siilent AM stations

[Unregistered]

Radio companies are allowing AM stations to go silent.
Why not sell these stations? No buyers?

 

[Unregistered]

AM silent

Even clear channel & cumulus have allowed some AM stations to go silent?
Are they unable or unwillling to sell them ?

 

[Chuck]

There are probably lots of reasons. I suspect a primary reason is because of the slim possibility a new owner could become a competitor. This may be magnified by the current rattling noises from the FCC that there could be a special filing window for AM stations to get an FM translator. If that happens, it certainly raises the stakes. There is also some valid thought that the only way to improve the AM band is to "thin the herd." Sometimes getting rid of one or two under-performing stations allows others in the group to relocate, raise power or change directional patterns. Even if they don't own another station that could be improved by shutting down the station, someone else may be willing to pay decent money to have them turn in the licence so they can upgrade their facility. The FCC rules for AM tend to encourage that idea since they were written years ago when night time coverage was considered to be really important. To be fair, night time is still is important, but the opportunity for most AM's to be anything other than a local service at night has pretty well gone by the wayside. There are way too many stations on the same frequency and the AM band becomes a big RF sewer at night. That problem isn't helped by the proliferation of noise generating products in your home like CFL's, computers, TV's etc.

There is also the thought that the sum of the parts is worth more than the entire station. This is especially true for stations that were built on the edge of town 50 years ago, and now the town has expanded past that location. AM radio transmitter sites, especially if they are directional, takes up a lot of real estate. Turning the licence may look attractive if somebody is willing to pay serious money for the land to build a new shopping center, housing development, etc.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

There are two people in my household. Until last week, we owned THREE vehicles. Why did I hang onto them so long? What if I sell it too cheap? Will someone now come along and ask: "You still got that Camry that has been parked in your driveway? What do you want for it?"

I cranked up it up and got it serviced and drove it for a couple of days before I kissed it goodbye and all the while.... I was asking myself... you sure you want to do this?

I could see Emotional Attachment, Fear of selling too cheap, and Pack-Rat-ism being much, much stronger if I owned a radio station that had been in the family for 30 years. I had only owned the dumb old car for 14 years... and I almost cried.

Serious answer to the original post: You cannot believe how far apart we can be on what a station is worth: I was asked $750,000 when I asked about one a few years ago. When I ran the numbers, I concluded any offer over $127,000 was out of the question so I think I suggested I would offer $120,000. That ended the conversation very quickly!

 

[DavidEduardo]

Serious answer to the original post: You cannot believe how far apart we can be on what a station is worth: I was asked $750,000 when I asked about one a few years ago. When I ran the numbers, I concluded any offer over $127,000 was out of the question so I think I suggested I would offer $120,000. That ended the conversation very quickly!

And that is the crux of the matter. Ever since the FCC had required financial filings 50 or more years ago, we have known that half of US stations don't make money. Of course, some of the break-evens support an owner-operator, but there is no surplus.

As more and more AMs start to lose money, and as more small owner operators retire or pass away, there is no market for those stations. Some sell cheap, others are just put off the air.

A poster from the Manistee / Ludington are of Michigan has mentioned that both the Ludington AM and the Manistee one are gone. I met the owners of each in the 60's and they were nice little profitable businesses. As FM became viable, those community AMs survived a while under the traditional local owners like Ray Plank in Ludington. But when they no longer ran the stations, they declined into positions of no value.

The traditional AM in a small market sells to local businesses. With the decline of main street, local cable insertions and local websites and city directories, there is not as much radio revenue to be had.[/SIZE][/FONT]

 

[firepoint525]

WHDM in McKenzie, TN (the first station that I ever worked for) sold for "$1.00 plus assumption of all debts" back around 1996 or so. A year later, they sold for $27,000. I saw that in one of the trade papers. I had to think that the building alone was probably worth that. Since the previous owner's wife was listed as the seller, I have to assume that he had died by that time. The station is still on the air (with an FM translator), so I have to assume that they have made it. They were off the air for a couple of years in the mid-'90s.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

Is that the station that actually operated from the home of the owner? One of my kids went on a church mission trip and they stayed in McKenzie or a neighboring town and she and a few others were hosted by a family who owned a radio station.... and the studios were in their home. If this was not the station, I guess you would knw which one it would have been.

