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umfan said:
I think jry is right in that Salem should be looking at this. And they probably will. It comes down to, is Disney serious about selling these stations for their worth or will they hang onto them because they are worth a LOT less than they were acquired for and run throwaway programming like ESPN Desportes on it? ESPN Desportes is throwaway in this region, it has a value where there is a higher concentration of Spanish speakers.

Why not run the Radio Disney feed until they can sell it? But again, you're dealing with very arrogant people, as jry also noted.
Click to expand...

Disney is among the more transparent entertainment companies, a fact that explains why their shares have been less volatile than others in the biz.

They stated that they were out of the AM radio business and gave statistics as to why. And they clearly said they would turn the stations off at the end of September, sale or no sale.

Disney likely figured that the stations had no ongoing operations value, and would be sold for stick value only. Under that assumption, there was no value in continuing on the air and the expenses, over 23 stations, were considerable.

That is not arrogance... it is simply being realistic about costs and the value of the stations.

Detroit is 4.6% Hispanic, with 145,600 12+ persons in the market. That is enough to sustain a station were that some buyer's specialty or intent.
 
umfan said:
I think jry is right in that Salem should be looking at this. And they probably will. It comes down to, is Disney serious about selling these stations for their worth or will they hang onto them because they are worth a LOT less than they were acquired for and run throwaway programming like ESPN Desportes on it? ESPN Desportes is throwaway in this region, it has a value where there is a higher concentration of Spanish speakers.

Why not run the Radio Disney feed until they can sell it? But again, you're dealing with very arrogant people, as jry also noted.
Click to expand...

Disney has already proved that they'll sell their properties for a loss. My buddy and associate John Pierce and Bill Schutz have done a pretty good job helping
Mickey cut a few of these loose. I look for Bill to be their point man on this as he has been a faithful soldier, all of these years.
RELEASE THE BARGAIN HOUNDS!
 
DavidEduardo said:


Disney is among the more transparent entertainment companies, a fact that explains why their shares have been less volatile than others in the biz.

They stated that they were out of the AM radio business and gave statistics as to why. And they clearly said they would turn the stations off at the end of September, sale or no sale.

Disney likely figured that the stations had no ongoing operations value, and would be sold for stick value only. Under that assumption, there was no value in continuing on the air and the expenses, over 23 stations, were considerable.

That is not arrogance... it is simply being realistic about costs and the value of the stations.

Detroit is 4.6% Hispanic, with 145,600 12+ persons in the market. That is enough to sustain a station were that some buyer's specialty or intent.
Click to expand...
The D has enough Hispanic Radio for the Pop Count. If i were Diz, i'd be putting something automated on those sticks. It's easier to sell them, on the air and the prices are higher as well.
 
jry said:
Disney has already proved that they'll sell their properties for a loss. My buddy and associate John Pierce and Bill Schutz have done a pretty good job helping
Mickey cut a few of these loose. I look for Bill to be their point man on this as he has been a faithful soldier, all of these years.
RELEASE THE BARGAIN HOUNDS!
Click to expand...

Most of those stations, at any price, are no bargain.
 
jry said:
The D has enough Hispanic Radio for the Pop Count. If i were Diz, i'd be putting something automated on those sticks. It's easier to sell them, on the air and the prices are higher as well.
Click to expand...

Since there is no revenue and no cash flow, the metric is population coverage. On or off the air, they are worth the same amount. In fact, if on the air, the buyer will worry about contracts, written or verbal, with staff and suppliers. Off the air, there is a clean break with any past Disney commitments.
 
But for some strange reason, David, they bring in more $$ when the buyer can listen to them. This opinion comes from 33 years of radio. over 22 as an owner and about that same amount of time as a broker.
Maybe it is a perception. Maybe it's the fact that the 12 month clock starts ticking. Maybe it's the fact that the owner has thrown in the towel. Whatever it is, going dark brings out the bottom fishers. We're heading into low ball territory.
 
jry said:
But for some strange reason, David, they bring in more $$ when the buyer can listen to them. This opinion comes from 33 years of radio. over 22 as an owner and about that same amount of time as a broker.
Click to expand...

My experience as an owner, buyer, manager and a few other things over the last 55 years is that things have changed today. There is no upside on having a syndicated format on the air on a facility being sold as a stick. I've bought about 10 sticks myself and never placed any value on the format I was going to change. I did place a negative value on the liability issues of purchasing a station with ongoing operations, particularly a stock sale.

Maybe it is a perception. Maybe it's the fact that the 12 month clock starts ticking. Maybe it's the fact that the owner has thrown in the towel. Whatever it is, going dark brings out the bottom fishers. We're heading into low ball territory.
Click to expand...

In this internet age, I don't thing there is an interested party who does not know the whole Disney Radio story. If they want the station, it's for something other than its appeal to first graders.
 
