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PLJ SOLD
- Thread starter leethalweapon
- Start date
The press release says the station (plus five others) sold for $103.5 million in cash:
https://radioinsight.com/headlines/...swaps-with-entercom-in-new-york-indianapolis/
Cumulus Media Inc. today announced that it has entered into an agreement to sell six radio stations to Educational Media Foundation (“EMF”) for $103.5 million
the fact that Entercom thought Country of all things was more valuable..and that cumulus is keeping a frakin 'AM station should tell you all you need to know about why PLJ is going bye bye.
There are just too many stations playing the same songs and commercials they do, and their on air talent no longer delivers the must hear content they used too. it's as simple as that.
And thanks to PPM causing stations to stop taking chances....well, radio is doomed.
We've got a college kid at work. prime advertising demo. he's not listening to newer music. he's listening to 60's, 70's and 80's soft stuff.
There are just too many stations playing the same songs and commercials they do, and their on air talent no longer delivers the must hear content they used too. it's as simple as that.
And thanks to PPM causing stations to stop taking chances....well, radio is doomed.
We've got a college kid at work. prime advertising demo. he's not listening to newer music. he's listening to 60's, 70's and 80's soft stuff.
There's a radio station in NYC that revisits WPLJ's old rock format every day. It's Q104.3. You can even hear some of the former WPLJ DJs.
The irony here is that Q104 gets better ratings than either WPLJ or WNEW. Had either of those stations taken that format first, things might have been different.
I always say that if you want to talk about music radio, you first have to look at the music. Rock music today is not what it was in the 70s. It will never be what it was then. It was both a music and a culture. Kind of like what rap or country music is today. Rock music lost that ability to bring people together. It became the music of self-indulgence. So people listen to Q104 and they remember the good times they had back then. That's what I'm seeing in these 29 pages of comments about WPLJ. They're not just talking about a radio station, but they're talking about the music and the culture, all of which are gone. The radio station is simply the last remaining vestige of what used to be. The only way to experience that again is to go to a Jimmy Buffett concert.
If you want something different, try a different format. There's a reason why Entercom wanted a country station: Country music today is what rock music was in the 1970s. In fact, if you go to a country concert today, you just might hear the performers do some old rock songs. Rock music today doesn't have the power to bring people together. That's what it did in the 70s. Country music does that now.
I mentioned in my previous post about Jimmy Buffett and his ability to entertain. If you want to see a Jimmy Buffett show, but with current music, go see Kenny Chesney. He regularly sells out Giants Stadium, but last night, he played the Hard Rock in Atlantic City. It was a much smaller venue, and you got much closer to Kenny and the music. The concert was promoted by Cat Country, the local country station. People who love country music in South Jersey think of Cat Country the way kids in the 70s thought of WPLJ. The radio station was broadcasting from the Boardwalk, just like radio stations used to do in the 70s. If you are looking for radio that has a connection to the music and its audience, listen to country. Or listen to WBLS. There are people who listen to Steve Harvey the way people used to listen to rock DJs of the 70s. They wake up to him, and then talk about what he said all day. They don't do that with the DJs on Lite. If you feel radio stations are all playing the same songs, maybe it's time to change your taste in music. Try something else, and all of a sudden, you'll discover radio can be fun again.
Then you haven't listened to it in the last 25 years. No one sings about divorce now. Even the country stars who are divorced, like Blake Shelton & Miranda Lambert.
If you want current music and radio that has a connection to the audience the way rock radio did in the 70s, you can listen to country, urban, rap, Hispanic, or Z100. Other than that, you'll hear the same songs over and over, and the DJs are just going through the motions. You have to decide what's important to you. But to say "radio stations don't deliver must hear content" is just plain wrong. Lots of stations do, but if you don't listen to them, you miss it.
All kinds, both country AND western!
Mostly decades stuff. 50s, 60's, 70's, 80s.... some 40's and big band music. I mostly like fast moving disco tap dancing stuff.
WPLJ should end with John Lennon's "Imagine", because the lyrics are a jab at religion, but defensible because it was also the last song played on Musicradio WABC.
Also the news today is that EMF will be keeping the WPLJ call letters, at least for the time being, because they are "legendary".
Also the news today is that EMF will be keeping the WPLJ call letters, at least for the time being, because they are "legendary".
