From richard@chonak.com Fri Jan 10 10:10:10 2020 From: richard@chonak.com (Richard Chonak) Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2020 10:10:10 -0500 Subject: WGBH's Transmitter Power Increase In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <77c75ba2-a69b-c8da-690b-68d7b8861072@chonak.com> I chatted on-line with a WGBH rep this morning (Jan 10) and was told the power increase is expected to take place within "the next month or so". --RC On 12/31/19 8:53 AM, richard@chonak.com wrote: > Has any further news come since October about implementing the power increase for Channel 2 and Channel 44?--RC > Sent from my T-Mobile 4G LTE device------ Original message------From: Larry SochrinDate: Tue, Oct 22, 2019 10:37 AMTo: boston-radio-interest@lists.BostonRadio.org;Cc: Subject:Fwd: WGBH's Transmitter Power Increase >> Begin forwarded message: >> >> From: "info@wgbh.org" >> Subject: Re: WGBH's Transmitter Power Increase >> Date: October 10, 2019 at 9:44:42 AM EDT >> To: "lsochrin@rcn.com" >> >> >> Dear Viewer, >> >> I?m writing with good news. WGBH?s petition to increase its broadcasting frequency strength was approved by the Federal Communication Commission. >> >> The power of our transmitter will be increased from 6.9kW to 34.5 kW. We expect this increase to result in significant improvements to reception quality. Getting the right hardware, testing and installation brings us to approximately first week of January ? however it is very possible it will be completed sooner. >> >> Most importantly, I send this message with deep gratitude. Without you and the 1,200+ other viewers who took the time to directly provide their feedback to us, this petition would not have been approved. >> Thank you for your generous support of WGBH, and thank you for allowing us to share our excitement with you. I hope this boost will allow you to enjoy all of the shows with improved HD quality! >> >> If you are still unable to receive either channel, please get in touch with the Audience & Member Services team at info@WGBH.org or (617) 300 3300. >> >> P.S. We?ll be sure to keep you updated as our installation timetable becomes clearer >> >> Best, >> Zack Finn >> Associate Director of Development - Audience and Member Services >> >> 1 Guest St. Boston MA 02135 >> > From raccoonradio@gmail.com Mon Jan 13 07:57:44 2020 From: raccoonradio@gmail.com (Bob Nelson) Date: Mon, 13 Jan 2020 07:57:44 -0500 Subject: WMEX Marches On Message-ID: https://t.co/Ngag8pCo53?amp=1 Fybush's NorthEastRadioWatch has details on the March 9 return of WMEX 1510 Quincy (Spring ahead...) with details of oldies programming hours and personalities. You've waited all this time, you can wait two more months. From kvahey@gmail.com Thu Jan 16 04:00:30 2020 From: kvahey@gmail.com (Kevin Vahey) Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2020 04:00:30 -0500 Subject: Late Night - Early AM on WBZ-AM is now Mr. Computer Message-ID: It was inevitable but with iHeart laying off Bradley Jay, WBZ this morning is just now computer-driven babble. >From a beancounter's perspective, that was a logical call but it still hurts. The late Neil Rogers saw this coming over 30 years ago when he was screaming on air that 'The Cox Sisters' only cared about billable hours when he was working at WIOD in Miami. Those of us who now carry Medicare cards remember how important WBZ-AM was overnight even if there were no ratings to back it up. When I lived in Chicago in the early 80's WBZ was my lifeline to home as the station at night came as clear as any Chicago station. In the '70s before all-night TV and cable, it was estimated that Larry Glick could have 2-4 MILLION listeners in at night because of how powerful WBZ's signal was. I remember one night in the 90's I was driving on I-95 in North Carolina and did a scan on AM and only one station locked in - it was WBZ Let's be honest - radio as we knew it is dying and this once vibrant mailing list is as well because we have lost many long-time posters over the years. Being nostalgic I can't help of thinking that almost 30 years ago Jess Cain's farewell broadcast was a gala at the 'Top of the Hub' which on Wednesday announced it was closing. From 011010001@interpring.com Thu Jan 16 12:23:36 2020 From: 011010001@interpring.com (Rob Landry) Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2020 12:23:36 -0500 (EST) Subject: Late Night - Early AM on WBZ-AM is now Mr. Computer In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Thu, 16 Jan 2020, Kevin Vahey wrote: > Let's be honest - radio as we knew it is dying and this once vibrant > mailing list is as well because we have lost many long-time posters over > the years. Not dying, I think, but changing. Change is, if not constant, inevitable. Palaeontologist Stephen Jay Gould came up with the concept of "punctuated equilibrium"-- imperceptibly slow change punctuated by episodes of rapid, revolutionary change -- to describe the evolution of living things in nature. This description fits the history and progress of our own species as well. Eyeheart -- I refuse to use their ridiculous spelling -- is a publicly held company driven, as usual, by short-term financial goals that have nothing to do with serving Boston or any of the other communities they are licensed to serve. Announcers and journalists are just so many assets to be used and discarded as corporate management sees fit. Meanwhile, in the upper Connecticut valley, my brother and I are trying to do right by the communities we serve, using the scant resources we have. It's not easy. Rob From dlh@donnahalper.com Thu Jan 16 13:11:23 2020 From: dlh@donnahalper.com (Donna Halper) Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2020 13:11:23 -0500 Subject: Late Night - Early AM on WBZ-AM is now Mr. Computer In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Thu, 16 Jan 2020, Kevin Vahey wrote: > >> Let's be honest - radio as we knew it is dying and this once vibrant >> mailing list is as well because we have lost many long-time posters over >> the years. This is an ongoing problem. My friend Dan Kennedy used to have a very vibrant email list-serv, but now he's mainly on Facebook. I notice that some former posters to this list are also on Facebook (or Twitter). And yes, some have passed away, and some haven't posted in ages: I have no idea if they are still living or if they just don't feel the need to talk radio, given what has happened to it. -- Donna L. Halper, PhD Associate Professor of Communication & Media Studies Lesley University, Cambridge MA From 011010001@interpring.com Thu Jan 16 14:21:05 2020 From: 011010001@interpring.com (Rob Landry) Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2020 14:21:05 -0500 (EST) Subject: Late Night - Early AM on WBZ-AM is now Mr. Computer In-Reply-To: <003f01d5cca0$240c57c0$6c250740$@gmail.com> References: <003f01d5cca0$240c57c0$6c250740$@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 16 Jan 2020, Ron wrote: > Wasn't Gannett, Westinghouse, Hearst, CBS, NBC, ABC, Metromedia and the rest > "publicly held companies driven, as usual, by short-term financial goals"? They were publicly held companies, sure enough, but up until about 1980 the focus in such companies used to be the long term. Remember when AT&T had Bell Labs, and other companies like IBM had similar divisions, experimenting with new technologies and the like? > I'm sure stock price, dividends and such drove all those companies as well, > yet somehow they were able to service their communities, right? The narrow focus on "maximizing shareholder value" was originally proposed, if I remember right, at Harvard Business School in the mid seventies. It didn't catch on generally until about a decade later, and the deregulation of the radio industry during the 80s and 90s allowed it free reign in our industry. > Smaller, privately owned stations aren't doing much better. We are all blown by the same economic winds. > I think this has to do with the realities of the financial world, where once > valuable properties (assets) are now worth a pittance of what they were > purchased for. Blaming "publicly held companies" driven by their fiduciary > responsibilities is an easy excuse. Publicly held companies have obligations that privately held companies don't have; everything they do has to be reationalized in terms of shareholder value. A publicly held company can't, for instance, build a big rocket and send its CEO's car to Mars, as Elon Musk's privately-held SpaceX can. Nor can it employ people for their own sake, the sake of the communites they live in, or anyone else's sake but shareholders. > I think when the FCC allowed and Congress removed the ownership caps > (through the "Omnibus Telecommunications Act") set the stage. (Always watch > out for anything with the adjective "Omnibus" attached.) That is true, but the pressure on Congress and the FCC to change those laws and regulations was applied by Wall Street. Rob From obrienron2@gmail.com Thu Jan 16 14:07:04 2020 From: obrienron2@gmail.com (Ron) Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2020 14:07:04 -0500 Subject: Late Night - Early AM on WBZ-AM is now Mr. Computer In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <003f01d5cca0$240c57c0$6c250740$@gmail.com> >>Eyeheart -- I refuse to use their ridiculous spelling -- is a publicly held company driven, as usual, by short-term financial goals that have nothing to do with serving Boston or any of the other communities they are licensed to serve.<<< Wasn't Gannett, Westinghouse, Hearst, CBS, NBC, ABC, Metromedia and the rest "publicly held companies driven, as usual, by short-term financial goals"? I'm sure stock price, dividends and such drove all those companies as well, yet somehow they were able to service their communities, right? Smaller, privately owned stations aren't doing much better. I think this has to do with the realities of the financial world, where once valuable properties (assets) are now worth a pittance of what they were purchased for. Blaming "publicly held companies" driven by their fiduciary responsibilities is an easy excuse. I think when the FCC allowed and Congress removed the ownership caps (through the "Omnibus Telecommunications Act") set the stage. (Always watch out for anything with the adjective "Omnibus" attached.) -----Original Message----- From: Boston-Radio-Interest On Behalf Of Rob Landry Sent: Thursday, January 16, 2020 12:24 PM To: Kevin Vahey Cc: bri Subject: Re: Late Night - Early AM on WBZ-AM is now Mr. Computer On Thu, 16 Jan 2020, Kevin Vahey wrote: > Let's be honest - radio as we knew it is dying and this once vibrant > mailing list is as well because we have lost many long-time posters > over the years. Not dying, I think, but changing. Change is, if not constant, inevitable. Palaeontologist Stephen Jay Gould came up with the concept of "punctuated equilibrium"-- imperceptibly slow change punctuated by episodes of rapid, revolutionary change -- to describe the evolution of living things in nature. This description fits the history and progress of our own species as well. Eyeheart -- I refuse to use their ridiculous spelling -- is a publicly held company driven, as usual, by short-term financial goals that have nothing to do with serving Boston or any of the other communities they are licensed to serve. Announcers and journalists are just so many assets to be used and discarded as corporate management sees fit. Meanwhile, in the upper Connecticut valley, my brother and I are trying to do right by the communities we serve, using the scant resources we have. It's not easy. Rob From kc1ih@mac.com Thu Jan 16 14:36:22 2020 From: kc1ih@mac.com (Larry Weil) Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2020 14:36:22 -0500 Subject: Late Night - Early AM on WBZ-AM is now Mr. Computer In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > On Jan 16, 2020, at 1:11 PM, Donna Halper wrote: > > This is an ongoing problem. My friend Dan Kennedy used to have a very vibrant email list-serv, but now he's mainly on Facebook. I notice that some former posters to this list are also on Facebook (or Twitter). And yes, some have passed away, and some haven't posted in ages: I have no idea if they are still living or if