Charles River Broadcasting Puts Its Stations Up For Sale

[Laurence Glavin]

>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Shawn Mamros" <mamros@MIT.EDU>
>To: bri@bostonradio.org
>Subject: Re: Charles River Broadcasting Puts Its Stations Up For Sale
>Date: Fri, 28 Oct 2005 10:18:12 -0400

> 
> - The late Ted Jones' trust document "expressed hope" that the station
> remain classical, but according to Charles River Broadcasting chairman
> Mary L. Marshall, it is *not* an absolute requirement.  CRB is, however,
> requiring any potential buyer to put a classical format on "at least one"
> of the digital channels.
> 
> - Woody Tanger is meeting with CRB representatives today.  His Marlin
> Broadcasting might be interested in purchasing the company.  I suspect
> that may be the most likely way - indeed, probably the only way - for
> classical to remain on 102.5's primary channel.
> 
> -Shawn Mamros
> E-mail to: mamros -at- mit dot edu

I can't "celebrate" or make oracular comments until a something
definitive happens.  A representative of Charles River said
WCRB itself is profitable;  WFCC has high ratings but WKPE-FM
the last time I checked was the lowest-rated full-power station
on the Cape so I wonder how they're doing.  The two RI outlets
are almost irrelevant to the whole picture.  The piece of 
"news" in the Globe article is that Ted Jones's desires expressed 
in a covenant to his will were not chiseled in stone;  I've 
heard for years that if WCRB by itself were to start losing money,
it could then be put on the auction block.  (I suspect this
never applied to Charles River's other properties, but I can't
say for sure).  All this talk of "respect for Ted Jones's wishes"
didn't keep the owners from dumbing-down the station to a 
disgraceful extent.  It's definitely NOT a "class act".
An example of a real class act I could specify is Seattle's
KING-FM, which by the way, had a nearly identical 12+ rating
in the Summer Arb, and Seattle has a so-called "smooth jazz"
outlet which is the type of station that could siphon away
people looking for unobjectionable but seemingly "sophisticated"
music to play in offices or stores.  Another item in the
Globe story I find interesting is the fact that the Boston
Symphony Orchestra is a part-owner of the broadcasting concern.
Some Symphony Orchestras are now running recording companies...
maybe at least one of them could own the radio station that
broadcasts some of their concerts and do the job right!




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