I do agree with your statement on no one buying any Disney station based on its audience. The spending power of a first grade student just isn't enough to seal the deal. Hey, maybe that is where they've blown it. Their ad base should be items that first graders will buy in the cafeteria at lunch time. Hostess Yo Yos or Ho Hos... Ding Dongs... Bubble Yum.
You'd have to sell a lot of Little Debbie ads to make that work.
I have a few listings, right now. The one that is dark (FM) has the most promise and pop count and, yet, i have more action on AMs that are live.
 
I think you should buy it and turn it into a talker. WXYT was pulling a 1.5 share when they briefly returned to talk before flipping to CBS Sports. A lot of decent shows aren't cleared in this market. You got EMF to part with a station, you can make Disney give this up for cheap.
 
umfan said:
I think you should buy it and turn it into a talker. WXYT was pulling a 1.5 share when they briefly returned to talk before flipping to CBS Sports. A lot of decent shows aren't cleared in this market. You got EMF to part with a station, you can make Disney give this up for cheap.
Click to expand...

Actually, EMF parted with two... I brokered their Mason Translator to Olivet University.

I'd REALLY LIKE to be back in Detroit.
 
jry said:
I do agree with your statement on no one buying any Disney station based on its audience. T
I have a few listings, right now. The one that is dark (FM) has the most promise and pop count and, yet, i have more action on AMs that are live.
Click to expand...

I think that our difference in opinion may be more based on history than current conditions.

When I started buying my own stations, it was in the era where owners were going into markets to purchase a stick to convert to a new format... Top 40 being the more prevalent. In that case, there was no interest in leading cash flow projections and the value of the station was entirely made up of its potential in a new format.

A near-Detroit example would be Forest City Publishing's late-50's sale of WHK in Cleveland to John Kluge. H.L. Vail of the Plain Dealer stated that radio had no future, what with the death of the networks, and that getting something for a property of little value was good business. Obviously, Mr. Kluge thought differently and wanted WHK to do "Color Radio" and his first move was to blow up the entire station, including the client base. About half a decade later, Norm Wain and Bob Weiss did the same to sleepy traditional WDOK and created WIXY... they had no interest in the ongoing operation.

And that was how operators ranging from Storz to Rounsaville and Bartell bought stations. Four or five of the stations I bought in the late 60's were on the air, and the day of the closing, I turned them off and spent weeks moving and reconditioning them. I did not care what they were doing or billing.

Similarly, in the mid to late 70's, I optioned FMs in NYC, Hartford and Miami. All were ongoing operations, but our intent was to convert them all to new formats. We would have paid what was "market price", but we were not buying revenue or ongoing operations.

In our current era, probably dating back to first relaxation of the 7/7/7 cap, we actually do look at existing revenues. But the key figure I have always seen focused on was leading cash flow, whether with a new format or continuing the old one. It was a different buyer for stations that were market leaders and highly profitable than for the fading AMs and the daytimers and class A FMs.

When KFI in LA was sold by Cox, the price included the value of the format and the billings. The same applied to the sale of KOST. When they sold Cox's simulcast pair of Class A FMs, in an Urban AC format at the time, the value was exclusively in the facilities themselves which we, the buyers, used for an entirely different manner.

And that's why I'd say that the Disney AMs are worth no more alive than dead. Since it's likely they would turn them on for a few hours to permit due diligence, the buyer would know the equipment works. Since nothing else that Radio Disney has is of value or for sale, that's all I think matters.
 
I am digging the history that you're sharing, David!!!

In the late 80's i ran a group and one of our purchases was WIXY 1260 in Cleveland (1988) We changed the calls to WRDZ. We got most of the assets including the station vehicle. Big time fun and great memories. Sold it to a Catholic group and i do believe that Disney ended up with it. I know that they planted those calls on an AM and FM, the FM being in Indy.

Thanks.
 
The reason it may be going off the air has nothing to do with the financial problems being experienced by the City of Detroit, but because Disney is getting out of radio and there may not be a ready buyer for the asset. I do believe someone will buy it and hope that it is Salem. We'll see.
 
jry said:
Actually, EMF parted with two... I brokered their Mason Translator to Olivet University.

I'd REALLY LIKE to be back in Detroit.
Click to expand...

And we'd LOVE to have you back in Detroit. If you decide not to try for it, guide Salem to buy it. Then perhaps you could get 1400 for your help!
 
umfan said:
And we'd LOVE to have you back in Detroit. If you decide not to try for it, guide Salem to buy it. Then perhaps you could get 1400 for your help!
Click to expand...

You are way kind.

1400 would work if it had about 5KW.... You'd have to challenge the two AM Christian Teaching/Talk stations. The only way to do that would be to have an FM and program it the same. It would empty out the two AM stations in the market.
The cost of such and undertaking would never be realized.

Who knows, maybe God will rain down on us with some resources. Maybe Don Crawford will retire and his kids will sell 103.5...

Thanks for the encouraging words.
 
Salem buying WFDF to transform it into the new WDTK would be a logical reason to buy the station (not to imply that I would want that to happen). WDTK is a Class IV transmitting from Highland Park, which means that it provides effective fulltime service only to the black community. Their daytime signal does cover most of the suburbs during the day, though not with a booming signal in the exurbs (it does better than one would expect for a Class IV on 1400, with a tall tower and good conductivity in the city proper. Granted, KAYS it isn't). However, all that .5 mV/m to 20 mV/m coverage area is totally lost to interference when the sun sets.

