Today's LTAR: KRTS, Seabrook TX (Houston Market)

[Laurence Glavin]

During today's LTAR (05/30 @ 11:00 am), Bob brought up 
the sale of currently-classical KRTS, licensed to 
Seabrook, TX, but considered part of the Greater
Houston ADI.  He mentioned the sharp increase in
the value of the station, even with low ratings and
a ranking well below the top 10 in town.  I've studied
KRTS a bit and there's a story with this station.
It's at 92.1, one of those frequencies formerly limited
to 6KW @ 328-feet.  That restriction pertains around
here:  WBOT, Brockton; WBOQ, Gloucester; and WHRB,
Cambridge won't be raising their wattage antime soon, in fact
probably never.  The 98.3 in Laconia, NH and 100.9 in
Westbrook, ME are somewhat more  powerful, but in
Texas, KRTS hit the jackpot, a class C operation with
100,000 watts.  With that kind of signal, it became a
very ripe plum for some conglomerate, even though
the transmitter is about 33 miles south of the city.
To compare, WKLB-FM 99.5 is about 30 mile NNW of Boston
with 30 KW at 666 (gasp!) feet, but is still a
factor in Boston.  The Hoston board on radio-info.com
says that a 92.3 north of Houston impinges on the signal a bit.  But this signal upgrade probably
accounts for the big uptick in the station's valuation.
I've perused their playlist, and they're an OK classical
station, a little less sophisticated than Seattle's KING-FM,
but way better that WCRB, Washington's WGMS and San Francisco's KDFC.  The Houston non-comm will have to do
better to match it.





____________________________________________________________
Find what you are looking for with the Lycos Yellow Pages
http://r.lycos.com/r/yp_emailfooter/http://yellowpages.lycos.com/default.asp?SRC=lycos10