knoxbob said:
The ad even mentioned that it is billing $125k. It seems like someone with local ties could make this station a moneymaker.
If you have a spreadsheet like Excel or equivalent, sit down and build yourself a proposed (pro forma) operating plan / budget for a small radio station.
If you own a small town station and it has been in the family for years, and you don't have a big loan payment to play "rodeo cowboy" with, you can maybe come up with a plan where you make some money out of a gross of $125,000 per year. As long as the transmitter keeps running another 25 years without a major breakdown. As long as your tower is short enough you don't have to have it repainted now and then. As long as you don't have a job to go to every day and you can put in 50 or 60 hours a week holding things together at the station.
Then you have to dodge around the "artful" language and logic of 'station for sale' advertising. Is it REALLY grossing that number, or did they have three months in a row two years ago... where they got poetic and said: If you can do every quarter what we did those three months two years ago, THEN you can gross $125,000 per year. You want to see trustworthy financials where you can see what actually was deposited in the bank for the last two or three years.
Here is how a station in that price range can work comfortably: some family in the community has one member of the family that has a solid career with a company with insurance and other benefits. The spouse takes over the radio station and does not have to drain the station dry taking money out to meet the basic costs of living. Makes a great part-time job and hobby.
But for someone trying to support a family, set aside some retirement funds, and maybe put your babies through college, a $125,000 per year radio station may not be "the goose that lays golden eggs".