they just don't feel the need to talk radio, given what has happened to it. > I?m still on the list, but I now live in Florida, about 25 miles north of Tampa. So I don?t have much to add since I obviously don?t get any of the Boston area radio or TV stations here, but I still look forward to hearing what is happening in my old stomping ground. I wish there was such a list for this area but there isn?t. There is a central Florida radio page http://www.cflradio.net/ but that is just for the greater Orlando area, and is just a news site, not a discussion site. Larry Weil Hudson, FL From 011010001@interpring.com Thu Jan 16 16:02:08 2020 From: 011010001@interpring.com (Rob Landry) Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2020 16:02:08 -0500 (EST) Subject: your mail In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: You can hear at least some Boston stations on http://radio.garden. Rob On Thu, 16 Jan 2020, Larry Weil via Boston-Radio-Interest wrote: > The sender's mail server does not allow the list to forward their > message unchanged due to misguided anti-spam measures. The original > message as received by the list is shown below. > > From joe@attorneyross.com Thu Jan 16 23:48:33 2020 From: joe@attorneyross.com (A Joseph Ross) Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2020 23:48:33 -0500 Subject: Late Night - Early AM on WBZ-AM is now Mr. Computer In-Reply-To: References: <003f01d5cca0$240c57c0$6c250740$@gmail.com> Message-ID: <67eb0fd2-5936-604d-a120-7182b9b5fae6@attorneyross.com> I think that shareholder value was always part of the obligation of corporate officers and directors.? It's something I remember hearing about in law school, in the course on corporate law, back in the late 1960s.? I seem to recall that permissive state legislation was necessary in order to allow pubic-spirited corporations to make charitable donations. What has changed, since at least the 1980s, is that value for shareholders used to be seen from a broader and longer-term point of view.? Now, it's hard to get beyond this quarter's bottom line. This is a problem in many parts of the current economy, and it's starting to get some pushback. On 1/16/2020 2:21 PM, Rob Landry wrote: > > > On Thu, 16 Jan 2020, Ron wrote: > >> Wasn't Gannett, Westinghouse, Hearst, CBS, NBC, ABC, Metromedia and >> the rest >> "publicly held companies driven, as usual, by short-term financial >> goals"? > > They were publicly held companies, sure enough, but up until about > 1980 the focus in such companies used to be the long term. Remember > when AT&T had Bell Labs, and other companies like IBM had similar > divisions, experimenting with new technologies and the like? > >> I'm sure stock price, dividends and such drove all those companies as >> well, >> yet somehow they were able to service their communities, right? > > The narrow focus on "maximizing shareholder value" was originally > proposed, if I remember right, at Harvard Business School in the mid > seventies. It didn't catch on generally until about a decade later, > and the deregulation of the radio industry during the 80s and 90s > allowed it free reign in our industry. > >> Smaller, privately owned stations aren't doing much better. > > We are all blown by the same economic winds. > >> I think this has to do with the realities of the financial world, >> where once >> valuable properties (assets) are now worth a pittance of what they were >> purchased for.? Blaming "publicly held companies" driven by their >> fiduciary >> responsibilities is an easy excuse. > > Publicly held companies have obligations that privately held companies > don't have; everything they do has to be reationalized in terms of > shareholder value. A publicly held company can't, for instance, build > a big rocket and send its CEO's car to Mars, as Elon Musk's > privately-held SpaceX can. Nor can it employ people for their own > sake, the sake of the communites they live in, or anyone else's sake > but shareholders. > >> I think when the FCC allowed and Congress removed the ownership caps >> (through the "Omnibus Telecommunications Act") set the stage. (Always >> watch >> out for anything with the adjective "Omnibus" attached.) > > That is true, but the pressure on Congress and the FCC to change those > laws and regulations was applied by Wall Street. > > > Rob -- A. Joseph Ross, J.D. ? 1340 Centre Street, Suite 103 ? Newton, MA 02459 617.367.0468 ? Fax:617.507.7856 ? http://www.attorneyross.com From obrienron2@gmail.com Fri Jan 17 01:28:14 2020 From: obrienron2@gmail.com (Ron) Date: Fri, 17 Jan 2020 01:28:14 -0500 Subject: Late Night - Early AM on WBZ-AM is now Mr. Computer In-Reply-To: References: <003f01d5cca0$240c57c0$6c250740$@gmail.com> Message-ID: <001f01d5ccff$4cf10b90$e6d322b0$@gmail.com> >> but up until about 1980 the focus in such companies used to be the long term. And it was in radio as long as the value of radio properties was going up. But when the value of radio stations started to drop, and advertising revenue dropped, people become more focused on the "short term" (and survival). >> That is true, but the pressure on Congress and the FCC to change those laws and regulations was applied by Wall Street. And it was up to our elected leader to read the bill, a bill that most of them thought was all about cell-phones. (This appeared to be one of those: " "We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it" moments.) -----Original Message----- From: Rob Landry <011010001@interpring.com> Sent: Thursday, January 16, 2020 2:21 PM To: Ron Cc: 'Kevin Vahey' ; 'bri' Subject: RE: Late Night - Early AM on WBZ-AM is now Mr. Computer On Thu, 16 Jan 2020, Ron wrote: > Wasn't Gannett, Westinghouse, Hearst, CBS, NBC, ABC, Metromedia and > the rest "publicly held companies driven, as usual, by short-term financial goals"? They were publicly held companies, sure enough, but up until about 1980 the focus in such companies used to be the long term. Remember when AT&T had Bell Labs, and other companies like IBM had similar divisions, experimenting with new technologies and the like? > I'm sure stock price, dividends and such drove all those companies as > well, yet somehow they were able to service their communities, right? The narrow focus on "maximizing shareholder value" was originally proposed, if I remember right, at Harvard Business School in the mid seventies. It didn't catch on generally until about a decade later, and the deregulation of the radio industry during the 80s and 90s allowed it free reign in our industry. > Smaller, privately owned stations aren't doing much better. We are all blown by the same economic winds. > I think this has to do with the realities of the financial world, > where once valuable properties (assets) are now worth a pittance of > what they were purchased for. Blaming "publicly held companies" > driven by their fiduciary responsibilities is an easy excuse. Publicly held companies have obligations that privately held companies don't have; everything they do has to be reationalized in terms of shareholder value. A publicly held company can't, for instance, build a big rocket and send its CEO's car to Mars, as Elon Musk's privately-held SpaceX can. Nor can it employ people for their own sake, the sake of the communites they live in, or anyone else's sake but shareholders. > I think when the FCC allowed and Congress removed the ownership caps > (through the "Omnibus Telecommunications Act") set the stage. (Always > watch out for anything with the adjective "Omnibus" attached.) That is true, but the pressure on Congress and the FCC to change those laws and regulations was applied by Wall Street. Rob From joe@attorneyross.com Fri Jan 17 01:45:29 2020 From: joe@attorneyross.com (A Joseph Ross) Date: Fri, 17 Jan 2020 01:45:29 -0500 Subject: Late Night - Early AM on WBZ-AM is now Mr. Computer In-Reply-To: <001f01d5ccff$4cf10b90$e6d322b0$@gmail.com> References: <003f01d5cca0$240c57c0$6c250740$@gmail.com> <001f01d5ccff$4cf10b90$e6d322b0$@gmail.com> Message-ID: Funny, I thought the price of radio stations was getting higher and higher after the Telecommunications Act. On 1/17/2020 1:28 AM, Ron wrote: >>> but up until about 1980 the focus in such companies used to be the long > term. > > And it was in radio as long as the value of radio properties was going up. > > But when the value of radio stations started to drop, and advertising > revenue dropped, people become more focused on the "short term" (and > survival). > >>> That is true, but the pressure on Congress and the FCC to change those > laws and regulations was applied by Wall Street. > > And it was up to our elected leader to read the bill, a bill that most of > them thought was all about cell-phones. > > (This appeared to be one of those: " "We have to pass the bill so that you > can find out what is in it" moments.) > > > > > > -----Original Message----- > From: Rob Landry <011010001@interpring.com> > Sent: Thursday, January 16, 2020 2:21 PM > To: Ron > Cc: 'Kevin Vahey' ; 'bri' > Subject: RE: Late Night - Early AM on WBZ-AM is now Mr. Computer > > > > On Thu, 16 Jan 2020, Ron wrote: > >> Wasn't Gannett, Westinghouse, Hearst, CBS, NBC, ABC, Metromedia and >> the rest "publicly held companies driven, as usual, by short-term > financial goals"? > > They were publicly held companies, sure enough, but up until about 1980 the > focus in such companies used to be the long term. Remember when AT&T had > Bell Labs, and other companies like IBM had similar divisions, experimenting > with new technologies and the like? > >> I'm sure stock price, dividends and such drove all those companies as >> well, yet somehow they were able to service their communities, right? > The narrow focus on "maximizing shareholder value" was originally proposed, > if I remember right, at Harvard Business School in the mid seventies. It > didn't catch on generally until about a decade later, and the deregulation > of the radio industry during the 80s and 90s allowed it free reign in our > industry. > >> Smaller, privately owned stations aren't doing much better. > We are all blown by the same economic winds. > >> I think this has to do with the realities of the financial world, >> where once valuable properties (assets) are now worth a pittance of >> what they were purchased for. Blaming "publicly held companies" >> driven by their fiduciary responsibilities is an easy excuse. > Publicly held companies have obligations that privately held companies don't > have; everything they do has to be reationalized in terms of shareholder > value. A publicly held company can't, for instance, build a big rocket and > send its CEO's car to Mars, as Elon Musk's privately-held SpaceX can. Nor > can it employ people for their own sake, the sake of the communites they > live in, or anyone else's sake but shareholders. > >> I think when the FCC allowed and Congress removed the ownership caps >> (through the "Omnibus Telecommunications Act") set the stage. (Always >> watch out for anything with the adjective "Omnibus" attached.) > That is true, but the pressure on Congress and the FCC to change those laws > and regulations was applied by Wall Street. > > > Rob > -- A. Joseph Ross, J.D. ? 