Re: Lowell Spinners Owner Angry Over WCCM Sale

["Bill O'Neill" <billo@shoreham.net>]

Mark Watson writes:

>    That leaves only one station left to pick up the Spinners games: WCAP.
> But will  WCAP owner Maurice Cohen bend to the Spinners' demands that the
> team chooses it's game announcers? Or will Drew Weber make an offer to buy
> WCAP? And can Drew Weber seek any legal recourse against Costa/Eagle if
they
> can't honor the last year of the contract? Should be quite interesting to
> see how this plays out.

The Spinners' owner, Drew Weber, may be running out of options.  His
holding-fast to Bob Ellis (formerly WLLH now WCCM) as a condition of
broadcast rights was a curious one from the very beginning.  Ellis ain't
bad, (not nearly as good as Ellis thinks he is) but is one guy worth blowing
off a 5 kW that clears Boston and south in night pattern for a 1 kW ten
miles up the river that (supposedly) reduces to a couple of hundred watts at
sundown?  Um, no? <gold star to forehead SFX>  And forget what's been
written here by this writer and others about how Lawrence and everything
beaming from it might as well be Lawrence, Kansas as far as Lowellians are
concerned.

If Weber isn't just posturing (towel firmly wrapped about his waist with two
sets of jockeys beneath) that he would have paid $3M for the kilowatt WCCM,
then much else that he says would have to be viewed with one eyebrow raised
for the time being.

Would WCAP accept $3M from the Spinners owner?  Note well:  It ALL comes
down to the source of EVERY dime fronted by a buyer.  If WCAP suspects that
the source of backers aren't in some sense worthy of purchase or if there's
the potential that a money source were particular past competitors (former
WLLH owner comes to mind) then fuggedaboudit.  The WCAP owner simply does
not need the money.  Much like the great story from Scott Fybush in this
edition of NERW about the Garden State signal just sold.  You get the
feeling it wasn't about the twenty million.  It's just that the owner was
ready.

Bill O'Neill