Re: re : Northeast Radio Watch : 6/11

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

At 11:56 PM 6/12/98 -0400, you wrote:
>
>Hmmm.  Maybe there's still hope for WILD getting WNFT.
>
I was thinking the same thing, but given Mrs Nash's quirky nature and
apparnetly somewhat tenuous finances, I kind of doubt it.

N John Douglas, a minority owner who owns or owned WBPS might be another
possibility. (Note that the sale of WBPS to Salem is off, but at the request
of the station's attorney--not of Salem as Scott reported.) But Douglas has
been selling stations like crazy of late, indicating either that he is
cashing out, is in financial straits, or is turning assets to cash so he can
make other buys. Certainly the selection of the urban AC format for WNFT
suggests that the trustee's thought was that he might be able to deal the
station to an owner who would actually program to the African-American
community. Douglas's stations have, by and large, not used Black-oriented
formats. With the exception of the few that program motivational talk,
Douglas's stations have mostly done brokered-time multi-ethnic programming
(and Douglas is selling his motivational-talk station in Chicago--WYPA).
Brokered-time multi-ethnic programming brings up the possibility of Arthur
Liu's Multicultural Broadcasting. Liu has been quietly acquiring quite a
chain of (mostly secondary) AM signals in major markets and is probably
making a fortune in this highly profitable niche. Could the Boston market
support a major competitor to Add Media? My guess is yes. But at some point,
a surfeit of ethnic signals should bring about a price war that kills this
golden-egg-laying goose.

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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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