I think you missed BigA's point. Anymore, the only groups with cash that are buying radio stations are religious organizations. I can speak from experience having recently sold a full Class C to EMF.
-
Get involved.
We want your input!
Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.
After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.
After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/
Thanks in advance and have fun!
RadioDiscussions Administrators
Let’s get back to entertaining, informing and making money
- Thread starter secondchoice
- Start date
That's the case that Sirius & XM made for their merger. The FCC needs to recognize that there are only a handful of companies interested in owning radio stations. Putting impediments in front of them doesn't benefit the public interest. It just opens the door for more religious non-coms. The other way around it would be to reassess frequency allocations.
There certainly cannot be 35 stations in a medium market with 24/7 air staffs. I'm not sure if iHeart owning every commercial signal in the top 200 markets is an answer either.
H
Harvey_Dogg
Guest
The Docket 80-90 channels were mostly Class A channels that had to compete against 50,000 watt stations. Not all frequencies are created equal. The best frequencies were granted before I was in first grade.
H
Harvey_Dogg
Guest
I have a good friend who did just this. He and his wife own an ad agency in a downtown Chicago skyscraper. He had clients such as Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Today he has some of the best accounts in the USA.
By the way, he made a TV ad about my station. In the ad, he threw a boombox off the Chicago skyscraper. That production won best commercial in the USA.
Last edited by a moderator:
Keep in mind that iHeart doesn't have to actually own every signal to get its spots and programming cleared in every market.
The funny thing is I can name off a bunch of Class As that are beating the 50K heritage stations. People don't listen to signals.
Nope, the point was (partly) wrong.
The reality is that the number of signals in any market has shrunk considerably in the last 10-20 years, with the total death of AM in most markets, and more signals converting to non-commercial operation. But the market caps have not kept up with that reality.
I agree with this, and I think there is a second reason in cases like yours: small market radio is a very tough business, even if you do have some scale and some heritage. If you have neither, forget it.
Put another way: no one in entrepreneurship circles is telling their buddies to buy a radio station in Haughton, Michigan or Athens, Ohio as a way to get rich.
If AM is dead, then it should be removed from ownership caps.
Just because a signal converts to non-commercial doesn't mean that signal has gone away. Your statement ignores all of the LPFMs and translators that have been added to the dial in the last ten years. Plus radio users see radio as both on-air and online. An entire generation has grown up with lots of options. But the FCC ownership rules have stayed the same. In the meantime, advertisers are looking for the best and most cost efficient way to reach customers. Radio can compete if its not hamstrung by ownership rules.
Agreed. The limit in the largest markets should be changed from "8 signals, no more than 5 of which on any band" to "5 signals." Presumably everyone would keep their FMs.
From the point of view of an entrepreneur wanting to acquire a cluster in New York, WPLJ doesn't exist any more than WNYE exists.
I am 100% in favor of repealing the Local Community Radio Act. Maybe I should write my congressperson.
That's a good point. iHeart and Audacy already have an infinite number of stations, they just have to rely on streaming and HD subchannels to distribute them.
That won't help solve the problem. As I said, the FCC created the problem. They need to fix it.
There are no entrepreneurs wanting to acquire clusters anywhere. That's why all of these stations are being bought by EMF. The more limits you impose on broadcasters, the more the FM band goes religious. There are more of them than there are of us, and they have deeper pockets.
They're heading in that direction. Both own their own streaming platforms.
H
Harvey_Dogg
Guest
What's done is done.
What's won is won.
What's lost is lost
And gone forever.
What's won is won.
What's lost is lost
And gone forever.
Not really.
The source of Docket 80-90 was the application of a Class A between Naples and Fort Myers to upgrade to a full C. They got a dozen applications against them and lost the station in the process.
That forced the FCC to review station upgrades and relocations. The result was 80-90 which allowed stations to move and upgrade as well as to force existing stations to be reallocated to fit in new allocations.. The result was a huge number of new stations, plus even more moves and upgrades, making markets like Phoenix and Austin literally double in full power FMs.
That may apply to AM, not to FM.
And then the AMs will decay or all become religious. Or serve as the "license getter" for translators.
There are, historically, no entrepreneurs in industries in decline. What you find are scavengers.
Yet there are three strong groups, Univision, SBS and Meruelo, serving ethnic and specialty audiences. And even an independent broadcaster with the market's country station.
You can't leave out non-English language stations in an evaluation of a market that in 18-49 and 25-54 is more than 50% Hispanic and where less than 25% are non-Hispanic white native English speaking persons. The market sustains over a dozen stations that are not in English or Spanish, too.
