https://radioink.com/2019/02/13/cumulus-makes-big-deals-with-entercom-emf/
It is rare when my jaw drops reading a radio news story. Cumulus itself did not have a presence in New York City. They acquired three stations that originally belonged to Disney who owned ABC radio, which they sold to Citadel Broadcasting which immediately imploded and was acquired by Atlanta based Cumulus.
Cumulus is unloading WPLJ-FM (former home of Scott Shannon) to our friends at EMF (K-Love and Worship Air1). For their $103 million, they get five other stations in Atlanta, Washington DC, San Jose CA, Savannah GA and Syracuse, NY.
Cumulus is also unloading WNSH-FM, the Nash Country Music affiliate in New York City, trading it (and two stations in Massachusetts) to Entercom in order for Cumulus to take over the prosperous Indianapolis market.
That will leave Cumulus only owning WABC-AM. Perhaps Toll Brothers could build a luxury community in Lodi, NJ at the WABC transmitter site.
Atlanta based Cox Media is about to bail on its TV stations, which would leave WSB-AM an orphan…
Let’s see if Bloomberg buys up WABC for its Lodi transmitter and license on 770. WBBR 1130 (formerly WNEW-AM) also transmits from that area but with a directional signal to cover Long Island, leaving NJ and Philadelphia without reasonable daytime coverage. Baltimore and DC are covered by what ironically became WNEW-FM.
Alternatively, Bloomberg may realize that AM is not the technology of the future. He does seem to realize that the trains of the Green Nude Eel aren’t, even if they are electrified. 😉
WABC’s ratings are a mere shadow of their Zenith having lost Rush and Hannity to WOR-AM. Their rent for the studios must be pretty substantial. Conservative talk in New York was always a challenge.
I don’t think Salem would want it, already owning WMCA-AM and WNYM-AM. I suspect the eventual buyer will use it for Spanish language and/or religious broadcasting.
Salem is an interesting thought. Remember about a year ago, Salem switched to 570 in the DC area.
Salem’s WNYM in Hackensack gets very poor coverage in NJ – it also uses a very directional antenna sending the signal toward Long Island.
Yeah , use to be WWRC 570am. They were a good station back in the day, now they are called ‘the question’ or something like that. Really you have to come up with a duh station name? changed call sign WSPZ now & suck.
Stations hide their call letters now. cause they think people can’t remember them. why is the FCC requiring them?
WWDC, DC101 is the only named station, and it was partially call sign & Freq. that I remember from the 80’s, tuna, tuna, toooonaaaaaa !
WMZQ use to be pretty good country music, then they were bought by some big corporation, hadn’t listened to them since 2013-14, somewhere in there.
Radio business is weird.
CC, Chairman, can you all see ‘polls’ over on the streaming radio page?
parrott
I can see them, but I don’t have a voter ID. 😉
The polls have same day registration with no photo id
you don’t need a stinkin ID! You can vote anywhere /everywhere ! Especially in Virginia now. Our Governor is going on a sensitivity/Listening tour across Va.
Parrott
Can you vote in blackface?
When I say my name at the government polling place, I always remind them they will have to take my word for it because it is illegal for them to ask to see my ID.
Please lobby your representative so that “CC1s121LrBGT” is one of the new genders- the list is over 100 long last I looked at it and I think I deserve a designer custom trademarked gender so that I can start billing for royalties whenever someone mentions it. LOL
The thing about call signs is especially true on FM, made even worse by FM translators “you are listening to W208EJ, Springfield Vermont”
Part of the reason has to do with international agreements at the ITU to give every source of an (AM) signal a unique identifier that identified the country responsible for enforcement of the ITU rules and dispute resolution. But FM signals are usually only line of sight, but the concept lingers on. Most of the rest of the world no longer cares.
Yes Parrott, I can see the polls. Seeing the face of ‘the chosen one’ is getting old. 😉 I’m using Opera.
As for call letters, we have a few good ones in AZ: KVOI ‘The Voice’, KFYI, KOOL, KGUN (TV)
Hmmmm. I see new Polls only. Oh well.