If David's take on the situation is correct, WPLJ will either instruct its staff not to break format in any way during the final hours or just put the station on jockless autopilot until EMF becomes the legal owner. The latter is what happened when the sale of WDRC-FM Hartford from Buckley to Connoisseur became official -- the jocks were taken off the air after the morning drive show and the rest of the day was a stream of classic hits right up to midnight, when the Jackson 5's "I Want You Back" became the last Motown hit played on DRC-FM and "Takin' Care of Business" became the first song in the new ownership's rock-dominated classic hits format, which dumped all soul and disco from the playlist. No retrospective, no goodbyes, no opportunity to "go rogue" and take a jab at the new management. Just a cold, clinical piece of business.
PLJ's parent-company, Cumulus, is the one that sold the station to EMF as we all know... WHY would PLJ want to take a "jab" at EMF by playing such an insignificant song by today's standards as far as WPLJ and its programming is concerned. Had they (Cumulus) taken advice, direction and suggestions from ALL of the Armchair Quarterbacks on boards like this, they maybe there wouldn't have been a sale in the end and it would still be a Cumulus property because as we know, everyone else NOT in the industry are the ones who have ALL the answers and the panacea. WABC is long gone and has relatively little significance to today's radio audience nearly 4 decades later...
Besides it would be a shitty thing to do. They got what they wanted when they sold the station so why would they or staff insult the beliefs of the new owners.
If OP is saying staff would want to do that since they are losing their jobs, it is not EMF that is causing them to lose their jobs but rather the company that sold them out.
The issue behind the sale is the fact that Cumulus did not have a cluster that really created both sales and operating synergY. Mary Berner has indicated that all the top 15 market operations except for Dallas are in play because of the same factors.
No amount of advice can make up for the fact that they could not compete with the larger clusters in the market.
David, I personally understand that, however I do not think that many others do. My statement was presented with a flavor of sarcasm, not to be confused with an understanding of the state of the industry in 2019. Everyone has a price... just so happens that EMF & Cumulus' were in line with one another. It is interesting to see how everything is taking shape: Entercom gains another NYC (area) property, Connoisseur strengthens their CT presence and Cumulus solidifies its presence in the Lehigh Valley. Of course, EMF gains a Full Class B property in Market #1. In this case, save for those that are losing jobs, its a Win across the board.
When WAVA (FM) was sold years ago in DC, those call letters were pretty legendary, too. They had been CHR in DC for about 10 years prior to being sold to Salem and switched to religious talk. Salem also kept the call letters.
With the talk of what stations do prior to a major ownership change, I wanted to share the link to some audio of a station down here on the Alabama Gulf Coast, Mobile's Top 40 powerhouse 97.5 WABB.
WABB was owned by Bernie Dittman, and after his death it was sold off. Allegedly he didn't want it to go to one of the big corporate groups like iHeart or Cumulus, so his heirs wound up selling it to EMF. On the last night, they aired a lengthy goodbye/retrospective, playing tunes from the station's history all the way back to the days when it was on 1480 AM. The final song was Bob Dylan's "Stuck Inside Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again", followed by a goodbye from Dittman's grandson.
I didn't grow up in this market but it was interesting to see the outpouring of support for the station in its final days, and I'm happy that I was able to get this audio and make it available through my site.
An interesting aside to all this is that EMF only ran the station for a short time, choosing to swap it with Cumulus' 98.3 WDLT, a smaller signal in Mobile city itself. So Cumulus wound up with WABB after all (and now has the similar-sounding WABD calls). And, credit to Cumulus, they didn't screw with success too much, keeping it live and local for a long time after purchase.
WABB was owned by Bernie Dittman, and after his death it was sold off. Allegedly he didn't want it to go to one of the big corporate groups like iHeart or Cumulus, so his heirs wound up selling it to EMF. On the last night, they aired a lengthy goodbye/retrospective, playing tunes from the station's history all the way back to the days when it was on 1480 AM. The final song was Bob Dylan's "Stuck Inside Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again", followed by a goodbye from Dittman's grandson.
I didn't grow up in this market but it was interesting to see the outpouring of support for the station in its final days, and I'm happy that I was able to get this audio and make it available through my site.
An interesting aside to all this is that EMF only ran the station for a short time, choosing to swap it with Cumulus' 98.3 WDLT, a smaller signal in Mobile city itself. So Cumulus wound up with WABB after all (and now has the similar-sounding WABD calls). And, credit to Cumulus, they didn't screw with success too much, keeping it live and local for a long time after purchase.
Way to respect the wishes of the family that sold it to you. I guess self-interest trumped the commandment they preach, "Do unto others". No surprise.
Well, Dittman's request was for them not to sell it to a major corporate player. He didn't say what the new owners could do. Whether that was Cumulus' doing or EMF's… I have no idea.
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