Continuing STA's

[David]

Nov 25, 2016 9:25:02 GMT -6 CAwasinNJ said:

You get zero financial benefit from turning in the license. Keeping it alive costs virtually nothing and then selling it makes money. Turning in the license really doesn't make sense to me.

That's assuming that a buyer for the license can be found in a reasonable period of time. iHeart (Clear Channel) has been fooling around with STA's and silent status with KWDZ for at least 18 months now, and Cumulus has been doing the same with KRUZ for even longer. If national media conglomerates like iHeart and Cumulus don't want to spend the money to either diplex the stations to another transmitter or build new transmission facilities, I don't foresee any local or regional companies being able to do anything with the licenses for KWDZ or KRUZ unless they were to buy the licenses at far less than market value.  KWCR might at least get an offer or two for their license since they're an FM station, but they'd either have to sell to another non-commercial, or the new buyer would have to petition the FCC to reassign the frequency above 91.9 MHz.  I don't know if the FCC has limits on the number of STA's and silent applications it will grant, but I have to believe that sooner or later Uncle Charlie would force the license holder to either reactivate the station or sell the license, or else surrender the license.

[CAwasinNJ]

This was moving off topic, so I moved it to its own thread.

If the FCC were actually doing their job I would agree with you. They really don't. KRUZ is safe and I'll point to KTKK not using their licensed site for 18 years. If you can come up with a good excuse you can pretty much do whatever you want indefinitely. No I don't agree with it, but that's the reality. It takes a LOT to get the FCC to revoke a license, which is pretty much all they could do.

I'm very confident that something will happen eventually, even if it comes down to donating a station to a non-profit. Just to throw out an example, one of them could be diplexed and donated to USU to get a Salt Lake signal back and the donator gets a big tax write off. AM stations aren't worth what they once were, but there's still value there. As long as there's value you don't throw it away. That's just bad business.

[David]

I have to agree with you on the points you made about the FCC. They've become a shadow of what they were in the 1970's and 1980's, and I sometimes wonder why the agency still exists at all. It took them almost a year before they finally shut down KXOL, and they had to send a field agent from Denver to Utah in May of this year to verify that what was being said online about the station still broadcasting was true. I think the federal government could farm out the duties of the FCC to another government agency or even a private contractor without anyone noticing a difference, but that's beside the point.

It may be that Cumulus and iHeart actually have plans for KRUZ and KWDZ. I've been checking All Access and some other media sites on a regular basis to see if the stations have been put up for sale, and so far I've seen nothing. They both have enough transmission facilities in this area that they could diplex either station from another tower, and probably for less money than setting up a new tower site. If I were Cumulus or iHeart, I'd have some serious reservations about donating the licenses for KRUZ or KWDZ to a non-profit. We've all seen how quickly Park City Wireless put 107.9 on the market after they couldn't work out a deal with the folks operating The Mountain.  As for KTKK, if the information in Wikipedia is accurate, they may be in danger of going silent in the near future also. Apparently KLLB's tower site is being threatened by a housing development a la KWDZ, and the FCC dismissed KTKK's application to move to new towers near North Salt Lake. Sounds like they were attempting to diplex KTKK off the towers of either KALL or KDYL.

[CAwasinNJ]

Small nitpick: All Access is only going to report if a transaction took place. Usually public sites don't show stations for sale.

One second. Have you seen anything indicating KUMT is for sale? There was an agreement to <i>run</i> the station, which makes sense since PCW's previous expertise is in NPR programming, but I haven't heard anything other than exploring the possibility of selling it. If I were them I wouldn't and would put KPCW on there, but that's just me.

[David]

You are correct, CA. I thought I remembered seeing a post on the board stating that KUMT was for sale, but doing a search only came up with a statement in a post that Park City Wireless is "exploring other options" with 107.9. I took that to mean the station was for sale, so my bad again.

I've also done searches for "radio stations for sale in Utah" and been unable to come up with anything other than a couple of FM translators for sale in Southern Utah. I still think Cumulus or iHeart could turn a profit with KRUZ and KWDZ with the right format(s). Even with the demise of KXOL 1660, there's still five Spanish language stations on AM in the Salt Lake metro which apparently are making enough money to keep their transmitters on. That seems like a lot of stations for the 10-15% of Hispanic residents along the Wasatch Front.