 

[FredLeonard]

Too many AM stations as it is. Clear the dead wood and give potentially healthy trees a chance.

 

[Unregistered]

But, the FCC forcing unprofitable stations off the air as some people have suggested
seems Un--American to me.

And, if the dead wood is cleared away , how will it help other AM stations be more profitable? I agree
It might remove interference from the AM band.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

But, the FCC forcing unprofitable stations off the air as some people have suggested
seems Un--American to me.

There is a distinction that needs to be added to you comment. It has always been American for a person to be the benefactor of some enterprise if they wish to plow money into it. Ladies in small towns have run dress shops because it gives them something to do. And if it didn't make money, but her husband's family business provided adequate income, then the dress shop continued on and on.

Some radio stations are that way. In fact, some of the very finest small stations have thrived and survived on love rather than income.

The debate today seems to be what to do with stations that no one can make profitable, but dreamers and schemers keep buying them and trying to "flip them" like some people do with rundown houses. Flippers with too much phony credit in the housing industry just about crashed our nation circa 2007-2008.

Some would argue that the radio industry has been sustained with too much "phony credit" available to people who may be more interested in flipping radio stations than actually owning and RUNNING them long term, but there are some stations (if we use the housing image) that are slum-lord properties. It is quite American for local jurisdictions to declare a neighborhood to be deficient, buy up all the property, and re-purpose the property into something new and useful.

There are always some hurt and angry people when re-development comes along, but sometimes that is the ONLY answer.

We have a lot of political fighting over how to handle zoning and neighborhoods and housing. Why would 'cleaning up broadcasting' be any different?

 

[firepoint525]

Is that the station that actually operated from the home of the owner? One of my kids went on a church mission trip and they stayed in McKenzie or a neighboring town and she and a few others were hosted by a family who owned a radio station.... and the studios were in their home. If this was not the station, I guess you would knw which one it would have been.

Not WHDM, at least not when I was there. They were in a white cinder-block building a block or two away from downtown McKenzie. New owners might be operating it from a different location. I just don't know. Haven't worked for them in over 20 years.

 

[FredLeonard]

The difference is anybody can start a dress shop. Radio stations require licenses. AM radio stations occupy increasingly scarce bandwidth. Too many AM stations interfere with each other. In order to avoid interfering, they operate at low power and weird patterns which keep them from delivering a good signal to their markets. Sorry, I don't see keeping hobby stations on the air for the benefit of some rich person and whatever agenda he happens to have.

 

[TheBigA]

Clear Channel has donated several small AMs to non-profit minority groups. The FCC has been talking about ways to increase minority ownership of broadcasting, yet they haven't really come up with any proposals. The best way is offer incentives to current owners to donate their money-losing properties to minority operators. I think some owners are holding on to their frequencies in the hope of some FCC incentives that will be better than what exists now.

 

[ok walters]

You want to get rid of all of the AMs hanging on by a thread? Easy. Just enforce existing FCC regulations and 40% or more will disappear almost overnight. Most of those operations have serious maintenance and other issues so a visit from an inspector and the subsequent NAL and forfeiture notices that it would generate would clear out the "dead wood" quickly.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

You want to get rid of all of the AMs hanging on by a thread? Easy. Just enforce existing FCC regulations and 40% or more will disappear almost overnight.

But would that be "equitable"? In the cities and in the substantial regional markets, that plan might be a 'reasonable' bloodbath.

But are today's FCC technical requirements and regulations compatible with trying to "do radio" in places like Clinton AR, Mountain Grove, MO, Fairfield, IL, Brookville IN, Prestonburg KY and Bryson City NC?

