What to make of this Herald article?
http://www.bostonherald.com/busines..._radio_stations_would_reshape_boston_airwaves
http://www.bostonherald.com/busines..._radio_stations_would_reshape_boston_airwaves
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Radio Dial to be Shaken Up CBS Stations to be Sold
- Thread starter Jimmy128
- Start date
Rick Shaffer in Herald
http://www.bostonherald.com/news/columnists/2016/03/shaffer_old_am_radio_model_is_broken
>>Radio stations have become depressingly less profitable over the past decade..,More and more people, especially young adults, are turning to online sources for their information, entertainment and music — radio’s reasons for existence.. In the near future, AM radio stations like WBZ Radio will likely be relegated to niche-casting — foreign language programming, specialty shows like finance and infomercials. Indeed, in the next year or two, many new cars will not include AM stations on their radios.
http://www.bostonherald.com/news/columnists/2016/03/shaffer_old_am_radio_model_is_broken
>>Radio stations have become depressingly less profitable over the past decade..,More and more people, especially young adults, are turning to online sources for their information, entertainment and music — radio’s reasons for existence.. In the near future, AM radio stations like WBZ Radio will likely be relegated to niche-casting — foreign language programming, specialty shows like finance and infomercials. Indeed, in the next year or two, many new cars will not include AM stations on their radios.
Why would they flip AMP? Entercom does not have anything that competes with it...and it would be a good demographic for their older male oriented cluster.
(And no, Oldies is not coming back...)
They were able to spend about $105M in Dec of '14 for Lincoln Fin. stations
http://www.entercom.com/entercom-co...-financial-group-for-105-million#.VumM69DaK1s
http://www.entercom.com/entercom-co...-financial-group-for-105-million#.VumM69DaK1s
That is much worse than even the low standard of newspapers for reporting on radio.
WBZ is the top billing radio station in the entire market. It is not going away in "the near future".
The rumor about AM radio being eliminated from any (and not "many") new cars is based mostly on the absence of AM in the $80 k BMW electric vehicle. And even then, dealers have demanded AM be restored to the model as in the urban environments where electric vehicles sell many purchasers depend on AM for news and traffic information in the car.
The article highlights a "writeoff" as a symptom of radio's distress when actually what was taken was a balance sheet asset impairment charge to reflect current market valuations for AM stations. This is sort of like knowing your house is not worth as much as you paid for it, but also knowing that the house itself is just as livable and nice as you always thought it was.
Radio is not "depressingly" less profitable. Revenues have been flat (aside from that pesky recession) for over a decade, barely keeping up with inflation in some years and with tiny declines in others. Stations have reacted by trimming expenses and the major players have managed to keep the operating margins very healthy. For example, Boston's leading music station, WXKS, bills just as much today as in 2006 and probably has lower expenses. The real issue is that some radio companies... not "stations"... have huge debts to satisfy and any financial crunch is due to that burden, not a decline in profitability.
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Maybe to appease all the people upset when Mike fm went away?
IF WBZ-AM is excised from 1170 SFR—and that, in itself, would be a bombshell!—I think 10-30 would pair up nicely with Coxʼs Fox-25 (à la their Atlanta WSB AM-TV combo) or possibly even Sunbeam (Ansinʼs WHDH-TV) adding them as a radio property.
I, for one, would not want to see Cox, new overlords of Fox 25, get their mitts on WBZ-AM 1030!
And "poor" Ed Ansin has his plate full with Channel 7/Comcast-NBC legal wranglings.
However, if, say, Westinghouse - I know they exist as a shell of what they used to be - were to re-form Group W and re-purchase some of their old properties (WBZ, WINS, KYW, KDKA) that would be nice. (WOWO, WIND, KFWB were all spun off by Group W before CBS got into the picture.)
Another whacked-out scenario: if Comcast could acquire NBC, maybe Verizon or AT&T would want to own some of these hot properties.
The biggest irony, to me, at least, would be Entercom buying CBS's Boston properties.
And the likelihood that iHateCC would be unable to get in on any of this thrills me no end.
Seriously, I think it was Michael Harrison who stated that CBS's decision to get out of radio can be seen as "advancing the cause of de-consolidation" of the past 20 years or so. This is a good thing, as consolidation, in retrospect, probably did more harm to radio than good.
Look, CBS is far from cash-strapped, so it could well afford to sell off many of its major-market stations to individual owners, not would-be large conglomerates who will likely only end up as heavily debt-ridden (cf., Clear Channel, Cumulus), at prices at, or even below, "market value". Many a small operator would love to be able to expand his saudience reach, but couldn't get even one of local frequency to do so, since they're all in the hands of the big boys. Well, here would be an opportunity to get more owner/operators into the business; perhaps this could put an end to the cookie-cutter formats found in almost all markets these days.
E.g., Boston University or WGBH could acquire one or two of CBS's FM frequencies; hmmm, maybe even The Boston Herald or The Boston Globe would like to own a REAL radio station again. (They can deep-six their respective online stations fast!)
