Re: WROL sold to Salem for $11 million

[dan.strassberg@att.net]

Sheesh! What happened to the collapse of station prices--
particularly AM-station prices? Moreover, WROL is a 
daytimer (Class D only about 75W at night--although the 
signal is excellent given the flea power).

1150 and 1260 each went for about $5 million, though 
this past Sunday on LTAR, Bob Bittner reported that 
Disney paid Hibernia a combined price of $49 million for 
1260 in Boston, 1450 in W Warwick-Providence, and 1550 
in Bloomfield-Hartford. That means that Hibernia turned 
its approximately $5 million investment in 1260 into 
something more than $30 mllion in what? three years?

I wonder whether Salem will move the WROL TX to the WEZE 
site. Such a move, at least for the night operation, 
might make sense. On the other hand, it might reduce the 
range of azimuths over which the signal reaches Boston 
via a salt-water path, so even though the TX would be 
closer to the center of the market, the effect might be 
to reduce, rather than increase the coverage.

With one or two more towers between the existing pair at 
the WEZE site and a change in COL to Malden, I suppose 
that WROL might be able to increase to as much as 1 kW 
at night--sending most signal due east. That would 
transform the station into a full-timer with a good 
night signal in many parts of Boston, though not 
necessarily a station that would provide better night 
service to most of the market than it provides at 
present.

For the technically curious, adding two towers to the 
WEZE site would produce for WROL an in-line array in 
which the towers were spaced 85.7 degrees apart. That 
would be a very nice array.

> According to All Access...