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![\"image\"](\"http:\/\/streamingradioguide.com\/startingover\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/image4.jpeg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nThe light green roughly heart shaped area<\/p>\n
Pulling back, the area is right by the 495 icon on the left side<\/p>\n
WMAL is not a Class A 50 kW day\/night flamethrower – it is Class B 10kw, 5k at night local AM station so far West that it doesn’t reach Baltmore, let alone Philadelphia or New York.<\/p>\n The land is being sold to Toll Brothers, a well known real estate developer with a national reputation – the final price will be between $75 to $90 million, or about $250k for each house they plan to build.<\/p>\n The approvals and such are far enough along that Cumulus has to file paperwork on what they will do with no transmitter. WMAL is already simulcast on WMAL-FM, so the reality is they don’t need to do anything except tear the tower down. Even then, they have a year to do something.<\/p>\n The plan filed with the FCC is a bit unusual – they propose to move WMAL-AM to another existing AM tower they don’t own and do what is called “diplexing”, which means using a single tower to broadcast two AM stations at the same time. <\/p>\n How Diplexing works<\/a><\/p>\n The new shared tower is located near Germantown, which is much further away from The District<\/p>\n My guess is the actual plan is to go dark, move the listeners all to FM, sell the license for whatever they can get (perhaps the owner of this tower) – or maybe hope the FCC approves fiberglass antennas that could be put on top of a 7-11.<\/p>\n Mary Berner takes control of Cumulus this week. The rumor mill says she may hire back all the Westwood One music talent. It could well be that she was angry that the Dickeys fired the host of a format she listened to, or knew socially. Change isn’t always for the reasons you expect.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Cumulus shopped around and realized the land underneath the WMAL tower was a lot more valuable than the license. The same is true of KABC in Los Angeles. First a map: This is the tower farm west of Bethesda, MD … Continue reading <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n