WBPS sold

[Dan Strassberg <dan.strassberg@worldnet.att.net>]

When I read in the FCC actions maybe two weeks ago that Douglas was selling
WBPS, I did not recognize the name of the company that was buying the
station. Today, at about 6:30 when I got to my car and turned on the
ignition, WBPS came on and they were in the middle of reading one of those
FCC-required announcements that precedes a transfer of control--you know,
the one that lists all of the significant shareholders in the acquiring
company. Whose name came up right away? Stuart W Epperson, one of the two
largest shareholders of Salem Communications. And what was the last
shareholder to be mentioned? Salem Communications Inc. So, although Salem
isn't outright buying WBPS, Salem appears to be a major shareholder in the
acquiring company, as is at least one of Salem's largest individual
shareholders. If I'd reached my car a few seconds earlier, I mught have
heard the name of Edward Atsinger, who, I believe owns more Salem Stock than
Epperson does.

So what's the deal here? Salem owns so many stations already, why isn't the
company buying WBPS instead of taking a minority stake (along with major
individual Salem shareholders) in another company that is buying the
license. Is Salem going to maintain WBPS's existing format of leased ethnic
programming and the company doesn't want to mix the results of a station
that does not have a religious format with those of all of its other
stations that do? And is it not true that Salem has a few stations that
don't do religious programming but instead concentrate on right-wing talk?

Presumably Salem determined that this market could not support four
Christian stations and that's why WPZE was sold. But at almost the same
time, Communicom sold WNRB, so instead of the number of Christian stations
dropping from four to three, the number dropped to two. (I'm not including
WJLT in my count because the current signal isn't strong enough to make it a
major player in Boston, but when the new signal goes on the air, the story
should be quite different.) Or is it that Salem was eying WJLT's success in
MetroWest and decided to acquire its own signal there? WBPS transmits from
Ashland, in fact from the former site of WJLT's predecessors on 1060,
WGTR/WSTD/WTTP/WBIV.

Salem reportedly got over $6 million for WPZE, a fine price. On paper, WBPS
has better facilities than WPZE, but theory and practice are two different
things. WBPS's 25 kW day signal is so directional and comes from so far away
that the station has never been able to make a dent in Boston. And the 3.4
kW night signal, which because of the tall towers is theoretically more than
equivalent to 5 kW, gets so much interference from WLS that I've yet to
figure out where it's listenable. So I imagine that WBPS went for a good bit
less than $6 million.

Any clues as to what's in store for what ought to be (but surely isn't) the
east coast's "mighty 890"?

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Dan Strassberg (Note: Address is CASE SENSITIVE!)
ALL _LOWER_ CASE!!!--> dan.strassberg@worldnet.att.net
(617) 558-4205; Fax (617) 928-4205

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