Re: What Would You Do With WBOS?

["A. Joseph Ross" <lawyer@world.std.com>]

At 11:02 PM 3/5/00 -0500, Brian Vita wrote:


>I am surprised that corporate hasn't done anything yet to override the 
>lack of direction in Boston.  They have one station that does fantastic 
>(MAGIC), one that does OK (WKLB), one marginal WROR and two in the toilet 
>(WTKK and WBOS).  The amount of potential power that they have at their 
>disposal is incredible yet underperforming.

Well, WTKK is still new, and they've only just started promoting it in earnest.

>In the past I've been described by Bump as a crazy conspiracy theorist but 
>try this one on...
>If I remember correctly, the number of stations that a group can own in a 
>given market is determined by their percentage of total billing for the 
>market.  You pump up one station in the group to its max and only allow 
>the sister stations enough success so that they will not exceed the 
>percentage threshold.  Since you can't bill over that threshold, you've 
>reached your max income before selling off one of the other stations.  If 
>you sell off one of the other stations, you might be creating a potential 
>threat to your cash cow.  You have therefore secured your primary 
>station's position by tying up four other stations that could otherwise be 
>sold off to would be competitors.  That is to say that there are four 
>other stations that won't cut into your main station's numbers.

This sounds quite plausible.  I've talked before about how radio under the 
Telecommunications Act reminds me somewhat of what I've read of baseball in 
the late 19th century, when the National League was the only league, and it 
was possible for a team owner to own more than one team in the 
league.  Usually, a team owner who owned multiple teams would treat one as 
the championship team and the others as farm teams.


========================================================
  A. Joseph Ross, J.D.                                     617.367.0468
  15 Court Square                              lawyer@world.std.com
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