Put simply, WDTK on 1400 is like WYUR, but without music. Conservative talk will do no better in Detroit Proper than adult standards did.

WFDF, despite its power and good (again, not great) soil conductivity, is not a "without complaint" facility - its array is so far west (necessary to cover the NW corner of Flint making the 65-mile TL move a "minor change"!) that its directional signal is poor in much of Detroit Proper and eastern Macomb county, so it's a little like WDFN at night, though WFDF's coverage of the western and northwest 'burbs is FAR better than WDTW's.

One would hope that such a move would bring other possibilities. WDRJ (1440) would be better off on 1400 for its black gospel format than it is on 1440. Then 1440 would be decent for a much-needed full-time Spanish station (I know about WSDS, but their signal in the SW Detroit core demographic is both weak and hammered by WLQV). WSDS and 1400 would be a pretty effective simulcast pair, as would 1400 and any rebuild of 1310.
 
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1L6E6VHF said:
Salem buying WFDF to transform it into the new WDTK would be a logical reason to buy the station (not to imply that I would want that to happen). WDTK is a Class IV transmitting from Highland Park, which means that it provides effective fulltime service only to the black community. Their daytime signal does cover most of the suburbs during the day, though not with a booming signal in the exurbs (it does better than one would expect for a Class IV on 1400, with a tall tower and good conductivity in the city proper. Granted, KAYS it isn't). However, all that .5 mV/m to 20 mV/m coverage area is totally lost to interference when the sun sets.

Put simply, WDTK on 1400 is like WYUR, but without music. Conservative talk will do no better in Detroit Proper than adult standards did.

WFDF, despite its power and good (again, not great) soil conductivity, is not a "without complaint" facility - its array is so far west (necessary to cover the NW corner of Flint making the 65-mile TL move a "minor change"!) that its directional signal is poor in much of Detroit Proper and eastern Macomb county, so it's a little like WDFN at night, though WFDF's coverage of the western and northwest 'burbs is FAR better than WDTW's.

One would hope that such a move would bring other possibilities. WDRJ (1440) would be better off on 1400 for its black gospel format than it is on 1440. Then 1440 would be decent for a much-needed full-time Spanish station (I know about WSDS, but their signal in the SW Detroit core demographic is both weak and hammered by WLQV). WSDS and 1400 would be a pretty effective simulcast pair, as would 1400 and any rebuild of 1310.
Click to expand...

Many moons ago, i had lunch with Mike Gallagher to discuss selling what was then WMKM. I had said that this station would have done great with Hispanic programming. No one doing that could pay his price, at the time.
I cannot tell you how many times the folks at 1480 would issue interference complaints against us at 1500. The problem was always that they complained about areas outside of their protected contour. Sometimes the interference wasn't us, but power lines and such. Nonetheless, it was all our fault. They had a hard time selling it and it was all my fault. They were probably ticked as we objected when they filed for their move or upgrade in facilities. I think our basis was that Salem Township didn't fit within the Commissions definition of "COL".... Man, that was back in the 80's.
 
There are a couple of points that I want to point out and clear up about the WFDF facility.

1) The signal with 25 kW at night is much better on the West side than WWJ is, not just the stations like WDTW and WLQV. And not that it is a factor anymore, but the signal at night much better there than CKLW. Livingston County and surrounding area is the greatest area of population growth, and the signal is very good there.

2) The WFDF, WWJ, and WXYT facilities all use broadside components in their arrays rather than endfire components. This was done so that the standard pattern nulls were deep enough to maximize the allowed power. The FCC considers endfire arrays more unstable and assigns them higher standard pattern RSS to RMS quadratures to determine the standard pattern, even though the FCC AM DA expert conceded that most arrays can be tuned to the theoretical pattern value, even less than the standard pattern value, if reradiating structures can be detuned. The broadside components have greater high angle radiation that interferes with the groundwave, which wouldn't have been a problem if they had had more endfire design components.

3) Wikipedia states that there was no way to get a predicted M-3 NIF groundwave over Flint, even with 50 kW. This is also untrue. With higher towers or more towers with 50 kW, the NIF contour could most certainly have reached the far corner of Flint. The NIF has actually decreased from a rounded 5.8 mV/m to 5.7 mV/m since the installation. This represents only a 15% efficiency increase in the day IDF in that direction, well within possibility with higher towers or more towers. The reason why it couldn't practically reach that efficiency has more to do with WSUI's challenge and the vacant allotment in Lindsay, Ontario. When WYLL inceased to 50 kW night, they upgraded a station WHBY Kimberly, Wisconsin to 25 kW night on 1150, and changed a vacant Thunder Bay allotment from 1160 to another frequency. When there's a WYLL, there's a way.
 
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If Salem were to buy it to replace WDTK, would they have to switch the WDTK COL since WFDF is, at least in part, a Flint area station? Am I even correct in that statement?
 
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