WBCN to sports at 98.5; WBMX to 104.1

[Dan.Strassberg]

Well, if Entercom were willing to take the same kind of 90% hit on
97.7 that Heftel and its successors took on the Newark/NYC 105.9, WGBH
or WBUR could get WKAF and the WCRB intellectual property for only $3
million. It would be interesting to hear how the population numbers
for 97.7 compare with those for any of the full Bs on the Pru. Scott
almost certainly knows the answer already, but I would not be
surprised to learn that WKAF's 60 dBu contour covered 70% of the
population within (say) WBCN's 60 dBu.

-----
Dan Strassberg (dan.strassberg@att.net)
eFax 1-707-215-6367

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Scott Fybush" <scott@fybush.com>
To: "Dan.Strassberg" <dan.strassberg@att.net>
Cc: "A. Joseph Ross" <joe@attorneyross.com>; "Boston Radio Group"
<boston-radio-interest@BostonRadio.org>
Sent: Wednesday, July 15, 2009 10:28 AM
Subject: Re: WBCN to sports at 98.5; WBMX to 104.1


> Dan.Strassberg wrote:
>> I think you mean WNYC-FM 93.9, which is going all talk. WNYC (AM)
>> 820
>> is already all talk. I suspect that WNYC A/F will simulcast because
>> I
>> doubt whether NPR/APM produce enough talk content to allow separate
>> programming in more than a few dayparts. Note that WBUR repeats
>> OnPoint and Fresh Air every weeknight (except for Friday, when
>> Radio
>> Boston pre-empts the 1:00PM umm, airing of Fresh Air). Of course,
>> there may be other Public Radio content sources, such as various
>> affiliated stations. I've heard, for example, that WHYY produces a
>> daily two-hour talk show that WBUR, at least, does not carry.
>
> As Garrett has already noted, 820/93.9 already split their simulcast
> during much of the talk portion of their day.
>
> There's plenty of content out there to be had - WNYC itself produces
> 4 hours of local talk each weekday with Leonard Lopate and Brian
> Lehrer, as well as the 2-hour "Takeaway" morning show in
> collaboration with WGBH and the Beeb. And even at that, WNYC doesn't
> currently carry some of the more prominent offerings, such as NPR's
> "Talk of the Nation" and "Diane Rehm." Rehm now airs on WNYE-FM, and
> TotN isn't heard anywhere in NYC.
>
> The WHYY show, "Radio Times," is a local show that's not offered for
> syndication, as far as I'm aware.
>
>> The economics of WNYC's spending $11.5 million for WQXR's
>> intellectual
>> property elude me, though. Like most public stations, WNYC is
>> always
>> pleading poverty. Given that 93.9 was already mostly classical, why
>> does NYPR think that, by acquiring WQXR's intellectual property,
>> moving it to a signal that has one tenth the power of that of its
>> former home, and converting the full B 93.9 to the news/talk format
>> that was already airing full-time on AM 820, it can get gifts of
>> even
>> the same amount as it used to get? Even though 93.9 is a
>> full-market
>> signal and 820 is not (at night, anyway), it would seem that the
>> only
>> way NYPR might break even on this move would be to operate 105.9 as
>> a
>> commercial station, as Chicago Pulic Radio does with classical
>> WFMT.
>> But WFMT has a big signal and 105.9 has a puny signal. Moreover, as
>> Scott has pointed out, under FCC rules, for 105.9 to be permitted
>> to
>> use translators to fill in the significant gaps in its coverage,
>> 105.9
>> must be noncommercial. Maybe NYPR believes that it can recoup the
>> cost
>> of the WQXR IP by operating 105.9 as a commercial station and that
>> streaming on the Web will allow it to fill 105.9's coverage gaps
>> without translators. Stay tuned; this is a fascinating and evolving
>> story!
>
> I think it's more fair to say that WNYC is paying $11.5 million for
> the 105.9 facility; the intellectual property is coming along for
> the ride (and if NYTCo is smart, they'll find a way to make the IP a
> donation to WNYC and end up with a nice tax writeoff as a result.)
>
> As for the signal, "puny" is relative. 105.9 is still a B1 from
> Empire. Care to take a guess at how much population is in the 105.9
> protected contour, versus how much in the protected contour of the
> full Empire class B signals such as 96.3?
>
> Ready?
>
> 16.8 million people in the full B contours, 13.2 million in 105.9's
> contour. (That's predicted contour; the real-world short-spacing
> issue with 106.1 on Long Island might take another 800,000 off that
> number.)
>
> Even so, I don't think the math is as bleak as Dan would make it out
> to be. $11.5 million for the 105.9 signal is a tremendous bargain
> compared to the sale prices of big-city FMs over the last decade or
> two. Don't forget that Heftel (ancestor of today's Univision Radio)
> paid a whopping $115 million for 105.9 back in 1998. It would be
> irresponsible for WNYC not to take advantage of a bargain like that.
>
> To put it in context, WNYC successfully raised $20 million over six
> years to acquire the 820/93.9 licenses from the city of New York a
> decade ago, and it raised $63 million between 2006-2009 to move out
> of the Municipal Building and into new digs on Varick Street.
> Raising $15 million (WNYC's goal to cover both acquisition and
> operational costs) to provide fulltime FM service for both the
> news/talk and classical audiences shouldn't be all that hard to do.
>
> To bring this back to Boston, incidentally, one wonders if either
> WGBH or WBUR are looking at doing a similar deal for what's left of
> WCRB, which would probably sell today for far, far less than Nassau
> paid for it.
>
> s