1340 Centre Street, Suite 103 ? Newton, MA 02459 617.367.0468 ? Fax:617.507.7856 ? http://www.attorneyross.com From rbello@belloassoc.com Fri Jan 17 10:49:05 2020 From: rbello@belloassoc.com (Ron Bello) Date: Fri, 17 Jan 2020 10:49:05 -0500 Subject: Late Night - Early AM on WBZ-AM is now Mr. Computer In-Reply-To: References: <003f01d5cca0$240c57c0$6c250740$@gmail.com> <001f01d5ccff$4cf10b90$e6d322b0$@gmail.com> Message-ID: Prices of radio stations went up until the internet drained ad $$ from radio, newspapers and other traditional media Listeners across the country never generated ad $$ for WBZ. As margins have narrowed, the luxuries of old time radio can no longer be paid for. Even in Larry Glick?s day the volume of advertising was small in the over night. The world has and will continue to evolve. On Friday, January 17, 2020, A Joseph Ross wrote: > Funny, I thought the price of radio stations was getting higher and higher > after the Telecommunications Act. > > On 1/17/2020 1:28 AM, Ron wrote: > >> but up until about 1980 the focus in such companies used to be the long >>>> >>> term. >> >> And it was in radio as long as the value of radio properties was going up. >> >> But when the value of radio stations started to drop, and advertising >> revenue dropped, people become more focused on the "short term" (and >> survival). >> >> That is true, but the pressure on Congress and the FCC to change those >>>> >>> laws and regulations was applied by Wall Street. >> >> And it was up to our elected leader to read the bill, a bill that most of >> them thought was all about cell-phones. >> >> (This appeared to be one of those: " "We have to pass the bill so that >> you >> can find out what is in it" moments.) >> >> >> >> >> >> -----Original Message----- >> From: Rob Landry <011010001@interpring.com> >> Sent: Thursday, January 16, 2020 2:21 PM >> To: Ron >> Cc: 'Kevin Vahey' ; 'bri' >> Subject: RE: Late Night - Early AM on WBZ-AM is now Mr. Computer >> >> >> >> On Thu, 16 Jan 2020, Ron wrote: >> >> Wasn't Gannett, Westinghouse, Hearst, CBS, NBC, ABC, Metromedia and >>> the rest "publicly held companies driven, as usual, by short-term >>> >> financial goals"? >> >> They were publicly held companies, sure enough, but up until about 1980 >> the >> focus in such companies used to be the long term. Remember when AT&T had >> Bell Labs, and other companies like IBM had similar divisions, >> experimenting >> with new technologies and the like? >> >> I'm sure stock price, dividends and such drove all those companies as >>> well, yet somehow they were able to service their communities, right? >>> >> The narrow focus on "maximizing shareholder value" was originally >> proposed, >> if I remember right, at Harvard Business School in the mid seventies. It >> didn't catch on generally until about a decade later, and the deregulation >> of the radio industry during the 80s and 90s allowed it free reign in our >> industry. >> >> Smaller, privately owned stations aren't doing much better. >>> >> We are all blown by the same economic winds. >> >> I think this has to do with the realities of the financial world, >>> where once valuable properties (assets) are now worth a pittance of >>> what they were purchased for. Blaming "publicly held companies" >>> driven by their fiduciary responsibilities is an easy excuse. >>> >> Publicly held companies have obligations that privately held companies >> don't >> have; everything they do has to be reationalized in terms of shareholder >> value. A publicly held company can't, for instance, build a big rocket and >> send its CEO's car to Mars, as Elon Musk's privately-held SpaceX can. Nor >> can it employ people for their own sake, the sake of the communites they >> live in, or anyone else's sake but shareholders. >> >> I think when the FCC allowed and Congress removed the ownership caps >>> (through the "Omnibus Telecommunications Act") set the stage. (Always >>> watch out for anything with the adjective "Omnibus" attached.) >>> >> That is true, but the pressure on Congress and the FCC to change those >> laws >> and regulations was applied by Wall Street. >> >> >> Rob >> >> > -- > A. Joseph Ross, J.D. ? 1340 Centre Street, Suite 103 ? Newton, MA 02459 > 617.367.0468 ? Fax:617.507.7856 ? http://www.attorneyross.com > -- Ron Bello 160 Speen St - Suite 303 Framingham, MA. 01701 508.820.1100 From kvahey@gmail.com Sat Jan 18 02:35:18 2020 From: kvahey@gmail.com (Kevin Vahey) Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2020 02:35:18 -0500 Subject: Late Night - Early AM on WBZ-AM is now Mr. Computer In-Reply-To: References: <003f01d5cca0$240c57c0$6c250740$@gmail.com> <001f01d5ccff$4cf10b90$e6d322b0$@gmail.com> Message-ID: For what it's worth Morgan White is on WBZ early Saturday morning Back in the glory days of the 50K blowtorches, there was no way for these stations to monetize their signal as there was no way to measure the audience. On Sat, Jan 18, 2020 at 1:15 AM Ron Bello wrote: > Prices of radio stations went up until the internet drained ad $$ from > radio, newspapers and other traditional media > > Listeners across the country never generated ad $$ for WBZ. As margins > have narrowed, the luxuries of old time radio can no longer be paid for. > Even in Larry Glick?s day the volume of advertising was small in the over > night. The world has and will continue to evolve. > > > > On Friday, January 17, 2020, A Joseph Ross wrote: > > > Funny, I thought the price of radio stations was getting higher and > higher > > after the Telecommunications Act. > > > > On 1/17/2020 1:28 AM, Ron wrote: > > > >> but up until about 1980 the focus in such companies used to be the long > >>>> > >>> term. > >> > >> And it was in radio as long as the value of radio properties was going > up. > >> > >> But when the value of radio stations started to drop, and advertising > >> revenue dropped, people become more focused on the "short term" (and > >> survival). > >> > >> That is true, but the pressure on Congress and the FCC to change those > >>>> > >>> laws and regulations was applied by Wall Street. > >> > >> And it was up to our elected leader to read the bill, a bill that most > of > >> them thought was all about cell-phones. > >> > >> (This appeared to be one of those: " "We have to pass the bill so that > >> you > >> can find out what is in it" moments.) > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> -----Original Message----- > >> From: Rob Landry <011010001@interpring.com> > >> Sent: Thursday, January 16, 2020 2:21 PM > >> To: Ron > >> Cc: 'Kevin Vahey' ; 'bri' > >> Subject: RE: Late Night - Early AM on WBZ-AM is now Mr. Computer > >> > >> > >> > >> On Thu, 16 Jan 2020, Ron wrote: > >> > >> Wasn't Gannett, Westinghouse, Hearst, CBS, NBC, ABC, Metromedia and > >>> the rest "publicly held companies driven, as usual, by short-term > >>> > >> financial goals"? > >> > >> They were publicly held companies, sure enough, but up until about 1980 > >> the > >> focus in such companies used to be the long term. Remember when AT&T had > >> Bell Labs, and other companies like IBM had similar divisions, > >> experimenting > >> with new technologies and the like? > >> > >> I'm sure stock price, dividends and such drove all those companies as > >>> well, yet somehow they were able to service their communities, right? > >>> > >> The narrow focus on "maximizing shareholder value" was originally > >> proposed, > >> if I remember right, at Harvard Business School in the mid seventies. It > >> didn't catch on generally until about a decade later, and the > deregulation > >> of the radio industry during the 80s and 90s allowed it free reign in > our > >> industry. > >> > >> Smaller, privately owned stations aren't doing much better. > >>> > >> We are all blown by the same economic winds. > >> > >> I think this has to do with the realities of the financial world, > >>> where once valuable properties (assets) are now worth a pittance of > >>> what they were purchased for. Blaming "publicly held companies" > >>> driven by their fiduciary responsibilities is an easy excuse. > >>> > >> Publicly held companies have obligations that privately held companies > >> don't > >> have; everything they do has to be reationalized in terms of shareholder > >> value. A publicly held company can't, for instance, build a big rocket > and > >> send its CEO's car to Mars, as Elon Musk's privately-held SpaceX can. > Nor > >> can it employ people for their own sake, the sake of the communites they > >> live in, or anyone else's sake but shareholders. > >> > >> I think when the FCC allowed and Congress removed the ownership caps > >>> (through the "Omnibus Telecommunications Act") set the stage. (Always > >>> watch out for anything with the adjective "Omnibus" attached.) > >>> > >> That is true, but the pressure on Congress and the FCC to change those > >> laws > >> and regulations was applied by Wall Street. > >> > >> > >> Rob > >> > >> > > -- > > A. Joseph Ross, J.D. ? 1340 Centre Street, Suite 103 ? Newton, MA 02459 > > 617.367.0468 ? Fax:617.507.7856 ? http://www.attorneyross.com > > > > > -- > Ron Bello > 160 Speen St - Suite 303 > Framingham, MA. 01701 > 508.820.1100 > From raccoonradio@gmail.com Sat Jan 18 06:37:03 2020 From: raccoonradio@gmail.com (Bob Nelson) Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2020 06:37:03 -0500 Subject: WFNX sold to EMF Message-ID: WFNX 99.9 Athol MA, a simulcast of WXRV The River has been sold to EMF (K-Love) for $250,000 according to RadioInsight. I don't know if they're keeping the call letters which were on 101.7 in Lynn, "Boston Phoenix Radio" from 1983 to 2012. From rbello@belloassoc.com Sat Jan 18 08:19:09 2020 From: rbello@belloassoc.com (Ron Bello) Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2020 08:19:09 -0500 Subject: Late Night - Early AM on WBZ-AM is now Mr. Computer In-Reply-To: References: <003f01d5cca0$240c57c0$6c250740$@gmail.com> <001f01d5ccff$4cf10b90$e6d322b0$@gmail.com> Message-ID: PS - Punching buttons on my car radio on Woolbright Rd in Boynton Beach, FL recently produced a listenable WBZ on 1030 about a mile from the ocean. Why bother with the internet and the ability to listen to almost any radio station ? On Saturday, January 18, 2020, Kevin Vahey wrote: > For what it's worth Morgan White is on WBZ early Saturday morning > > Back in the glory days of the 50K blowtorches, there was no way for these > stations to monetize their signal as there was no way to measure the > audience. > > > > On Sat, Jan 18, 2020 at 1:15 AM Ron Bello wrote: > >> Prices of radio stations went up until the internet drained ad $$ from >> radio, newspapers and other traditional media >> >> Listeners across the country never generated ad $$ for WBZ. As margins >> have narrowed, the luxuries of old time radio can no longer be paid for. >> Even in Larry Glick?s day the volume of advertising was small in the over >> night. The world has and will continue to evolve. >> >> >> >> On Friday, January 17, 2020, A Joseph Ross wrote: >> >> > Funny, I thought the price of radio stations was getting higher and >> higher >> > after the Telecommunications Act. >> > >> > On 1/17/2020 1:28 AM, Ron wrote: >> > >> >> but up until about 1980 the focus in such companies used to be the long >> >>>> >> >>> term. >> >> >> >> And it was in radio as long as the value of radio properties was going >> up. >> >> >> >> But when the value of radio stations started to drop, and advertising >> >> revenue dropped, people become more focused on the "short term" (and >> >> survival). >> >> >> >> That is true, but the pressure on Congress and the FCC to change those >> >>>> >> >>> laws and regulations was applied by Wall Street. >> >> >> >> And it was up to our elected leader to read the bill, a bill that most >> of >> >> them thought was all about cell-phones. >> >> >> >> (This appeared to be one of those: " "We have to pass the bill so that >> >> you >> >> can find out what is in it" moments.) >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> -----Original Message----- >> >> From: Rob Landry <011010001@interpring.com> >> >> Sent: Thursday, January 16, 2020 2:21 PM >> >> To: Ron >> >> Cc: 'Kevin Vahey' ; 'bri' >> >> Subject: RE: Late Night - Early AM on WBZ-AM is now Mr. Computer >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> On Thu, 16 Jan 2020, Ron wrote: >> >> >> >> Wasn't Gannett, Westinghouse, Hearst, CBS, NBC, ABC, Metromedia and >> >>> the rest "publicly held companies driven, as usual, by short-term >> >>> >> >> financial goals"? >> >> >> >> They were publicly held companies, sure enough, but up until about 1980 >> >> the >> >> focus in such companies used to be the long term. Remember when AT&T >> had >> >> Bell Labs, and other companies like IBM had similar divisions, >> >> experimenting >> >> with new technologies and the like? >> >> >> >> I'm sure stock price, dividends and such drove all those companies as >> >>> well, yet somehow they were able to service their communities, right? >> >>> >> >> The narrow focus on "maximizing shareholder value" was originally >> >> proposed, >> >> if I remember right, at Harvard Business School in the mid seventies. >> It >> >> didn't catch on generally until about a decade later, and the >> deregulation >> >> of the radio industry during the 80s and 90s allowed it free reign in >> our >> >> industry. >> >> >> >> Smaller, privately owned stations aren't doing much better. >> >>> >> >> We are all blown by the same economic winds. >> >> >> >> I think this has to do with the realities of the financial world, >> >>> where once valuable properties (assets) are now worth a pittance of >> >>> what they were purchased for. Blaming "publicly held companies" >> >>> driven by their fiduciary responsibilities is an easy excuse. >> >>> >> >> Publicly held companies have obligations that privately held companies >> >> don't >> >> have; everything they do has to be reationalized in terms of >> shareholder >> >> value. A publicly held company can't, for instance, build a big rocket >> and >> >> send its CEO's car to Mars, as Elon Musk's privately-held SpaceX can. >> Nor >> >> can it employ people for their own sake, the sake of the communites >> they >> >> live in, or anyone else's sake but shareholders. >> >> >> >> I think when the FCC allowed and Congress removed the ownership caps >> >>> (through the "Omnibus Telecommunications Act") set the stage. (Always >> >>> watch out for anything with the adjective "Omnibus" attached.) >> >>> >> >> That is true, but the pressure on Congress and the FCC to change those >> >> laws >> >> and regulations was applied by Wall Street. >> >> >> >> >> >> Rob >> >> >> >> >> > -- >> > A. Joseph Ross, J.D. ? 