That may have been the case before. But its different now. They have become very Lakeland focused since Greeson started running things three years ago. They have Greenwood Eagles sports, Ninety-Six sports and of course Abbeville sports. Voted (over Sunny) as best station in the Lakeland by the Greenwood Index Journal last 3 years in a row. Great morning show. Their new studio has a stage and is huge. Artists of all sorts pop in. No longer on the bird, running everything locally for years now. The signal is great all over regardless of where the studio is.
-
Get involved.
We want your input!
Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.
After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.
After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/
Thanks in advance and have fun!
RadioDiscussions Administrators
Audacy To Divest Magic 106.3
- Thread starter lanceventa
- Start date
The market caps are dependent on market population combined with the total number of market stations. Exceeding the cap is "grandfathered" but if a sale occurs, the buyer must conform with the new market caps.
As more and more marginal AMs sign off for good, we may see additional markets where the "old" cap exceeds the new one.
Entercom has had 5 FM’s since 2005 when they acquired 93.3, 101.1, and 106.3 from Barnstable. To acquire those, they sold off the 103s and 910. I’m not aware of any AM’s in the market that have signed off other than 1580 WDAB in Travelers Rest about a decade ago. 106.3 is the second newest FM in the market, having moved in from Newberry in 2002, right after then-96.7 (now 104.9) did from Greenwood earlier that year. The newest is 95.5 which was originally the 95.9 allocation to Pendleton about a decade ago.
Remember, the market is made up of four entire counties and any station (excluding translators and LPFMs) in that four county area counts for the station count. "Markets" are based on counties or portions thereof, not on cities.
Here's how the law is phrased. So you begin by adding the number of radio stations in the market:
But WTZQ decreased from 5000 watts to 1000.WFIS 1600 in Fountain Inn signed off about 10 years ago to allow co-channel WTZQ Hendersonville, NC to upgrade. Traveler's Rest was smack DAB in between those two.
I am told that, if everything goes according to plan, Audacy is not divesting anything. 93.3’s COL (Forest City) is no longer considered part of the Greenville/Spartanburg market. So, Audacy is intending to argue that it will be within ownership caps if it keeps Magic. The move to put 106.3 in trust is to speed along the exit from bankruptcy so the issue of which market 93.3 is in can be resolved separately. If that can’t be resolved either in a timely manner or to Audacy's satisfaction, it will then work out a deal to unload one of its stations. This article in Inside Radio likely has it backward, but it basically confirms what I've been told. Audacy’s Reorg Hits FCC With One FM Spin-Off And A Plan For More Foreign Ownership.
See my post above. WTBI had an AM that it surrendered since the CBS deal. There was also an FM on 88.5 that was later moved out of market. Those are the two stations. You should be able to find the application for the CBS deal and the emergence from bankruptcy under WROQ in the FCC's databases. You can compare the two applications and see which stations are missing from the more recent.
Very interesting! While I've not been a huge fan of how Audacy has run WSPA-FM, I'd much rather see it at least stay with them (hopefully) than be spun off to potentially another religious broadcaster. I wonder if them letting Barry McKay and Sheri Taylor go a couple of weeks ago was just a cost cutting during bankruptcy, though, or if it was a "just in case" should they not be able to retain the station and it was convenient timing. They haven't updated the website, but Elise Riley is in middays 10am-3pm now and they're just running automated after that. Shorty and Chris Goode are still on weekends.
Yeah, I saw that, but I was confused because WTBI-FM, and the old WTBI (AM) are still on the air. The AM is now WBPB with a religious Spanish format. The old WTBI is still licensed under different calls/new ownership, they never turned the license in, although it has different ownership. https://fccdata.org/?facid=&call=WB...=&lmspl=&party_type=ELMFA&latd=&lond=&lang=en
But its tower is.
Tower location doesn’t matter when determining which market a station is. It used to, but the FCC did away with contour overlapping as a way of determining markets more than 20 years ago.
I have no idea if Audacy will be successful in persuading the FCC and/or BIA that 93.3 doesn’t count as an Upstate station, but there is precedent for changing just a station's COL to a city outside a market to continue owning it.
Not that it matters in this case, but WTPT’s tower, just to correct, is not in Forest City, or even really near FC proper. It’s several miles NW of Columbus, NC which is why it throws a city grade signal over WNC compared to the other GSP FM’s which struggle due to the terrain. Even 98.9 and 93.7 have considerable issues around Asheville due to their towers being further south at lower elevation.
I’m assuming Audacy is putting Magic in this trust but not exactly entertaining offers if there even were any, let it hang out there and exhaust all options with the FCC before letting go of it. It’s an AC with low overhead that probably makes fairly easy money. I’d guess they chose 106.3 due to it being the least valuable FM signal in the cluster (a C3 vs C0’s and C’s).
I’m assuming Audacy is putting Magic in this trust but not exactly entertaining offers if there even were any, let it hang out there and exhaust all options with the FCC before letting go of it. It’s an AC with low overhead that probably makes fairly easy money. I’d guess they chose 106.3 due to it being the least valuable FM signal in the cluster (a C3 vs C0’s and C’s).
That's what iHeart did. It took about ten years for them to clean out the Aloha Trust.
I thought it was farther south for some reason. I have tried the signal in Asheville and unlike the music, it's quite good.
The radio I take with me to the mountains won't work below 94 but I used to be able to hear the signal in my motel room.
Not sure if this is why Audacy made those changes or not, but I've been told putting a station into trust is a pain. The employees of the station in trust are supposed to be employed by the trustee, not Audacy. Plus, Audacy is not allowed to realize any operational profits, if any, until after the station is out of trust one way or another. Having to reimburse the trustee for the operations of the station and not being able to realize any profit from the trust makes the employees expenses. Good chance Audacy cut Barry and Sheri before putting Magic in the trust to cut down on expenses. It would theoretically have no way to cut their salaries once the station is put into trust.
The FCC usually goes by BIA. If BIA shows WTBI's am is no longer on air, that's what usually goes. My guess is Audacy isn't really focused on or concerned about that since it wouldn't make 45 stations in the market regardless.
This would be my guess, too, though I suppose, if the price were right, Audacy could change its plans. The FCC has been known to put clocks on divestitures since the Last Bastion and Aloha Trusts, but Audacy should have plenty of time to resolve this problem one way or another.
Interesting, and makes sense. I noticed they've even dropped the ReelWorld One AC jingles that have been prevalent for years and are just using liners now for imaging. I'm guessing they don't want to keep writing a check to ReelWorld with all of the red tape.
I did not know that ReelWorld charged ongoing fees. I've never bought jingles that were not "buy-out" or, at worst, had a small fee if you used them after 5 years.
Of course, if the service includes constant imaging updates that are not "sings" but intended to match hit artists and songs, that is more of a "production service" than a jingle package.
Last edited:
Most of the stations where I've worked got imaging on barter. Don’t know how long they had to carry the barter, though.