WKOX, WRCA, WUNR at full power

[Glen Clark]

Hi Dan:

That silence you hear is me not disagreeing
with most of your conclusions.

- Glen

On Mar 17, 2009, at 8:04 AM, Dan.Strassberg wrote:

> Your guess is as good as mine. I have no inside info on the costs. But
> considering that the WKOX upgrade can be traced back a minimum of 14
> years, I suspect that the project cost many millions--maybe $10
> million or more. (1995 was when WNSW 1200 Brewer ME went dark. WKOX's
> then owner, Fairbanks Communications, had bought WNSW with the idea of
> taking it dark to allow the WKOX upgrade. I have no idea just how much
> before WNSW went dark Fairbanks had started negotiations to buy the
> station; but in my mind, the start of those negotiations marked the
> start of the project. That's when the legal and consulting engineering
> costs began to mount.) There were many, many proposed transmitter
> sites for WKOX before the new (and current) owner, Clear Channel,
> turned all of its energies toward the WUNR site. And then there was
> the long, long legal wrangle with the know-nothing Newton NIMBYs and
> even problems with getting N-Star to bring the requisite electric
> service to the site.
>
> Allocating the costs among three stations makes the cost per station
> seem less absurd and if the $10 million figure is even close, the $3.3
> million cost per station is probably still less than the cost of
> buying any of the three high-powered AM licenses--even in this current
> era of deeply depressed station prices. Nevertheless, the long and
> costly saga is an object lesson on the deep pockets and great patience
> required by the terrestrial radio business in the 21st century.
>
> -----
> Dan Strassberg (dan.strassberg@att.net)
> eFax 1-707-215-6367