1340 Centre Street, Suite 103 ? Newton, MA 02459 >> >> > 617.367.0468 ? Fax:617.507.7856 ? http://www.attorneyross.com >> > >> >> >> -- >> Ron Bello >> 160 Speen St - Suite 303 >> >> Framingham, MA. 01701 >> 508.820.1100 >> > -- Ron Bello 160 Speen St - Suite 303 Framingham, MA. 01701 508.820.1100 From dlh@donnahalper.com Sat Jan 18 12:47:11 2020 From: dlh@donnahalper.com (Donna Halper) Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2020 12:47:11 -0500 Subject: Late Night - Early AM on WBZ-AM is now Mr. Computer In-Reply-To: References: <003f01d5cca0$240c57c0$6c250740$@gmail.com> <001f01d5ccff$4cf10b90$e6d322b0$@gmail.com> Message-ID: <62a5bc2f-4557-4b01-9c58-5d1f2eff518c@donnahalper.com> On 1/18/2020 2:35 AM, Kevin Vahey wrote: > For what it's worth Morgan White is on WBZ early Saturday morning And Morgan told me he will continue to have weekend shifts. -- Donna L. Halper, PhD Associate Professor of Communication & Media Studies Lesley University, Cambridge MA From walkerbroadcasting@gmail.com Sat Jan 18 09:13:18 2020 From: walkerbroadcasting@gmail.com (Paul B. Walker, Jr.) Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2020 07:13:18 -0700 Subject: Late Night - Early AM on WBZ-AM is now Mr. Computer In-Reply-To: References: <003f01d5cca0$240c57c0$6c250740$@gmail.com> <001f01d5ccff$4cf10b90$e6d322b0$@gmail.com> Message-ID: Are you serious? Why bother? A.) Go a bit inland and that signal will drop off dramatically b.) Few people wanna go through the trouble or even know they can lsiten to far away AM's like that c.) You listening in FL does nothing revenue or listener wise for WBZ On Sat, Jan 18, 2020 at 7:11 AM Ron Bello wrote: > PS - Punching buttons on my car radio on Woolbright Rd in Boynton Beach, > FL recently produced a listenable WBZ on 1030 about a mile from the ocean. > Why bother with the internet and the ability to listen to almost any radio > station ? > > > > > On Saturday, January 18, 2020, Kevin Vahey wrote: > > > For what it's worth Morgan White is on WBZ early Saturday morning > > > > Back in the glory days of the 50K blowtorches, there was no way for these > > stations to monetize their signal as there was no way to measure the > > audience. > > > > > > > > On Sat, Jan 18, 2020 at 1:15 AM Ron Bello wrote: > > > >> Prices of radio stations went up until the internet drained ad $$ from > >> radio, newspapers and other traditional media > >> > >> Listeners across the country never generated ad $$ for WBZ. As margins > >> have narrowed, the luxuries of old time radio can no longer be paid > for. > >> Even in Larry Glick?s day the volume of advertising was small in the > over > >> night. The world has and will continue to evolve. > >> > >> > >> > >> On Friday, January 17, 2020, A Joseph Ross > wrote: > >> > >> > Funny, I thought the price of radio stations was getting higher and > >> higher > >> > after the Telecommunications Act. > >> > > >> > On 1/17/2020 1:28 AM, Ron wrote: > >> > > >> >> but up until about 1980 the focus in such companies used to be the > long > >> >>>> > >> >>> term. > >> >> > >> >> And it was in radio as long as the value of radio properties was > going > >> up. > >> >> > >> >> But when the value of radio stations started to drop, and advertising > >> >> revenue dropped, people become more focused on the "short term" (and > >> >> survival). > >> >> > >> >> That is true, but the pressure on Congress and the FCC to change > those > >> >>>> > >> >>> laws and regulations was applied by Wall Street. > >> >> > >> >> And it was up to our elected leader to read the bill, a bill that > most > >> of > >> >> them thought was all about cell-phones. > >> >> > >> >> (This appeared to be one of those: " "We have to pass the bill so > that > >> >> you > >> >> can find out what is in it" moments.) > >> >> > >> >> > >> >> > >> >> > >> >> > >> >> -----Original Message----- > >> >> From: Rob Landry <011010001@interpring.com> > >> >> Sent: Thursday, January 16, 2020 2:21 PM > >> >> To: Ron > >> >> Cc: 'Kevin Vahey' ; 'bri' > >> >> Subject: RE: Late Night - Early AM on WBZ-AM is now Mr. Computer > >> >> > >> >> > >> >> > >> >> On Thu, 16 Jan 2020, Ron wrote: > >> >> > >> >> Wasn't Gannett, Westinghouse, Hearst, CBS, NBC, ABC, Metromedia and > >> >>> the rest "publicly held companies driven, as usual, by short-term > >> >>> > >> >> financial goals"? > >> >> > >> >> They were publicly held companies, sure enough, but up until about > 1980 > >> >> the > >> >> focus in such companies used to be the long term. Remember when AT&T > >> had > >> >> Bell Labs, and other companies like IBM had similar divisions, > >> >> experimenting > >> >> with new technologies and the like? > >> >> > >> >> I'm sure stock price, dividends and such drove all those companies as > >> >>> well, yet somehow they were able to service their communities, > right? > >> >>> > >> >> The narrow focus on "maximizing shareholder value" was originally > >> >> proposed, > >> >> if I remember right, at Harvard Business School in the mid seventies. > >> It > >> >> didn't catch on generally until about a decade later, and the > >> deregulation > >> >> of the radio industry during the 80s and 90s allowed it free reign in > >> our > >> >> industry. > >> >> > >> >> Smaller, privately owned stations aren't doing much better. > >> >>> > >> >> We are all blown by the same economic winds. > >> >> > >> >> I think this has to do with the realities of the financial world, > >> >>> where once valuable properties (assets) are now worth a pittance of > >> >>> what they were purchased for. Blaming "publicly held companies" > >> >>> driven by their fiduciary responsibilities is an easy excuse. > >> >>> > >> >> Publicly held companies have obligations that privately held > companies > >> >> don't > >> >> have; everything they do has to be reationalized in terms of > >> shareholder > >> >> value. A publicly held company can't, for instance, build a big > rocket > >> and > >> >> send its CEO's car to Mars, as Elon Musk's privately-held SpaceX can. > >> Nor > >> >> can it employ people for their own sake, the sake of the communites > >> they > >> >> live in, or anyone else's sake but shareholders. > >> >> > >> >> I think when the FCC allowed and Congress removed the ownership caps > >> >>> (through the "Omnibus Telecommunications Act") set the stage. > (Always > >> >>> watch out for anything with the adjective "Omnibus" attached.) > >> >>> > >> >> That is true, but the pressure on Congress and the FCC to change > those > >> >> laws > >> >> and regulations was applied by Wall Street. > >> >> > >> >> > >> >> Rob > >> >> > >> >> > >> > -- > >> > A. Joseph Ross, J.D. ? 1340 Centre Street, Suite 103 ? Newton, MA > 02459 > >> < > https://www.google.com/maps/search/1340+Centre+Street,+Suite+103+%C2%B7+Newton,+MA+02459?entry=gmail&source=g > > > >> > 617.367.0468 ? Fax:617.507.7856 ? http://www.attorneyross.com > >> > > >> > >> > >> -- > >> Ron Bello > >> 160 Speen St - Suite 303 > >> < > https://www.google.com/maps/search/160+Speen+St+-+Suite+303+%0D%0AFramingham,+MA.+01701?entry=gmail&source=g > > > >> Framingham, MA. 01701 > >> 508.820.1100 > >> > > > > -- > Ron Bello > 160 Speen St - Suite 303 > Framingham, MA. 01701 > 508.820.1100 > From richard@chonak.com Sun Jan 19 01:02:14 2020 From: richard@chonak.com (Richard Chonak) Date: Sun, 19 Jan 2020 01:02:14 -0500 Subject: Late Night - Early AM on WBZ-AM is now Mr. Computer In-Reply-To: References: <003f01d5cca0$240c57c0$6c250740$@gmail.com> <001f01d5ccff$4cf10b90$e6d322b0$@gmail.com> Message-ID: This Saturday evening, WBZ radio presented an hour of discussion on marital "swinging", in what is apparently a sponsored show, at 8 p.m.: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/960-cindy-stumpo-is-tough-as-n-29001812/episode/swingers-part-2-55992166/?campid=homepage_featured_shows&pname=0&cid=%2F It seems "standards and practices" in the I-Heart era aren't what they used to be. From kvahey@gmail.com Sun Jan 19 02:18:18 2020 From: kvahey@gmail.com (Kevin Vahey) Date: Sun, 19 Jan 2020 02:18:18 -0500 Subject: Late Night - Early AM on WBZ-AM is now Mr. Computer In-Reply-To: References: <003f01d5cca0$240c57c0$6c250740$@gmail.com> <001f01d5ccff$4cf10b90$e6d322b0$@gmail.com> Message-ID: We all worried about how Entercom would treat 1030 and nobody saw the station swap with iHeart coming. 2 years later it appears iHeart was the winner in all the shuffling but that cluster will be very fragile when Matty decides it is time to go. On Sun, Jan 19, 2020 at 1:40 AM Richard Chonak wrote: > This Saturday evening, WBZ radio presented an hour of discussion on > marital "swinging", in what is apparently a sponsored show, at 8 p.m.: > > > https://www.iheart.com/podcast/960-cindy-stumpo-is-tough-as-n-29001812/episode/swingers-part-2-55992166/?campid=homepage_featured_shows&pname=0&cid=%2F > < > https://www.iheart.com/podcast/960-cindy-stumpo-is-tough-as-n-29001812/episode/swingers-part-2-55992166/?campid=homepage_featured_shows&pname=0&cid=%2F&autoplay=true > > > > It seems "standards and practices" in the I-Heart era aren't what they > used to be. > > > From martinjwaters@yahoo.com Sun Jan 19 07:37:51 2020 From: martinjwaters@yahoo.com (Martin Waters) Date: Sun, 19 Jan 2020 12:37:51 +0000 (UTC) Subject: Late Night - Early AM on WBZ-AM is now Mr. Computer In-Reply-To: References: <003f01d5cca0$240c57c0$6c250740$@gmail.com> <001f01d5ccff$4cf10b90$e6d322b0$@gmail.com> Message-ID: <67983996.15916597.1579437471789@mail.yahoo.com> Richard Chonak wrote:It seems "standards and practices" in the I-Heart era aren't what they used to be. ? ?Send your comnents to the FCC. But my bet is they are about as likely to deal with that (just don't say any naughty words) as they are to go back to limiting one company to owning seven stations. (My dream.)