near Rome. While they are short spaced to the 106.5 at Chattanooga, both stations went on prior to 1964 before FM spacing rules and therefore do not have to protect each other. Instead of installing a directional antenna, WYAY reduced power down from 100,000 watts to 77,000 watts. The price EMF is paying is right on target with the $3.oo to $3.50 they pay for larger markets where they have no signal or limited coverage. This deal comes to $3.32 per person using the 60 dBu FCC protected contour pop count except for Washington, DC and NYC stations which are Bs and the FCC protected signal is the weaker 54 dBu. Total pop count of deal is 31,097,238 and the price is $103,500,000. The last deal in Georgia was WATG outside of Rome. It has 100,000 in its contour and they paid $200,000. I looked at the deal in Helen/Clermont and Art Sutton sold them a C3 for $675,000 which came to $2.60 but that was going on five years ago. EMF/K-Love get top marks for financial reporting and their financial results are strong. 2017 year end reports are the latest on line and they had nearly $70,000,000 in cash left over at the end of the year..closer to $100,000,000 if you add back in non cash operating expenses like depreciation. You can like or dislike their programming and their use of the FM band, but for what they do, they do it very well.
 
https://www.ajc.com/blog/radiotvtal...aves-radio-broadcasts/HCqOVK4MXTxba70ez0KrYJ/

Now there are questions over how Braves Baseball broadcasts are going to be affected this season due to WYAY-FM's proposed sale to EMF

Cumulus’ surprise announced sale of 106.7/WYAY-FM to Christian outfit Education Media Foundation yesterday leaves the company’s deal with the Atlanta Braves up in the air.



680/93.7 The Fan has a primary deal to air Atlanta Braves broadcasts and that remains in place, according to David Dickey, who runs that station as part of Dickey Broadcasting. Atlanta-based Cumulus Media has a separate deal to also air the games on Talk 106.7, which is a 77,000-watt signal, much stronger than 93.7 on the FM side.

Cumulus could move Braves games back to Rock 100.5, the likeliest replacement candidate. But 100.5 isn’t as strong a signal as 106.7.

An Atlanta Braves spokeswoman and Cumulus Media Atlanta market manager Sean Shannon said a revised deal will be forthcoming in the new few weeks.

Talk 106.7 will exist for the time being though for how long is unclear. That also means whether the station will air any Braves games at all this spring is unknown.

The radio sale will take about three months to close as the two parties await the Federal Communications Commission to clear it. There is no expected regulatory hurdles.

“I’m upset, I’m angry, I’m freaked out,” afternoon host Kim “The Kimmer” Peterson said on air Thursday. “But I have nothing against Cumulus... We feel bad for what’s happened. Business is business.”
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IMHO Cumulus is admitting they can’t “take care of business” in some of the large markets. 103.5 million should reduce their $1.3 billion debt by 7 or 8%. I don’t know what percentage rate they are paying on that debt but I doubt it is over 10% thanks to the bankruptcy. I am assuming 10% with a 20 year term using https://www.creditkarma.com/calculators/loan using the sales price as value these stations collectively should generate $998.797 or a million a month. I am surprised that stations with decent coverage in three of the top 10 markets can’t generate a million a month not counting the other stations.

I am surprised K-Love took WPLJ when Nash has a more “suburban” signal. IF they wanted a “big” signal WABC has nighttime coverage. Also AM is not quite dead in NYC. I wonder K-Love could have pickup up AM 770 and Nash for less than WPLJ? I know they don’t usually deal with AM’s but there are still places east of the Mississippi that don’t have access to K-love and at least the night skywave could reach some of them.

CC/ IHeart could get some extra revenue from this deal with WGST retaking the 106.7’s weekend snake-oil and financial planners back they lost when they tried Hispanic sports. I doubt 640 could or would budget any of 106.7’s on air talent.
 
secondchoice said:
IMHO Cumulus is admitting they can’t “take care of business” in some of the large markets. 103.5 million should reduce their $1.3 billion debt by 7 or 8%. I don’t know what percentage rate they are paying on that debt but I doubt it is over 10% thanks to the bankruptcy. I am assuming 10% with a 20 year term using https://www.creditkarma.com/calculators/loan using the sales price as value these stations collectively should generate $998.797 or a million a month. I am surprised that stations with decent coverage in three of the top 10 markets can’t generate a million a month not counting the other stations.

