WAVL-AM in Apollo, Pennsylvania has changed hands – the station was originally owned by a church, which might have been a problem. It was sold to Colonial Radio Group, the owner of WVTT-FM, another affiliate of Quinn’s show, despite Quinn not allowing his program to be streamed.
The station WAVL has now been spun off to a group in rural Pennsylvania. The station was silent while the sale was in process, but it is back on the air now. The new owners currently own WCNS-AM in Latrobe, PA that carries Quinn followed by Rose Unplugged from Jim. About a year ago, WVTT unplugged from Jim and dumped the talk format to WVTT FM/HD2 with a translator, and then dumped talk completely last year.
I hope that Corvette was paid for in cash. The war Room gift shop has no items for sale, and the calendar has no personal,appearances scheduled.
Jim spends his days mourning at his favorite place in Bridgeville. I used to like listening to them at one time, but he became very obnoxious and would never let callers express their points of view, even if they agreed with him. He always warned them only 30 left to say whatever you need to say. Really this show was all Jim Quinn.
Rose on the other hand has Rose Unplugged in 1250 The Answer (WPGP AM) and lately she’s getting quite rude with her callers. She tends to want to talk over her guests and at times sounds very “unlettered” and coarse. I have switched her off many times. She seems to be doing well with the station as most of the recorded commercials during the day are announced by Rose. I have also heard her a couple of times sub for Hannity in his radio show. Rose also seems to have a side job of tours to various parts of Italy.
I don’t know if it applies here, but it is a common arrangement for a tour provider to arrange a tour with a radio host, and the radio host gets a free trip with their adoring fans.
That opens the door about the whole subject of “trading out” in the radio biz – the most common example is the car dealer in town provides a car free to the radio station in exchange for free ads on the station. Very tax efficient.
Payola ?
Only if the free stuff is coming from a music company…
Sometimes when the station is owned by an individual, the “stuff” may be for the benefit of the owner, not the radio station. If a building contractor bought ads on the station and then got paid for putting a deck on the owner’s house, the contractor would have income to report and so would the radio station. By playing ads for free, the station is giving up income and the station owner gets a deck on his house that isn’t income. The radio station employees may or may not put two and two together when the owner says the station doesn’t make any money. If the station has a bank loan, they might be more aware, but maybe not.
There is an unrelated story I was looking at where a Cable TV operator in a small town also owned 3 radio stations. He owed the IRS $7’million for unpaid employment taxes and failing to honor his repayment settlement. His corporation was put into receivership and the radio stations were sold. The guy then shows up at the radio station, storms in and starts unplugging “his” equipment. I assume the police were probably called at that point.
I’m not at all fond of people in the radio business.
Quinn has mellowed and doesn’t take callers currently. He was very strident in his day and I think they saw a future that was more Oz than reality. I was never a huge fan of Rose. She is a bit too into herself for my liking.