? From 011010001@interpring.com Sun Jan 19 18:58:03 2020 From: 011010001@interpring.com (Rob Landry) Date: Sun, 19 Jan 2020 18:58:03 -0500 (EST) Subject: Late Night - Early AM on WBZ-AM is now Mr. Computer In-Reply-To: References: <003f01d5cca0$240c57c0$6c250740$@gmail.com> <001f01d5ccff$4cf10b90$e6d322b0$@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Fri, 17 Jan 2020, A Joseph Ross wrote: > Funny, I thought the price of radio stations was getting higher and higher > after the Telecommunications Act. There was a speculative frenzy. Everyone thought they could buy a station, run it for six months, and sell it at a higher price to a bigger fool. The fools all bought their stations on credit, and those who ended up the greatest fools were stuck with debt loads they couldn't carry. At the height of the frenzy, my place of employment, WCRB 102.5 FM in Boston, was sold to Greater Media for $100 million. Three years later, when its successor, WCRB 99.5 FM, was sold to WGBH, it went for a mere $14 million. Rob From 011010001@interpring.com Sun Jan 19 19:16:13 2020 From: 011010001@interpring.com (Rob Landry) Date: Sun, 19 Jan 2020 19:16:13 -0500 (EST) Subject: Late Night - Early AM on WBZ-AM is now Mr. Computer In-Reply-To: References: <003f01d5cca0$240c57c0$6c250740$@gmail.com> <001f01d5ccff$4cf10b90$e6d322b0$@gmail.com> Message-ID: y On Sun, 19 Jan 2020, Kevin Vahey wrote: > We all worried about how Entercom would treat 1030 and nobody saw the > station swap with iHeart coming. I still don't understand why Entercom gave up WBZ but kept WEEI(AM), a station with zero ratings. Rob From kvahey@gmail.com Sun Jan 19 19:38:26 2020 From: kvahey@gmail.com (Kevin Vahey) Date: Sun, 19 Jan 2020 19:38:26 -0500 Subject: Late Night - Early AM on WBZ-AM is now Mr. Computer In-Reply-To: References: <003f01d5cca0$240c57c0$6c250740$@gmail.com> <001f01d5ccff$4cf10b90$e6d322b0$@gmail.com> Message-ID: Apparently the lease Entercom has with Disney for WEEi-AM does net them some income. You could also ask why iHeart would want WRKO given that they already had 2 other AM's in the market. Entercom also gave iHeart WZLX and WKAF and kept WAAF which now fewer listeners than 97.7. On Sun, Jan 19, 2020 at 7:16 PM Rob Landry <011010001@interpring.com> wrote: > y > > On Sun, 19 Jan 2020, Kevin Vahey wrote: > > > We all worried about how Entercom would treat 1030 and nobody saw the > > station swap with iHeart coming. > > I still don't understand why Entercom gave up WBZ but kept WEEI(AM), a > station with zero ratings. > > > Rob > From wollman@bimajority.org Mon Jan 20 00:27:27 2020 From: wollman@bimajority.org (Garrett Wollman) Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2020 00:27:27 -0500 Subject: Late Night - Early AM on WBZ-AM is now Mr. Computer In-Reply-To: <67eb0fd2-5936-604d-a120-7182b9b5fae6@attorneyross.com> References: <003f01d5cca0$240c57c0$6c250740$@gmail.com> <67eb0fd2-5936-604d-a120-7182b9b5fae6@attorneyross.com> Message-ID: <24101.14911.367388.294271@hergotha.csail.mit.edu> < said: > I think that shareholder value was always part of the obligation of > corporate officers and directors.? It's something I remember hearing > about in law school, in the course on corporate law, back in the late > 1960s. Company management and boards of directors have broad discretion in how they pursue shareholder value, and it's almost never possible to win a suit in Delaware Chancery Court claiming that a public company's management has decided on an inappropriate *strategy* -- you pretty much have to assert malfeasance, some sort of self-dealing, or objectively unreasonable waste. So that's not really the direction to be looking. The proximate cause, of course, is the Telecommunications Act of 1996, the brainchild of Massachusetts' own Ed Markey. But the changes in the Telecom Act would not have made such a difference without other changes in the business landscape. Starting in the early 1960s, in an environment of low interest rates, leveraged buyouts became popular as a way for ambitious business executives to create and grow conglomerates. In a leveraged buyout, one company borrows money, secured by the assets of a second company, with the intent of purchasing the second company and using the future revenues of the target to repay the debt. In order for this to be profitable, the acquiring company has to be able to squeeze more revenue out of the target, and various economists thought that this was a good thing because it would make companies more "efficient" and "discipline management". Conglomerates were considered good credit risks under the theory that one company with a diverse set of businesses would be more resilient to cyclical declines in any one of its businesses and thus better able to support debt repayment. Continental Electronics, one of the major transmitter manufacturers of the 1960s, was acquired by just such a company, Ling-Temco-Vought; LTV also owned other electronics firms as well as defense and commercial aviation businesses and Jones & Laughlin Steel. (You may have heard of a company called "LTV Steel", which went backrupt 19 years ago -- same outfit, after stripping all of the other businesses for reasons I'll get into.) In the 1980s, conglomerates began to be seen as very *inefficient* investment vehicles. In part, this was because the rise of mutual fund marketing to consumers meant that there was little value in intra-company diversification; most investors would get diversification through ownership in a fund, not individual stocks. But this period also saw a significant divergence in the market valuations of different industries with different expectations of future growth potential -- and a company which owned both slow-growing businesses and fast-growing businesses would receive unfavorable treatment from institutional investors who couldn't apply their simple formulas to set their price targets. This was also the time of the big "corporate raiders", who -- once interest rates came down after the inflation of the 1970s -- would use the LBO structure to perform hostile takeovers of companies specifically to dismember them and sell off the good parts (often while leaving lenders and employees holding the bag), often the same conglomerates that have been assembled by LBO in the 1960 and early 1970s. Other times, "activist investors" like Kirk Kerkorian would invest enough money in shares to buy their way onto corporate boards and force the management to adopt a similar strategy without ever owning the company. These strategies were aided by the change in stock ownership from a small (mainly upper-middle-class and wealthy) population of investors who owned individual stocks, to a large population of investors who owned stocks through mutual funds, held in the newly authorized 401(k), Keogh, and IRA plans. There are far fewer mutual-fund investment managers than there are companies, and most funds have income maximization or capital appreciation as a fundamental investment policy. The managers vote the shares held by their funds in accordance with this policy, and almost all fund managers will vote the same way (often after taking advice of an even smaller number of institutional-investor advisory services). So you had a situation in the early 1990s where the few remaining industrial conglomerates that owned broadcast stations were eager to find a way to sell them, and the few "pure play" broadcasting companies that could raise money on the stock market to buy those stations were at the national or market ownership caps and so could only acquire new stations if they had less-valuable stations they could spin off to someone else -- this significantly depressed station prices relative to their expected earnings. So too were a lot of family-owned broadcasting companies looking to liquidate, if only someone could buy their whole station group. (Likely many were spooked by the ten-year-long wind-up of RKO General.) Nobody in Wall Street had any idea that the Internet would be a thing, much less be a meaningful competitor to broadcasting. However, the new FM stations allowed under Docket 80-90 were starting to apply competitive pressure to incumbent market leaders, and a lot of markets ended up "over-radioed" in an environment where every FM station had to defend itself from two or three close format compatitors. The relaxation of the duopoly rule and the national ownership limits gave some headroom to station prices, and allowed owners to achieve some efficiencies by consolidating more stations' traffic, master control, sales, and engineering, giving some indication of how much additional cost savings might be had from greater consolidation. Then along comes the Telecom Act of 1996, which took most limits off (and out of the hands of the FCC), completely eliminating the barriers to consolidation -- and therefore to skyrocketing station prices. At this time, a broadcasting license still appeared to investors like "a license to print money" as the old saying went. Most people had dial-up Internet service if they were online at all, almost nobody had wireless data service of any kind, and it was thought to be totally impractical to deliver sufficient bandwidth at low loss and low latency that you could have even "toll-quality" audio over consumer Internet, never mind listenable stereo music. So these new "pure" broadcasting companies loaded up on debt in order to acquire more and more stations, now that they were allowed to, on the theory that economies of scale would allow them to wring ever-increasing profits out of a business that still seemed to have a sizeable technological moat around it. We had some discussions about this on this very list back in the late '90s! But 20 years of advancement in networking technology -- and especially the rise of smartphones with ever-increasing works-everywhere mobile data bandwidth -- bridged those moats much sooner than anyone in the business anticipated, and the bottom dropped out of station prices ca. 2013. This left the companies that had borrowed the most to expand the fastest -- Clear Channel/iHeart and Cumulus in particular -- extremely vulnerable to pressure from creditors to sell off assets, on pain of a possible involuntary bankruptcy filing by creditors whose collateral was now worth much less than the loans' value. That brings us to where we are now. Station prices have dropped back below their early-90s levels in many cases, and broadcasters' primary competition is now not from expensive satellite radio but from "free", advertising-supported, global, music-streaming services and podcast providers, many of them backed by deep-pocketed venture capital investors, with minimal talent or engineering expenses and cheaper music royalty payments than those that apply to radio. Religious broadcasters like EMF have already demonstrated that a national programming model can be extremely successful, and the rest of the non-commercial sector has settled on a model that for most listeners, most of the day, might as well be a single national service. With continued pressure to extract more profits from assets that are declining in value, it's only natural that a company like iHeart would see the rise of national and global programming services as a reason to eliminate as many inescapably local expenses as possible, including air talent. If the audience isn't demanding a local product, it hardly makes sense for a financially insecure company with a national footprint to be providing one. Meanwhile, smaller operators, especially those who didn't sell out into the boom and have no debt service, have an opportunity to prove that they can still make money providing a product that's tailored to whatever segment of their local audience actually wants that. (Note that I haven't even gotten into the nationalization of retailing, the decline of local advertising more generally, and the other revenue-side challenges that face any station looking to "go it alone" in today's media landscape, but at 1500 words already, this is getting a bit long and I have other things to write this weekend.) -GAWollman From wollman@bimajority.org Mon Jan 20 00:42:27 2020 From: wollman@bimajority.org (Garrett Wollman) Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2020 00:42:27 -0500 Subject: Late Night - Early AM on WBZ-AM is now Mr. Computer In-Reply-To: References: <003f01d5cca0$240c57c0$6c250740$@gmail.com> <001f01d5ccff$4cf10b90$e6d322b0$@gmail.com> Message-ID: <24101.15811.490871.873604@hergotha.csail.mit.edu> < said: > Apparently the lease Entercom has with Disney for WEEi-AM does net them > some income. > You could also ask why iHeart would want WRKO given that they already had 2 > other AM's in the market. WRKO has a historic, if much diminished, audience for the kind of right-wing talk that Premiere specializes in, and a much better signal than either of IHR's other AMs making it a much more valuable network clearance even with minimal audience. > Entercom also gave iHeart WZLX and WKAF and kept WAAF which now fewer > listeners than 97.7. It was all about the FTC limits on market revenue concentration, a condition for the CBS-Entercom deal to be approved by the government. Entercom could keep the poorly rated stations because they weren't bringing in enough revenue to matter. IHR could acquire the highly-rated stations because two of the four stations in their existing portfolio were complete duds, revenue-wise, so adding WBZ, WRKO, WZLX, and WKAF wouldn't put them over the FTC limit. -GAWollman From jibguy@aol.com Mon Jan 20 08:37:31 2020 From: jibguy@aol.com (Bob Bittner) Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2020 13:37:31 +0000 (UTC) Subject: Late Night - Early AM on WBZ-AM is now Mr. Computer In-Reply-To: <24101.14911.367388.294271@hergotha.csail.mit.edu> References: <003f01d5cca0$240c57c0$6c250740$@gmail.com> <67eb0fd2-5936-604d-a120-7182b9b5fae6@attorneyross.com> <24101.14911.367388.294271@hergotha.csail.mit.edu> Message-ID: <1398358458.16290998.1579527451012@mail.yahoo.com> WELL-WRITTEN, GARRETT !