Chairman, they had a show on Coast to Coast ( that I unfortunately missed) on ‘Doppelganger’ . It was the 16th I think.
oh well. I could remember ‘KGUN’ .
parrott
So, to add to the radio insanity of the day: during Rush’s show this morning, I-Heart started playing a ‘promo’ trailer: “Monster: The Zodiac Killer. Get the app.”
We found it to be distasteful and disturbing, along with the frequency of the spot being extremely annoying. Sometimes it was played 2 or 3 times during a commercial break.
Okay Guys and Gals, Whats your favorite Panasonic radio you have owned ?
> Panapet of course ! ( I still own it)
Whats your Favorite Radio Shack Realistic radio you have owned ?
Astronaut 5 & Flavor-radio a close second, ( but it was only AM) .
Panapet was the best AM receiver. WOWO Fort Wayne, WGAR, Cleveland, no problem for it back in the day.
I have a stout Onkyo receiver also. It kicks ! GE SuperRadio is a honorable mention.
I keep the Panapet and GE in the safe with a Eton crank,
Parrott
We have a GE SuperRadio 2. It has the best AM sensitivity of any radio I’ve ever owned. It still has some paint spatter on it from when I was a kid in 1977.
That said, our ‘legacy’ Sony radios (not made in China) are the daily drivers.
Yeah the GE is a great radio. I bought it new at ‘Best’ products. They were a catalog store, where you had a showroom of one product, and then you filled out a slip of paper and turned it in and they would go back in the warehouse and pick it for you and you pay for it when you pick it up. They were ‘high end.’ I have a old pair of binoculars I bought from them in 1985. If you ordered from the catalog, it was call the 800 number. Way before ‘online’. Bought mine and Mrs Parrotts wedding bands from them.
Then they were gone by 1990.
Chairman, you getting any snow in AZ ?
Doppelganger parrott
Yes Parrott, it’s snowing right now at our place just north of Tucson (elev 2600 ft)… not much sticking. The road up to Mt Lemmon is closed, expecting 3-4 feet above 5,000 ft
Cumulus just dumped KLOS-FM in Los Angeles, another of the Crown Jewels from ABC Radio. The buyer is probably switching to Spanish language programming.
KLOS-FM was originally KABC-FM. Citadel Broadcasting bought ABC radio from Disney for $2.7 Billion in 2006. The sale was 22 stations (14 FM and 8 AM) and the ABC radio network.
Citadel then went bankrupt in 2009 and sold the ABC stations plus the original Citadel stations for $1.7 billion to Cumulus in 2011 – much of that in Cumulus stock Cumulus just recently exited its own bankruptcy process.
No matter how you look at it, this was a radio bloodbath. The buyer is paying $43 million for one of the more valuable of the ABC radio portfolio. KGO, KABC, WMAL, WLS and WJR can’t be far behind.
Cumulus seems intent on liquidating its radio assets.
A second part of today’s news is they are trading two small Connecticut stations to Connoisseur for 4 small stations in the Allentown PA area. One of the CT stations is WICC-AM in Bridgeport, a station I wrote about when I lived in Connecticut. Perhaps John LaBarca will get his job back.
God, culmulus made mess of these radio stations. Screwing up their formats, firing local hosts left and right. They did this everywhere they went.
Anyway we can blame the ‘clintons’ for this?
parrott
The news before it is news – kiss WABC-AM goodbye. Selling price $12.5 million in cash to a Greek billionaire
https://nypost.com/2019/06/27/john-catsimatidis-acquires-77-wabc-radio-for-12-5-million/
Disney sold 22 stations to Citadel Broadcasting, mostly their AM stations, for $2.7 billion, and WABC was the crown jewel. How far are the once mighty have fallen.
Good Day!
We still have this piece of history on line:
https://www.musicradio77.com/
Here is an interview he did with WNYM host Joe Piscapo, once a member of the cast of SNL
https://catsroundtable.com/john-catsimatidis-catsimatidis-purchases-wabc-new-york-joe-piscopo-program-970am/