H
Harvey_Dogg
Guest
We saw the writing on the wall in the 1990's. The internet and a digital world would take over. We could have established HD and headed it off. But we failed to keep up with the times. We broadcasters have ourselves to blame.
HD all along was a mistaken solution to broadcaster fears of "digital", not the Internet. HD began development around the time that CDs... digital, get it?... were first marketed. Broadcasters supported it because they saw "digital" to be a big buzzword with consumers. And they saw the early work to create satellite radio, also digital.
Broadcasters introduced HD around the time Apple brought out the first iPod. They had no idea that streaming, not "digital" would become the dominant competition in a few more years.
HD was the answer to a problem that never matured. In the early years, it was only available satisfactorily in cars, and there were no portable devices at all. Today, its main use is to allow owners to have one or more translators which don't apply to ownership caps.
Actually we had both. The recently departed Class C was originally licensed in the late 70's, moved and upgraded to a better site and taller tower in the mid-80's when my partner and I took over. The station was licensed to a small community of about 12,000, but the coverage pop count was closer to 240,000, essentially covering half of an entire state. We also leased translators in some larger fringe-coverage communities.
Among the challenges, this particular station covered dozens of smallish towns/cities spread over several hundred road miles. Sales folks were on the road constantly renewing contracts, because as b-turner has said before; it's essential to retain the personal touch/relationships with clients. Around the 2007-2008 recession, those same businesses in the areas that were regular clients for years were closing or consolidating. More and more advertising was going on line, because that's where younger consumers were thought to be. The bottom fell out of any hope of growth. If anything, growth was going negative. Estimated value of the station based on cash flow and stick value went from $5,000,000 in 2004, to $250,000 in 2008.
And no, none of this had to do with 'ratings' or how popular the programming was, or wasn't. The station went on the air as AOR, eventually migrating to Classic Hits, maintaining it's popularity right to the end.
That's true. Besides, even if one was bold (dumb) enough to start from scratch, these days try getting financing to purchase radio properties.
$5 million to 250,000 in four years is sobering to say the least.
H
Harvey_Dogg
Guest
Actually the Local Community Radio Act was a sell out to the translator invasion and bad for LPFM. That's what you get when politicians make FCC Rules instead of the FCC.
H
Harvey_Dogg
Guest
My experience in commercial radio was a bit different from Kelly's. In the early 1980's, I asked the FCC to allocate a new FM channel to Delphi Indiana. It was a town where my family had roots going back to 1825. But when the Delphi channel came up for application 3 groups applied against me and it went up for hearing at the FCC. I was pissed. These other guys didn't even want Delphi. They wanted to use the frequency to serve larger towns nearby.
There were about 25 more undiscovered channels in Indiana that I knew about. So I started dropping them onto the table of allotments. I was going to keep doing this until I got a CP. I thought the competing Delphi applicants needed stations in their own towns and I put channels in their towns.
I put 106.7 in West Lafayette and I persuaded the president of Purdue University that Purdue needed 101.3 FM.
I just wanted to own a radio station and I would have been happy with just one. But the FCC awarded me 3 construction permits. Two of them were near Lafayette Indiana. The third one was ten miles out of Indianapolis.
During the daytime my stations were eclectic and sold commercials. At night I did the community radio thing with guest DJ's from the community. We did lots of community events and found sponsors to pay the bills.
At the same time, I became the first legally blind person in my state to get a drivers license. That made national news.
I was in commercial radio for 15 years and I worked 7 days a week. I was tied like a dog on a chain to my businesses.
There were about 25 more undiscovered channels in Indiana that I knew about. So I started dropping them onto the table of allotments. I was going to keep doing this until I got a CP. I thought the competing Delphi applicants needed stations in their own towns and I put channels in their towns.
I put 106.7 in West Lafayette and I persuaded the president of Purdue University that Purdue needed 101.3 FM.
I just wanted to own a radio station and I would have been happy with just one. But the FCC awarded me 3 construction permits. Two of them were near Lafayette Indiana. The third one was ten miles out of Indianapolis.
During the daytime my stations were eclectic and sold commercials. At night I did the community radio thing with guest DJ's from the community. We did lots of community events and found sponsors to pay the bills.
At the same time, I became the first legally blind person in my state to get a drivers license. That made national news.
I was in commercial radio for 15 years and I worked 7 days a week. I was tied like a dog on a chain to my businesses.
- Status