----BB In a message dated 1/20/2020 12:30:36 AM Eastern Standard Time, wollman@bimajority.org writes: < said: > I think that shareholder value was always part of the obligation of > corporate officers and directors.? It's something I remember hearing > about in law school, in the course on corporate law, back in the late > 1960s. Company management and boards of directors have broad discretion in how they pursue shareholder value, and it's almost never possible to win a suit in Delaware Chancery Court claiming that a public company's management has decided on an inappropriate *strategy* -- you pretty much have to assert malfeasance, some sort of self-dealing, or objectively unreasonable waste.? So that's not really the direction to be looking. The proximate cause, of course, is the Telecommunications Act of 1996, the brainchild of Massachusetts' own Ed Markey.? But the changes in the Telecom Act would not have made such a difference without other changes in the business landscape. Starting in the early 1960s, in an environment of low interest rates, leveraged buyouts became popular as a way for ambitious business executives to create and grow conglomerates.? In a leveraged buyout, one company borrows money, secured by the assets of a second company, with the intent of purchasing the second company and using the future revenues of the target to repay the debt.? In order for this to be profitable, the acquiring company has to be able to squeeze more revenue out of the target, and various economists thought that this was a good thing because it would make companies more "efficient" and "discipline management".? Conglomerates were considered good credit risks under the theory that one company with a diverse set of businesses would be more resilient to cyclical declines in any one of its businesses and thus better able to support debt repayment. Continental Electronics, one of the major transmitter manufacturers of the 1960s, was acquired by just such a company, Ling-Temco-Vought; LTV also owned other electronics firms as well as defense and commercial aviation businesses and Jones & Laughlin Steel.? (You may have heard of a company called "LTV Steel", which went backrupt 19 years ago -- same outfit, after stripping all of the other businesses for reasons I'll get into.) In the 1980s, conglomerates began to be seen as very *inefficient* investment vehicles.? In part, this was because the rise of mutual fund marketing to consumers meant that there was little value in intra-company diversification; most investors would get diversification through ownership in a fund, not individual stocks. But this period also saw a significant divergence in the market valuations of different industries with different expectations of future growth potential -- and a company which owned both slow-growing businesses and fast-growing businesses would receive unfavorable treatment from institutional investors who couldn't apply their simple formulas to set their price targets. This was also the time of the big "corporate raiders", who -- once interest rates came down after the inflation of the 1970s -- would use the LBO structure to perform hostile takeovers of companies specifically to dismember them and sell off the good parts (often while leaving lenders and employees holding the bag), often the same conglomerates that have been assembled by LBO in the 1960 and early 1970s.? Other times, "activist investors" like Kirk Kerkorian would invest enough money in shares to buy their way onto corporate boards and force the management to adopt a similar strategy without ever owning the company. These strategies were aided by the change in stock ownership from a small (mainly upper-middle-class and wealthy) population of investors who owned individual stocks, to a large population of investors who owned stocks through mutual funds, held in the newly authorized 401(k), Keogh, and IRA plans.? There are far fewer mutual-fund investment managers than there are companies, and most funds have income maximization or capital appreciation as a fundamental investment policy.? The managers vote the shares held by their funds in accordance with this policy, and almost all fund managers will vote the same way (often after taking advice of an even smaller number of institutional-investor advisory services). So you had a situation in the early 1990s where the few remaining industrial conglomerates that owned broadcast stations were eager to find a way to sell them, and the few "pure play" broadcasting companies that could raise money on the stock market to buy those stations were at the national or market ownership caps and so could only acquire new stations if they had less-valuable stations they could spin off to someone else -- this significantly depressed station prices relative to their expected earnings.? So too were a lot of family-owned broadcasting companies looking to liquidate, if only someone could buy their whole station group.? (Likely many were spooked by the ten-year-long wind-up of RKO General.) Nobody in Wall Street had any idea that the Internet would be a thing, much less be a meaningful competitor to broadcasting.? However, the new FM stations allowed under Docket 80-90 were starting to apply competitive pressure to incumbent market leaders, and a lot of markets ended up "over-radioed" in an environment where every FM station had to defend itself from two or three close format compatitors.? The relaxation of the duopoly rule and the national ownership limits gave some headroom to station prices, and allowed owners to achieve some efficiencies by consolidating more stations' traffic, master control, sales, and engineering, giving some indication of how much additional cost savings might be had from greater consolidation. Then along comes the Telecom Act of 1996, which took most limits off (and out of the hands of the FCC), completely eliminating the barriers to consolidation -- and therefore to skyrocketing station prices.? At this time, a broadcasting license still appeared to investors like "a license to print money" as the old saying went.? Most people had dial-up Internet service if they were online at all, almost nobody had wireless data service of any kind, and it was thought to be totally impractical to deliver sufficient bandwidth at low loss and low latency that you could have even "toll-quality" audio over consumer Internet, never mind listenable stereo music. So these new "pure" broadcasting companies loaded up on debt in order to acquire more and more stations, now that they were allowed to, on the theory that economies of scale would allow them to wring ever-increasing profits out of a business that still seemed to have a sizeable technological moat around it.? We had some discussions about this on this very list back in the late '90s!? But 20 years of advancement in networking technology -- and especially the rise of smartphones with ever-increasing works-everywhere mobile data bandwidth -- bridged those moats much sooner than anyone in the business anticipated, and the bottom dropped out of station prices ca. 2013.? This left the companies that had borrowed the most to expand the fastest -- Clear Channel/iHeart and Cumulus in particular -- extremely vulnerable to pressure from creditors to sell off assets, on pain of a possible involuntary bankruptcy filing by creditors whose collateral was now worth much less than the loans' value. That brings us to where we are now.? Station prices have dropped back below their early-90s levels in many cases, and broadcasters' primary competition is now not from expensive satellite radio but from "free", advertising-supported, global, music-streaming services and podcast providers, many of them backed by deep-pocketed venture capital investors, with minimal talent or engineering expenses and cheaper music royalty payments than those that apply to radio.? Religious broadcasters like EMF have already demonstrated that a national programming model can be extremely successful, and the rest of the non-commercial sector has settled on a model that for most listeners, most of the day, might as well be a single national service.? With continued pressure to extract more profits from assets that are declining in value, it's only natural that a company like iHeart would see the rise of national and global programming services as a reason to eliminate as many inescapably local expenses as possible, including air talent.? If the audience isn't demanding a local product, it hardly makes sense for a financially insecure company with a national footprint to be providing one. Meanwhile, smaller operators, especially those who didn't sell out into the boom and have no debt service, have an opportunity to prove that they can still make money providing a product that's tailored to whatever segment of their local audience actually wants that. (Note that I haven't even gotten into the nationalization of retailing, the decline of local advertising more generally, and the other revenue-side challenges that face any station looking to "go it alone" in today's media landscape, but at 1500 words already, this is getting a bit long and I have other things to write this weekend.) -GAWollman From obrienron2@gmail.com Sun Jan 19 23:35:10 2020 From: obrienron2@gmail.com (Ron) Date: Sun, 19 Jan 2020 23:35:10 -0500 Subject: Late Night - Early AM on WBZ-AM is now Mr. Computer In-Reply-To: References: <003f01d5cca0$240c57c0$6c250740$@gmail.com> <001f01d5ccff$4cf10b90$e6d322b0$@gmail.com> Message-ID: <008d01d5cf4b$005c3f40$0114bdc0$@gmail.com> >> WCRB 102.5 FM in Boston, was sold to Greater Media for $100 million. And that was for ONE station. How many years later did the entire Gr Media company sell for, what, $200-220 Million? Reminds me of the mortgage crisis, when people were underwater with their loans, trying to meet the mortgage payments. Inevitably, someone who see their peeling pain and deduce that these people "don't care about their property". -----Original Message----- From: Boston-Radio-Interest On Behalf Of Rob Landry Sent: Sunday, January 19, 2020 6:58 PM To: A Joseph Ross Cc: boston-radio-interest@lists.BostonRadio.org Subject: Re: Late Night - Early AM on WBZ-AM is now Mr. Computer On Fri, 17 Jan 2020, A Joseph Ross wrote: > Funny, I thought the price of radio stations was getting higher and > higher after the Telecommunications Act. There was a speculative frenzy. Everyone thought they could buy a station, run it for six months, and sell it at a higher price to a bigger fool. The fools all bought their stations on credit, and those who ended up the greatest fools were stuck with debt loads they couldn't carry. At the height of the frenzy, my place of employment, WCRB 102.5 FM in Boston, was sold to Greater Media for $100 million. Three years later, when its successor, WCRB 99.5 FM, was sold to WGBH, it went for a mere $14 million. Rob From kvahey@gmail.com Tue Jan 21 04:42:00 2020 From: kvahey@gmail.com (Kevin Vahey) Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2020 04:42:00 -0500 Subject: Late Night - Early AM on WBZ-AM is now Mr. Computer In-Reply-To: <008d01d5cf4b$005c3f40$0114bdc0$@gmail.com> References: <003f01d5cca0$240c57c0$6c250740$@gmail.com> <001f01d5ccff$4cf10b90$e6d322b0$@gmail.com> <008d01d5cf4b$005c3f40$0114bdc0$@gmail.com> Message-ID: In 1975, Dick Richmond had a meeting with Red Sox owner Tom Yawkey who was livid about the format change on WHDH-850 from MOR to soft Top-40. Richmond happily agreed to make 1510 a MOR