 

[TheBigA]

You want to get rid of all of the AMs hanging on by a thread? Easy. Just enforce existing FCC regulations

There's a difference between what broadcasters want and what the FCC wants. The FCC wants MORE stations, not less. So they overlook and ignore lots of things, including CC's Aloha Trust.

 

[ok walters]

But would that be "equitable"? In the cities and in the substantial regional markets, that plan might be a 'reasonable' bloodbath.

But are today's FCC technical requirements and regulations compatible with trying to "do radio" in places like Clinton AR, Mountain Grove, MO, Fairfield, IL, Brookville IN, Prestonburg KY and Bryson City NC?

Equitable? Every owner knows the rules and accepted them when they got a license, so there is nothing inequitable about enforcing them. The FCC could just enforce public file, EAS, and studio manning requirements and that would probably do the trick. What is unfair about enforcing things that are easily kept in order? A quick survey of stations that are off the air without FCC notification would be another easily enforced rule that would clear some of the dead wood.

Running full power at night when not authorized is another easy one - know anyone doing that on a regular basis? Sure you do - so why not just enforce the existing rules before you try to reinvent the wheel? The chronic violators know there is almost no chance of getting caught so the violations continue - how fast would people drive if there was no speed enforcement?

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

Equitable? Every owner knows the rules and accepted them when they got a license, so there is nothing inequitable about enforcing them.

I think you are addressing what is equitable for the station OWNER.

I was addressing what is equitable for the COMMUNITY.

If you have a major metro area with 25 to 45 stations, then your logic could be front and center. The FCC simply needs to deal with a owner that can't, won't, refuses to deal with the rules and expectations.

But when you are considering how the rules and enforcement affect the COMMUNITY and we are talking about maybe a community with only one station, maybe it would be EQUITABLE for the community to have a seat at the table. If their station is owned by an licensee who seems to have "juvenile Delinquent Mentality" maybe there should be a mechanism that opens up the license for a new licensee. The way it works today, a licensee can take one of those stations to his/her grave if they wish, and the community stands by in ingnorance and helplessness.

 

[Art Landing]

Sure, give away unprofitable stations to minority groups, even though the they have no unique resources to sustain them. Then they can go form a non-profit 501 (c) (3). This will help add one more burden to the grant application pool because not enough minority (or other) businesses want to pony up to sustain a station no one listens to (including the targeted minorities). Makes a whole lot of sense - not!

The fact is that true local radio takes live bodies to run and must be integrated with the fabric of the community to develop an audience. I co-hosted a community activites program on an internet station sponsored by a local newspaper on Live 360. It was put together by a volunteer co-host (assisted by otherr volunteers he recruited) who was a zealot at getting great interviewees. He then put the broadcast segments on you tube for individual download. We also built an email data base of listeners who let us know they were out there.

For the few hundred who listened in it was very educational - but no revenue, no salary. Our spark plug producer was putting in 8-10 hours weekly for a one hour program and ultimately left because he needed to make a living. Were I forty years younger and not committed elsewhere I might have picked up the slack but that wan't feasible. The other volunteers were in similar straits and the program went on hiatus - the station mostly plays music today plus a few other locally produced segments with an audience base <100.

There are far more successful internet stations - but all those I'm aware of are tied to some sort of commercial enterprise that drives audiences to them. Magazine format radio from the "golden age" is not where the audience is today IMHO.

What we are talking about today is micro-broadcasting. If I-Heart would grant screened and approved internet non-music stations the same botique status it allows for would-be dj's things could change. The related commercials could be included in you tube downloads people can listen to via the reciever and time of their choosig. This could prove to be a winning combination.

 

[Small Market Guy]

If I-Heart would grant screened and approved internet non-music stations the same botique status it allows for would-be dj's things could change. The related commercials could be included in you tube downloads people can listen to via the reciever and time of their choosig. This could prove to be a winning combination.

Why would Clear Channel open up its streaming platform that it spent tens of millions of dollars building and promoting to people playing radio?