buying a station

[radio505]

So a couple of my friends and I are thinking about buying a small market radio station that has been run into the ground for dirt cheap. We all have been in radio...but the only thing that makes me hold back is that none of us know the whole business side. But we can get help from people that we have worked with and trust....Any suggestions?

 

[SuperQ]

If by the business side you mean accounting, insurance, payroll and the like. You can get some outside help with no trouble.

If you have no experience in sales, I would back off. Sales is the most important requirement in small market radio. Everything else is a very distant number two. The best programming, most locally involved, best sounding station in the world will not bring advertisers through the door in this day and age. At least not in enough numbers to pay off.

Make sure someone in your group has sales experience, or wait until you can get some.

 

[radioboy]

You might find something useful here:

http://www.radio-info.com/smf/index.php/topic,43316.0.html


I agree with the previous poster about sales. I was an operations manager for
a 5,000 watt AM daytimer with an absentee owner. The light bill, payroll, mortgage,
and other fees can easily mount up to $5k a month or more. In my situation, I was
THE sales department, in addition to handling daily operations, and I was on the air daily from 6:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. The station eventually was billing $10-11k a month
but extra sales people would have helped out more.

There are a lot of factors involved. Have someone do "due diligence" on any station you are seriously looking at, so you won't discover surprises like..the tower has to be moved, or there are "liens" against the place that no one told you about.

Hopefully everyone in your group has different strong points..then find out your group's weaknesses and do what you can to get help in those areas.

The radio biz is not for the faint-hearted, that's for sure. Good luck!