In some markets, the need for FM translators would be alleviated by allowing owners of some smaller AMs to get the frequencies formerly held by CBS AMs. Just think of all the daytime-only signals on 1030 or 1170 in other parts of the country that could just be turned off for good!
Despite what I've just written, though, there's still something "wrong" if WBZ AM and TV were to go their separate ways. Ditto KYW and KDKA. Allow me one more pipe dream, if you will: to keep the WBZ family together, CBS also spins off WBZ-TV, which can then affiliate with NBC (!), letting the CBS affiliation go to WHDH-TV (relieving Ansin of his headache), and things could be swell in the (whacky) world of broadcasting once again.
(End of pipe dream; let flaming begin.)
Look, CBS is far from cash-strapped, so it could well afford to sell off many of its major-market stations to individual owners, not would-be large conglomerates who will likely only end up as heavily debt-ridden (cf., Clear Channel, Cumulus), at prices at, or even below, "market value". Many a small operator would love to be able to expand his saudience reach, but couldn't get even one of local frequency to do so, since they're all in the hands of the big boys. Well, here would be an opportunity to get more owner/operators into the business; perhaps this could put an end to the cookie-cutter formats found in almost all markets these days.
E.g., Boston University or WGBH could acquire one or two of CBS's FM frequencies; hmmm, maybe even The Boston Herald or The Boston Globe would like to own a REAL radio station again. (They can deep-six their respective online stations fast!)
In some markets, the need for FM translators would be alleviated by allowing owners of some smaller AMs to get the frequencies formerly held by CBS AMs. Just think of all the daytime-only signals on 1030 or 1170 in other parts of the country that could just be turned off for good!
Despite what I've just written, though, there's still something "wrong" if WBZ AM and TV were to go their separate ways. Ditto KYW and KDKA. Allow me one more pipe dream, if you will: to keep the WBZ family together, CBS also spins off WBZ-TV, which can then affiliate with NBC (!), letting the CBS affiliation go to WHDH-TV (relieving Ansin of his headache), and things could be swell in the (whacky) world of broadcasting once again.
(End of pipe dream; let flaming begin.)
It was a very confusing transaction so I might be wrong, but I thought Westinghouse was CBS: Westinghouse took over the original CBS (Columbia Broadcasting System) and then changed the name of the merged company to CBS, Inc because the name was better known, and then was taken over itself by Viacom (which actually started as a CBS subsidiary that grew bigger than its parent). And I believe Westinghouse sold off its non-broadcast divisions to other companies, with the right to continue using the Westinghouse name. For example, the "Westinghouse Electric" company that builds power plants is actually owned by Toshiba.
You are correct in that the former Westinghouse did indeed buy CBS back in 1995, and then proceeded to rename itself CBS.
So maybe Moonves et al could spin off CBS Radio as a separate unit called Group W.
Still dread the thought that 'BZ Radio and TV might have to separate.
You're assuming that any of the people associated with Group W or Westinghouse Radio are still there, and that use of the brand name would also bring back their way of doing business. I don't think one can make that assumption.
What was the last year Group W was used in the branding of WBZ? How old would a current listener have to be to have any warm-and-fuzzy memories of WBZ as a Group W station? I swear, these threads sometimes make me ashamed to be a Baby Boomer.
BTW, as a young AM listener, I actually thought "Group W" was an association of stations with "W" as the first letter in their calls, and that there must be a "Group K" for all those stations out west to belong to!
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Wikipedia under Westinghouse Broadcasting says "Following the completion of the CBS takeover, the former Westinghouse Broadcasting operations took on the CBS name and identity, though the Group W name survived until the end of the 1990s as a holding company within the merged entity's structure...A few of the former Westinghouse radio stations still use the former Group W font today (e.g. KDKA, KYW, and WINS)..The other stations discontinued using the typeface early in the 21st century."
It lists WBZ TV as being Westinghouse from 1948-95, now CBS. The page also lists WBZ and WBZ-FM; the FM was on some diff frequencies under Westinghouse ownership. The current WBZ-FM 98.5 started in 2009, under CBS.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westinghouse_Broadcasting
Group W has another meaning: acc to Wikipedia, "Group W, people being considered for moral waiver by American military". Immortalized in the "Group W Bench" Arlo Guthrie mentioned in Alice's Restaurant.
It lists WBZ TV as being Westinghouse from 1948-95, now CBS. The page also lists WBZ and WBZ-FM; the FM was on some diff frequencies under Westinghouse ownership. The current WBZ-FM 98.5 started in 2009, under CBS.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westinghouse_Broadcasting
Group W has another meaning: acc to Wikipedia, "Group W, people being considered for moral waiver by American military". Immortalized in the "Group W Bench" Arlo Guthrie mentioned in Alice's Restaurant.
So it's been 21 years. So you'd have to be 35 or so to have any warm-and-fuzzies, or maybe 10-15 years older than that because most teens didn't have WBZ as their go-to radio station in the mid-'90s. Which leaves us Baby Boomers and the upper slice of Gen X as the primary Group W sentimentalists. Nope, Group W's not coming back.
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