I am surprised K-Love took WPLJ when Nash has a more “suburban” signal. IF they wanted a “big” signal WABC has nighttime coverage. Also AM is not quite dead in NYC. I wonder K-Love could have pickup up AM 770 and Nash for less than WPLJ? I know they don’t usually deal with AM’s but there are still places east of the Mississippi that don’t have access to K-love and at least the night skywave could reach some of them.

CC/ IHeart could get some extra revenue from this deal with WGST retaking the 106.7’s weekend snake-oil and financial planners back they lost when they tried Hispanic sports. I doubt 640 could or would budget any of 106.7’s on air talent.
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klove and emf don't want am signals, they've taken some in deals to get the fm stations they really wanted... I know of one case, emf got 2 ams and an fm, but it was.. take the AMs or you get nothing.

they got an am in a deal not too logn ago in Idaho and ran radio nueva vida's programming on it and have since sold it
 
Odds and ends:

If I were Cumulus I would have moved Rock100.5 to 106.7 and dumped WNNX. WNNX is a weak signal that gets a lot of interference from WSSL on the NE side, even when the DXing isn't that great. But I'm guessing EMF didn't want that signal--and based on their M.O., I can see why.

Could Cumulus put the Braves on 101.5, at least for night/weekend games? When CC had the Bravos, didn't they put them on 94.9? Or was that only during the Peach era?

This could be a boon for iHeart. Why doesn't iHeart dump Alt 105.7 and put it back as the FM side to 640? They'd have to pick and choose who they would retain for such a new station; maybe a lineup of Shelley Wynter/Glenn Beck/Shannon Burke (noon-2)/Dave Ramsey (maybe cut off the last hour for the Kimmer)/Kimmer 4-6 or 5-7/either Mark Levin or Michael Berry/Red Eye Radio.

Salem had a Christian alternative/rap and hip-hop/active rock format called AlternaFISH, that was on HD2 signals of some of their Fish-format stations around the country (but not 104.7 WFSH), that could serve as an alternative to K-Love, maybe in some dayparts like after PM drive (evenings and overnights) Unfortunately, it last aired in 2013.
 
You think Kimmer would really return to iHeart under the circumstances for which the old 640 was blown up?
 
MarkW said:
Houston is another market that comes to mind, but 104.1 KRBE likely generates a nice chunk of free cash flow for Cumulus. I'm having a tougher time picturing them unloading that station. They would need to get a very attractive offer for that station. K-Love does lack a full market signal in Houston. Would they be willing to pay, say, $50 million for KRBE? I'm guessing not when one considers how little EMF paid for Chicago's WLUP, for example. Heck, they only paid about that much for 100.3 in Los Angeles, and Metro L.A. has double the population of Metro Houston.
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Cox also has stations in Houston, and as many are aware, Cox has their TV stations on the block. How about their radio properties? At the very least, would it be feasible for Cox to sell at least their weakest properties to EMF in Houston and/or the major Florida cities (Jacksonville, Tampa Bay, Orlando) where EMF does not have a major signal?
 
jabba17 said:
Odds and ends:

If I were Cumulus I would have moved Rock100.5 to 106.7 and dumped WNNX. WNNX is a weak signal that gets a lot of interference from WSSL on the NE side, even when the DXing isn't that great. But I'm guessing EMF didn't want that signal--and based on their M.O., I can see why.
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Cumulus was trying to pay off some debt. They needed to sell the biggest signals. For example, in NYC, they could have sold the inferior 103.9 WNBM, but they sold 95.5 WPLJ. NY area signals don't get much better than that. So, in Atlanta, they chose to tell one of their big signals.
 
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