station to get the Red Sox contract which in turn increased the sale value of the station - Incredablily the switched happened at the end of the 1975 regular season and the Red Sox postseason games moved to 1510. That was not a major issue for the first 2 playoff games at Fenway which were played in the afternoon but Game 3 was at night and the WMEX signal became a big issue. But Richmond worked out a lease deal with WWEL (107.9) and fans of that era begrudgingly migrated to FM. Richmond then sold the station to Mariner Communications who owned WLW-AM in Cincinnati who in turn sold out to Jaycor that would become Clear Channel and now iHeart. On Mon, Jan 20, 2020 at 9:50 PM Ron wrote: > >> WCRB 102.5 FM in Boston, was sold to Greater Media for $100 million. > > And that was for ONE station. > > How many years later did the entire Gr Media company sell for, what, > $200-220 Million? > > Reminds me of the mortgage crisis, when people were underwater with their > loans, trying to meet the mortgage payments. Inevitably, someone who see > their peeling pain and deduce that these people "don't care about their > property". > > > > -----Original Message----- > From: Boston-Radio-Interest > On Behalf Of Rob > Landry > Sent: Sunday, January 19, 2020 6:58 PM > To: A Joseph Ross > Cc: boston-radio-interest@lists.BostonRadio.org > Subject: Re: Late Night - Early AM on WBZ-AM is now Mr. Computer > > > > On Fri, 17 Jan 2020, A Joseph Ross wrote: > > > Funny, I thought the price of radio stations was getting higher and > > higher after the Telecommunications Act. > > There was a speculative frenzy. Everyone thought they could buy a station, > run it for six months, and sell it at a higher price to a bigger fool. The > fools all bought their stations on credit, and those who ended up the > greatest fools were stuck with debt loads they couldn't carry. > > At the height of the frenzy, my place of employment, WCRB 102.5 FM in > Boston, was sold to Greater Media for $100 million. Three years later, when > its successor, WCRB 99.5 FM, was sold to WGBH, it went for a mere $14 > million. > > > Rob > > From geo.allen@comcast.net Tue Jan 21 12:36:17 2020 From: geo.allen@comcast.net (George Allen) Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2020 12:36:17 -0500 Subject: WGBH/WGBX/WBTS [and WFXZ] Message-ID: <202001211809.00LI9G6h024971@isfahel.bostonradio.org> Apologies if it's already been covered here, but I finally figured out what's where with RF Ch. 32 [WGBX]. 3 different station call letters on one RF channel - no wonder I'm confused. 1 HD, and 6 subchannels with low bitrates for them. https://rabbitears.info/market.php?request=print_station&facility_id=72098 Does anyone know how much WBTS/NBC-10 pays [ongoing?] WGBH for use of the RF-32 HD slot? What's with the subchannel dimensions of 704/480? How does that become 16:9? I'm missing something here. The same info for RF-5, where both WGBH and WGBX HD [and WFXZ] live: https://rabbitears.info/market.php?request=print_station&facility_id=72099 I suppose that's worth the $162 million WGBH got for moving to VHF-low. Did that net them more than taking VHF-hi would have? https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DA-17-314A2.pdf [this link has been posted here before] Add another $57 million for WGBY's move to VHF-high [RF-13]. https://rabbitears.info/market.php?request=print_station&facility_id=72096 Hopefully the 4.9x power increase [later this month maybe?] will be enough for my rabbit ears on a Terk HD-TVA. I can see the d@mn tower from my living room in Swampscott, and can just barely get them with the ears fully extended [visually messy...]. All these decisions by WGBH to cash out spectrum were probably made before cord-cutting became much of a thing. Yes, I can get low-def 2-1/44-1 on RF-32, but on a decent large-screen 4k TV the difference is obvious. George From geo.allen@comcast.net Tue Jan 21 14:50:13 2020 From: geo.allen@comcast.net (George Allen) Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2020 14:50:13 -0500 Subject: WGBH/WGBX/WBTS [and WFXZ] In-Reply-To: References: <202001211809.00LI9G6h024971@isfahel.bostonradio.org> Message-ID: <202001211953.00LJr1Ts063914@hergotha.csail.mit.edu> Scott - interesting perspective, which I did not have. Thanks! At 01:49 PM 1/21/2020, Scott Fybush wrote: WGBH is playing a long game. When ATSC 3 becomes a reality, a few things will happen: 1. The low-VHF signal on 5 will become the ATSC 3 test bed. Anyone using ATSC1 will be watching WGBX for as long as ATSC1 lasts, because it will be the "lighthouse" ATSC1 signal for WGBH, WGBX and WBTS. 2. The ATSC3 signal on RF 5 will come in better than it does now in ATSC1. ATSC3 is just more robust, and can carry more data. No, your current TV can't pick it up, but cheap tuners will be out there in abundance in a year or two. 3. In a few more years, when the move to ATSC3 is complete, WGBH will have lots of options. There will be enough data on the WGBX RF32 signal to carry everything - 2.1, 44.1, WBTS, WFXZ - and then some. They could move everything there and use the RF5 signal for new programming and services.? Or they could find that low-V works decently for ATSC3 and leave some services there. They're thinking way ahead. On Tue, Jan 21, 2020, 1:10 PM George Allen wrote: Apologies if it's already been covered here, but I finally figured out what's where with RF Ch. 32 [WGBX].? 3 different station call letters on one RF channel - no wonder I'm confused.? 1 HD, and 6 subchannels with low bitrates for them. https://rabbitears.info/market.php?request=print_station&facility_id=72098 Does anyone know how much WBTS/NBC-10 pays [ongoing?] WGBH for use of the RF-32 HD slot? What's with the subchannel dimensions of 704/480? How does that become 16:9?? I'm missing something here. The same info for RF-5, where both WGBH and WGBX HD [and WFXZ] live: https://rabbitears.info/market.php?request=print_station&facility_id=72099 I suppose that's worth the $162 million WGBH got for moving to VHF-low.? Did that net them more than taking VHF-hi would have? https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DA-17-314A2.pdf [this link has been posted here before] Add another $57 million for WGBY's move to VHF-high [RF-13]. https://rabbitears.info/market.php?request=print_station&facility_id=72096 Hopefully the 4.9x power increase [later this month maybe?] will be enough for my rabbit ears on a Terk HD-TVA.? I can see the d@mn tower from my living room in Swampscott, and can just barely get them with the ears fully extended [visually messy...].? All these decisions by WGBH to cash out spectrum were probably made before cord-cutting became much of a thing.? Yes, I can get low-def 2-1/44-1 on RF-32, but on a decent large-screen 4k TV the difference is obvious. From joe@attorneyross.com Tue Jan 21 19:38:44 2020 From: joe@attorneyross.com (A. Joseph Ross) Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2020 19:38:44 -0500 Subject: WGBH/WGBX/WBTS [and WFXZ] In-Reply-To: <202001211953.00LJr1Ts063914@hergotha.csail.mit.edu> References: <202001211809.00LI9G6h024971@isfahel.bostonradio.org> <202001211953.00LJr1Ts063914@hergotha.csail.mit.edu> Message-ID: <052f403f-931a-61ad-daee-7c96ef612bac@attorneyross.com> What I'd like to know is what happens with people who still have analog TV sets.? There are converters from ATSC1 digital to analog, but I suspect there will be no converters from ATSC3 to analog.? Will people have to/be able to use two converters? On 1/21/2020 2:50 PM, George Allen wrote: > Scott - interesting perspective, which I did not have.? Thanks! > > > At 01:49 PM 1/21/2020, Scott Fybush wrote: > WGBH is playing a long game. > > When ATSC 3 becomes a reality, a few things will happen: > > 1. The low-VHF signal on 5 will become the ATSC 3 test bed. Anyone > using ATSC1 will be watching WGBX for as long as ATSC1 lasts, because > it will be the "lighthouse" ATSC1 signal for WGBH, WGBX and WBTS. > > 2. The ATSC3 signal on RF 5 will come in better than it does now in > ATSC1. ATSC3 is just more robust, and can carry more data. No, your > current TV can't pick it up, but cheap tuners will be out there in > abundance in a year or two. > > 3. In a few more years, when the move to ATSC3 is complete, WGBH will > have lots of options. There will be enough data on the WGBX RF32 > signal to carry everything - 2.1, 44.1, WBTS, WFXZ - and then some. > They could move everything there and use the RF5 signal for new > programming and services.?? Or they could find that low-V works > decently for ATSC3 and leave some services there. > > They're thinking way ahead. > > > On Tue, Jan 21, 2020, 1:10 PM George Allen wrote: > Apologies if it's already been covered here, but I finally figured > out what's where with RF Ch. 32 [WGBX].?? 3 different station call > letters on one RF channel - no wonder I'm confused.?? 1 HD, and 6 > subchannels with low bitrates for them. > https://rabbitears.info/market.php?request=print_station&facility_id=72098 > > > Does anyone know how much WBTS/NBC-10 pays [ongoing?] WGBH for use of > the RF-32 HD slot? > > What's with the subchannel dimensions of 704/480? How does that > become 16:9??? I'm missing something here. > > The same info for RF-5, where both WGBH and WGBX HD [and WFXZ] live: > https://rabbitears.info/market.php?request=print_station&facility_id=72099 > > > I suppose that's worth the $162 million WGBH got for moving to > VHF-low.?? Did that net them more than taking VHF-hi would have? > https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DA-17-314A2.pdf [this link > has been posted here before] > Add another $57 million for WGBY's move to VHF-high [RF-13]. > https://rabbitears.info/market.php?request=print_station&facility_id=72096 > > > Hopefully the 4.9x power increase [later this month maybe?] will be > enough for my rabbit ears on a Terk HD-TVA.?? I can see the d@mn tower > from my living room in Swampscott, and can just barely get them with > the ears fully extended [visually messy...].?? All these decisions by > WGBH to cash out spectrum were probably made before cord-cutting > became much of a thing.?? Yes, I can get low-def 2-1/44-1 on RF-32, > but on a decent large-screen 4k TV the difference is obvious. > > > -- A. Joseph Ross, J.D. ? 1340 Centre Street, Suite 103 ? Newton, MA 02459-2004 617.367.0468 ? Fx: 617.507.7856 ? http://www.attorneyross.com From scott@fybush.com Tue Jan 21 21:55:26 2020 From: scott@fybush.com (Scott Fybush) Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2020 21:55:26 -0500 Subject: WGBH/WGBX/WBTS [and WFXZ] In-Reply-To: <052f403f-931a-61ad-daee-7c96ef612bac@attorneyross.com> References: <202001211809.00LI9G6h024971@isfahel.bostonradio.org> <202001211953.00LJr1Ts063914@hergotha.csail.mit.edu> <052f403f-931a-61ad-daee-7c96ef612bac@attorneyross.com> Message-ID: I think the answer is going to be "it's time to buy a new TV." I just paid $200 at Costco for a nice 43" TCL set with built-in Roku. It has plenty of HDMI inputs into which I could plug an ATSC3 converter if the need arises. Any TV that's still analog-only is at least 13 years old at this point, and will be 18 years old (at minimum) once ATSC1 signals start to get turned off. Time to move on! On Tue, Jan 21, 2020, 8:10 PM A. Joseph Ross wrote: > What I'd like to know is what happens with people who still have analog > TV sets. There are converters from ATSC1 digital to analog, but I > suspect there will be no converters from ATSC3 to analog. Will people > have to/be able to use two converters? > > > On 1/21/2020 2:50 PM, George Allen wrote: > > Scott - interesting perspective, which I did not have. Thanks! > > > > > > At 01:49 PM 1/21/2020, Scott Fybush wrote: > > WGBH is playing a long game. > > > > When ATSC 3 becomes a reality, a few things will happen: > > > > 1. The low-VHF signal on 5 will become the ATSC 3 test bed. Anyone > > using ATSC1 will be watching WGBX for as long as ATSC1 lasts, because > > it will be the "lighthouse" ATSC1 signal for WGBH, WGBX and WBTS. > > > > 2. The ATSC3 signal on RF 5 will come in better than it does now in > > ATSC1. ATSC3 is just more robust, and can carry more data. No, your > > current TV can't pick it up, but cheap tuners will be out there in > > abundance in a year or two. > > > > 3. In a few more years, when the move to ATSC3 is complete, WGBH will > > have lots of options. There will be enough data on the WGBX RF32 > > signal to carry everything - 2.1, 44.1, WBTS, WFXZ - and then some. > > They could move everything there and use the RF5 signal for new > > programming and services.? Or they could find that low-V works > > decently for ATSC3 and leave some services there. > > > > They're thinking way ahead. > > > > > > On Tue, Jan 21, 2020, 1:10 PM George Allen > wrote: > > Apologies if it's already been covered here, but I finally figured > > out what's where with RF Ch. 32 [WGBX].? 