OK let me offer an opinion in 2 parts.
Assuming they paid cash for it, 175K is chump change.
The issue is revenue .... many of their spots were bartered, and that does not pay the rent, and we will get to the rent in a minute...
So even if they got in for short money, I doubt the ad revenue covered the operating costs... but that, as bad as it is, does not address the big issue.....
THE TRANSMITTER LEASE !
They may have been able to con their way into assuming the last 2 years of the lease or something like that, I'm pretty sure it wasn't an "at will" deal, out with 30 days notice....
But the tower owner either told them no renewal because they didn't want the sticks in the parking lot of their office park.... and the sticks are in the middle of a parking lot, the buildings having been built around them.....
OR
They were having trouble paying the lease as it was ( again rumored to be brutally expensive) and the landlord said See Ya !!, or the people behind the station were not willing or able to personally guarantee the lease should the company default.
20 grand a month ( assumed figure not based in fact) for 2 years is a half a million.
Either way, or any way it went down, they are without a lease, they did not have a backup plan ( where could they go?) and even if they did the engineering studies, applications, the construction of either a phasor or a whole antenna farm it would have taken more than the 2 years they had. That assumes they knew 2 years ago this was going to happen. Now they have a year before they become DWMEX.
That assumes they had the financial backing to pull it off, and that the revenue would recoup the costs.... both very doubtful.
The only viable option was to stay put, and that does not seem to have worked out.
They paid what the station was worth two years ago, with no long term lease in place on the tower.....
Someone might pay 175K for the license.... if they already had a tower farm in place ( Salem?)
But if we are going to take what has been in the press as fact, that they shut the phones off at the studio, it seems to me they are not planning on coming back and they are either walking away, or hoping someone will buy the white elephant.
IMHO the station, dark or operational by those clowns, is worth next to nothing. Being off the air does not have a significant negative impact on the valuation.
(but hey what do I know, I am a has been hack hanging out on a internet forum, I am not a big time radio star, part of the hottest comedy show on Boston radio. Yes I would like fries with that you no talent pompous arse)
