WCPT-FM Sold

Well...it looks like the media empire of Newsweb's Fred Eychaner is being shrunk again. According to Inside Radio this morning, they're selling the old WDEK to EMF. Price is a reported $1.6M. Or about 15-20% of it's original purchase price from SBS in 2004 when they bought the old Big City Radio trimculcast and went about making it NINEFM with the old 99.9.

Truth be told, they really never did anything with this signal after NINEFM for what ever reason. Which is sad as this is the top commercial signal between Rockford, Chicago, Quad Cities, and Peoria.

RR

Radio stations are not as valuable as once they were.

Rex Radio said:

this is the top commercial signal between Rockford, Chicago, Quad Cities, and Peoria.

Click to expand...

IMHO this signal is awkward location (in addition to not being fully powered). It's a rimshot for Rockford, something less than a rimshot for Chicago (60 miles out), and most of the coverage area is rural. On top of that there are two DeKalb stations (AM with FM translators that do a more than adequate job of covering the local communities.

So....to me, the deal probably probably makes more sense for EMF than the alternative of Fred hanging on to the 92.5 signal.

And so it goes...

{{IMHO this signal is awkward location (in addition to not being fully powered).}}

It's about 3.3dB down from being a full class B station due to short spacing with 92.3 in Hammond. But it remains an omni signal as opposed to 92.3's very directional signal. Never the less, power doesn't mean all that much in rural areas where building penetration is not very important. Height is.

When Jerry Cerney built the site in 1982 well before the proliferation of little drop-in stations in Docket 80-90, it was THE signal for the area. It owned all of Dekalb county and most of the area outside of the surrounding metro's save for WRHL and WNIU. It was a cash cow for Jerry.

It's demise started when B-95 went on the air in 1989 (along with WSPY right around then) and Jerry sold the station to Big City not long before he died. Which in turn bailed on local programming altogether....and that sealed it's fate as a hometown station. After that came Spanish (covering Aurora and Elgin) and then NINEFM, again more aimed at the western burbs than Dekalb....despite Fred being born/raised in Dekalb.

It is a perfect fit for EMF giving them nearly ubiquitous coverage from Lake Michigan to the Mississippi River and from the state line to I-80.

Again, the takeway is the complete collapse of the broadcast signal value in the past 10 years. B95 went for $610K. 10 years ago, $2M easily.

So...and era of even remotely local programming and management is coming to an end.

RR

Wonder what the new call letters will be?