3 different station call > > letters on one RF channel - no wonder I'm confused.? 1 HD, and 6 > > subchannels with low bitrates for them. > > > https://rabbitears.info/market.php?request=print_station&facility_id=72098 > > > > > > Does anyone know how much WBTS/NBC-10 pays [ongoing?] WGBH for use of > > the RF-32 HD slot? > > > > What's with the subchannel dimensions of 704/480? How does that > > become 16:9?? I'm missing something here. > > > > The same info for RF-5, where both WGBH and WGBX HD [and WFXZ] live: > > > https://rabbitears.info/market.php?request=print_station&facility_id=72099 > > > > > > I suppose that's worth the $162 million WGBH got for moving to > > VHF-low.? Did that net them more than taking VHF-hi would have? > > https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DA-17-314A2.pdf [this link > > has been posted here before] > > Add another $57 million for WGBY's move to VHF-high [RF-13]. > > > https://rabbitears.info/market.php?request=print_station&facility_id=72096 > > > > > > Hopefully the 4.9x power increase [later this month maybe?] will be > > enough for my rabbit ears on a Terk HD-TVA.? I can see the d@mn tower > > from my living room in Swampscott, and can just barely get them with > > the ears fully extended [visually messy...].? All these decisions by > > WGBH to cash out spectrum were probably made before cord-cutting > > became much of a thing.? Yes, I can get low-def 2-1/44-1 on RF-32, > > but on a decent large-screen 4k TV the difference is obvious. > > > > > > > > -- > A. Joseph Ross, J.D. ? 1340 Centre Street, Suite 103 ? Newton, MA > 02459-2004 > 617.367.0468 ? Fx: 617.507.7856 ? http://www.attorneyross.com > From francini@mac.com Tue Jan 21 23:20:25 2020 From: francini@mac.com (John Francini) Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2020 23:20:25 -0500 Subject: WGBH/WGBX/WBTS [and WFXZ] In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <916E2611-F836-4349-9079-E962D10FFFC9@mac.com> ?No, no, no ? I can?t possibly get rid of my 25? RCA ColorTrak that?s been in our family since 1980! The colours are all purple and green, and the picture isn?t all that stable, and it blooms a bit during bright scenes, but gosh darn it, that set was good enough for my parents, so it?s good enough for me!? ?die-hard analog tv owner -- John Francini "I have come to the conclusion that one useless man is called a disgrace; that two are called a law firm; and that three or more become a Congress. And by God I have had *this* Congress!" --John Adams > On Jan 21, 2020, at 22:24, Scott Fybush wrote: > > ?I think the answer is going to be "it's time to buy a new TV." > > I just paid $200 at Costco for a nice 43" TCL set with built-in Roku. It > has plenty of HDMI inputs into which I could plug an ATSC3 converter if the > need arises. > > Any TV that's still analog-only is at least 13 years old at this point, and > will be 18 years old (at minimum) once ATSC1 signals start to get turned > off. Time to move on! > >> On Tue, Jan 21, 2020, 8:10 PM A. Joseph Ross wrote: >> >> What I'd like to know is what happens with people who still have analog >> TV sets. There are converters from ATSC1 digital to analog, but I >> suspect there will be no converters from ATSC3 to analog. Will people >> have to/be able to use two converters? >> >> >>> On 1/21/2020 2:50 PM, George Allen wrote: >>> Scott - interesting perspective, which I did not have. Thanks! >>> >>> >>> At 01:49 PM 1/21/2020, Scott Fybush wrote: >>> WGBH is playing a long game. >>> >>> When ATSC 3 becomes a reality, a few things will happen: >>> >>> 1. The low-VHF signal on 5 will become the ATSC 3 test bed. Anyone >>> using ATSC1 will be watching WGBX for as long as ATSC1 lasts, because >>> it will be the "lighthouse" ATSC1 signal for WGBH, WGBX and WBTS. >>> >>> 2. The ATSC3 signal on RF 5 will come in better than it does now in >>> ATSC1. ATSC3 is just more robust, and can carry more data. No, your >>> current TV can't pick it up, but cheap tuners will be out there in >>> abundance in a year or two. >>> >>> 3. In a few more years, when the move to ATSC3 is complete, WGBH will >>> have lots of options. There will be enough data on the WGBX RF32 >>> signal to carry everything - 2.1, 44.1, WBTS, WFXZ - and then some. >>> They could move everything there and use the RF5 signal for new >>> programming and services.? Or they could find that low-V works >>> decently for ATSC3 and leave some services there. >>> >>> They're thinking way ahead. >>> >>> >>> On Tue, Jan 21, 2020, 1:10 PM George Allen >> wrote: >>> Apologies if it's already been covered here, but I finally figured >>> out what's where with RF Ch. 32 [WGBX].? 3 different station call >>> letters on one RF channel - no wonder I'm confused.? 1 HD, and 6 >>> subchannels with low bitrates for them. >>> >> https://rabbitears.info/market.php?request=print_station&facility_id=72098 >>> >>> >>> Does anyone know how much WBTS/NBC-10 pays [ongoing?] WGBH for use of >>> the RF-32 HD slot? >>> >>> What's with the subchannel dimensions of 704/480? How does that >>> become 16:9?? I'm missing something here. >>> >>> The same info for RF-5, where both WGBH and WGBX HD [and WFXZ] live: >>> >> https://rabbitears.info/market.php?request=print_station&facility_id=72099 >>> >>> >>> I suppose that's worth the $162 million WGBH got for moving to >>> VHF-low.? Did that net them more than taking VHF-hi would have? >>> https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DA-17-314A2.pdf [this link >>> has been posted here before] >>> Add another $57 million for WGBY's move to VHF-high [RF-13]. >>> >> https://rabbitears.info/market.php?request=print_station&facility_id=72096 >>> >>> >>> Hopefully the 4.9x power increase [later this month maybe?] will be >>> enough for my rabbit ears on a Terk HD-TVA.? I can see the d@mn tower >>> from my living room in Swampscott, and can just barely get them with >>> the ears fully extended [visually messy...].? All these decisions by >>> WGBH to cash out spectrum were probably made before cord-cutting >>> became much of a thing.? Yes, I can get low-def 2-1/44-1 on RF-32, >>> but on a decent large-screen 4k TV the difference is obvious. >>> >>> >>> >> >> -- >> A. Joseph Ross, J.D. ? 1340 Centre Street, Suite 103 ? Newton, MA >> 02459-2004 >> 617.367.0468 ? Fx: 617.507.7856 ? http://www.attorneyross.com >> From scott@fybush.com Tue Jan 21 13:49:59 2020 From: scott@fybush.com (Scott Fybush) Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2020 13:49:59 -0500 Subject: WGBH/WGBX/WBTS [and WFXZ] In-Reply-To: <202001211809.00LI9G6h024971@isfahel.bostonradio.org> References: <202001211809.00LI9G6h024971@isfahel.bostonradio.org> Message-ID: WGBH is playing a long game. When ATSC 3 becomes a reality, a few things will happen: 1. The low-VHF signal on 5 will become the ATSC 3 test bed. Anyone using ATSC1 will be watching WGBX for as long as ATSC1 lasts, because it will be the "lighthouse" ATSC1 signal for WGBH, WGBX and WBTS. 2. The ATSC3 signal on RF 5 will come in better than it does now in ATSC1. ATSC3 is just more robust, and can carry more data. No, your current TV can't pick it up, but cheap tuners will be out there in abundance in a year or two. 3. In a few more years, when the move to ATSC3 is complete, WGBH will have lots of options. There will be enough data on the WGBX RF32 signal to carry everything - 2.1, 44.1, WBTS, WFXZ - and then some. They could move everything there and use the RF5 signal for new programming and services. Or they could find that low-V works decently for ATSC3 and leave some services there. They're thinking way ahead. On Tue, Jan 21, 2020, 1:10 PM George Allen wrote: > Apologies if it's already been covered here, but I finally figured > out what's where with RF Ch. 32 [WGBX]. 3 different station call > letters on one RF channel - no wonder I'm confused. 1 HD, and 6 > subchannels with low bitrates for them. > https://rabbitears.info/market.php?request=print_station&facility_id=72098 > > Does anyone know how much WBTS/NBC-10 pays [ongoing?] WGBH for use of > the RF-32 HD slot? > > What's with the subchannel dimensions of 704/480? How does that > become 16:9? I'm missing something here. > > The same info for RF-5, where both WGBH and WGBX HD [and WFXZ] live: > https://rabbitears.info/market.php?request=print_station&facility_id=72099 > > I suppose that's worth the $162 million WGBH got for moving to > VHF-low. Did that net them more than taking VHF-hi would have? > https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DA-17-314A2.pdf [this link > has been posted here before] > Add another $57 million for WGBY's move to VHF-high [RF-13]. > https://rabbitears.info/market.php?request=print_station&facility_id=72096 > > Hopefully the 4.9x power increase [later this month maybe?] will be > enough for my rabbit ears on a Terk HD-TVA. I can see the d@mn tower > from my living room in Swampscott, and can just barely get them with > the ears fully extended [visually messy...]. All these decisions by > WGBH to cash out spectrum were probably made before cord-cutting > became much of a thing. Yes, I can get low-def 2-1/44-1 on RF-32, > but on a decent large-screen 4k TV the difference is obvious. > George > From 011010001@interpring.com Mon Jan 27 16:34:48 2020 From: 011010001@interpring.com (Rob Landry) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2020 16:34:48 -0500 (EST) Subject: American Tower can't seem to get its act together in Newdham Message-ID: *None* of the side lights on the 1150 Chestnut Street tower have been working for weeks, and the top beacon is also out. Meanwhile, the top beacon seems to be out at 350 Cedar Street, too. Surely the patience of the FAA must be getting a bit thin by now. Rob From dave@skywaves.net Mon Jan 27 21:44:23 2020 From: dave@skywaves.net (Dave Doherty) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2020 21:44:23 -0500 Subject: American Tower can't seem to get its act together in Newdham In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <000901d5d584$d94477c0$8bcd6740$@skywaves.net> Hi, Rob - I don't know whether ATC is in compliance or not, but I have a lot of current experience with tower lighting requirements. Obstruction lights ("steady burning side lights") should be extinguished on towers with at least two beacon levels. If not extinguished, or on towers with only a top beacon, they should be flashed in sync with the beacons. Top beacons use Fresnel lenses to point almost all of the light well above the horizon, where they will cause minimal visibility to folks on the ground and maximum visibility to pilots. On one of my client's 600' tower in New Bedford, I have to be at least a mile away and have the sun at my back to see the top beacon during the day. (Fortunately, the turn-off from I-195 to MA-18 is a perfect spot to observe the top beacon...) I have another client in Portland, Oregon. There are several 1000' towers west of the city. Based on personal observation, you can barely see the top beacons from anywhere in the city, but they stand out brilliantly from the air. -d -----Original Message----- From: Boston-Radio-Interest [mailto:boston-radio-interest-bounces@lists.BostonRadio.org] On Behalf Of Rob Landry Sent: Monday, January 27, 2020 4:35 PM To: BostonRadio Mailing List Subject: American Tower can't seem to get its act together in Newdham *None* of the side lights on the 1150 Chestnut Street tower have been working for weeks, and the top beacon is also out. Meanwhile, the top beacon seems to be out at 350 Cedar Street, too. Surely the patience of the FAA must be getting a bit thin by now. Rob