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More move ins?

B

beauduran

Surprised nobody has mentioned yet, but All Access says Ted Tucker has closed on his purchase of KFMM/Thatcher(FM) and KCUZ/Clifton(AM). About a week ago I remember reading about him buying a Willcox station (KWCX?). And didn't he buy KCDQ/Douglas and KKYZ/Sierra Vista as well?

I would assume he plans to move all of the FM signals into Tucson. But why would he buy a Clifton AM signal? And a 1000 watt daytimer at that?

Also, is the plan to build one area east of Tucson that is a transmitter site for all of these move-ins, ala the one North of Phoenix in the Bradshaws? So far 95.1, 97.5, 98.3 and 104.3 have all moved there from Northern AZ to target the valley.

Lastly, does the FCC even care about small towns having local radio anymore? I know Sierra Vista and Douglas will still have a local station or two, but it looks like moving Willcox and Safford would leave no local service there...
 
Ted Tucker has amassed fabulous wealth by moving stations from small towns into metro areas.

His latest proposal is to move his Vail station on 98.5 to 104.5. That cools it off from nearby Hot 98.3, much to the delight of Clear Channel. But the new home of KRDX will be close to the Truth (a serious misnomer) but not close enough to likely bother Journal.

Tucker and family also have indeed acquired KFMM and KCUZ for a crazy low combined price of $300,000 but the deal is very complex. KFMM will likely be moved in a westerly direction. The purchase of KCUZ (AM) makes as much sense as buying the low powered AM station in Omaha.

Tucker and family also had the high bid on Huachuca City (94.3) but their latest proposal is to move it to 101.7 which is the current home of KKYZ. KKYZ for years has had permission to move to Corona De Tucson which is Tucson in diguise. Moving Huachuca City to 101.7 is a bit like having his cake and eating it too. What becomes of 94.3? In any event, this provides backfill for Sierra Vista so KKYZ can be moved without taking any financial loss.

Tucker and family did not buy the Willcox stations. Lakeshore Broadcasting hoped to move them to Tucson (DM Airforce Base) but that didn't work out. The Willcox stations just got bought by the new owners of KZLZ, the Spanish station licensed to Kearny. The new KZLZ owners live in Arkansas.

One philosophical question is why people who buy small town radio stations and move them into big cities deserve to make tens of millions of dollars. Some people believe that the public owns the airwaves.
 
caveman-97 said:
Tucker and family also had the high bid on Huachuca City (94.3) but their latest proposal is to move it to 101.7 which is the current home of KKYZ. KKYZ for years has had permission to move to Corona De Tucson which is Tucson in diguise. Moving Huachuca City to 101.7 is a bit like having his cake and eating it too. What becomes of 94.3? In any event, this provides backfill for Sierra Vista so KKYZ can be moved without taking any financial loss.
Click to expand...

This confuses me. Is 94.3 a new CP or something? I don't ever remember that signal on the air. Granted, it's been 9 years since I lived in Cochise County. You said he has the high bid, any idea what that is?

So what you're saying is KKYZ would move to Tucson on 101.3, which has been planned for years now. And 94.3 will stay in Cochise County, moving to 101.7, serving Sierra Vista, Ft. Huachuca and the sprawling metropolis of Huachuca City? Where would the transmitter be?

Last question, how does KCDQ moving from Douglas to Tombstone play into all of this? Surely Tucson can't be targetted from Tombstone...
 
Trying to keep up with Tucker and associates is enough to confuse just about anyone. Considering all the millions he has made in channel swapping, you'd think that there would be many others trying to figure it out and get their piece of the action.

KKYZ is the 1960s rock station in Sierra Vista and it currently operates on 101.7. Cochise Broadcasting (Tucker) has permssion to move it to Corona De Tucson which is a tiny settlement on the south end of Houghton Road. But the new station gets moved to 101.3.

One of Tucker's companies was the high bidder in an FCC auction this spring. That station would be licensed to Huachuca City which is a few miles north of Sierra Vista. That station would be on 94.3. Tucker recently proposed to move the Huachuca City station to 101.7 and use the present KKYZ tower. I'm guessing that the 94.3 station eventually would get moved to some tiny town near Tucson.
It would be sandwiched between KRQ and the Mix.

95.3 is still in Douglas but the Tuckers have permission to move the city of license to Tombstone. The application specifies a transmitter site atop Texas Canyon which is along I-10 several miles east of Benson. Texas Canyon lacks line of sight to Tucson. That station needs to be moved west but some backfill is needed to cover Douglas. Meanwhile it waits for some sort of action.

More millions of bucks in the form of huge capital gains.
 
(I love reviving old threads ... especially the Ted Tucker-related ones because it shows how sometimes the slow, methodical route may eventually payout....)

I see the FCC approved on February 25th Cochise's fine-tuning of an earlier application for the Tombstone C0 95.3 move-in by KCDQ from Douglas. In this latest paperwork, the power dropped from 100kw to 96kw ERP but not much else changed. Tucker still can't move further west because the proposal is already short-spaced with 235C KMXZ Tucson.

I assume the little class-A 800-watt KCDQ down in Douglas is still playing some looped music or something. Perhaps KCDQ down there could be sold and operated as a border-targeted station like KCKO near Nogales. In any case, KCDQ will be nothing more than a Tucson-rimshotter in its final state once assigned to Tombstone... an ironic community of license?
 
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Tucker is flipping radio stations like some people flip houses or cars. He may keep a couple as toys, but that's what they are. Toys. I find it interesting, but he is not in the biz to get ratings or even to sell advertising. As long as he's making money from it. I'm not sure if he is, or how much but it seems like a cool hobby.
 
One might think in years gone by, his money-making is when the property is sold.

With the current market, is that still viable? With the fees for both engineering consultants and broadcast attorneys not being inexpensive, it's quite a 'hobby' to continue with during these times in this industry.

Again, if what he's doing is able to pay those bills, as well as paying the power bills (and some Internet to keep tabs on some of his stations, such as KCDX) and anything else that's needed...well, again, good for him.
 
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