In the age of the Internet, radio broadcast seems like an old-fashioned and outdated mode of communication. For talk radio, why broadcast your message to a general audience when you can narrowcast your message to millions with a website targeted to just one demographic or interest? Rather than listen to music radio, we have our MP3 players and tablet computers that hook into our receivers either at home or in the car, and we can tune into Pandora Radio or Spotify to choose what we want to hear, or get suggestions about what we might like to listen to. And don’t even get us started with the music videos shared on YouTube, the music in our friends’ Facebook feeds, or musicians chatting with us directly via Twitter. Even satellite radio is taking a slice of the pie.
And yet, radio stations continue to do pretty well. According to data from the Radio Research Consortium, the collective number of people listening to radio over the public airwaves has leveled off, but has not yet declined. And there are many people who continue to switch on the radio and tune into their favorite stations in their car on the way to work, or to be entertained while at work and at play. Maybe if a new format, DJ, or talk radio host were to liven things up (think Howard Stern in the 1990s), people would tune in more to free radio, and switch away from other options.
Today’s remarkable listing allows the budding entrepreneur to do just that, by bidding on and getting to own a 100,000 watt FM commercial radio station in the Moapa/Las Vegas NV area
We have never seen a radio station up for auction, so it will be interesting to see what bid ends up winning. In the listing description, though, the seller notes that the Buy It Now price is $8.9 million. Since the bid is barely over $100K, there seems to be a long way to go. But even priced at just under $9 million, the radio station may be a bargain.
In an interview with vegasinc.com, the seller, Scott Mahalick says “I got it for $22 million a few years ago and after the economy crashed, it’s now worth about $10 million.” Asked why he would use eBay to sell his radio station he notes that “(i)t’s a little unconventional, but this is Vegas, so I thought I’d give it a try.” If nothing else, it gives us food for thought as to what we would do if we purchased the radio station, and what we would broadcast to the Las Vegas audience.
We know there is one person who would be happy to buy this, if he just had the money. eBay’s very own radio broadcast personality Griff Griffith, whose eBay Radio show is on the air Tuesdays and Thursdays, confided to us at one point that he wished he could do his show all the time. So, Griff, we recommend you buy the station and start broadcasting immediately – “Viva Las Vegas” would become “eBay Las Vegas” soon enough.
“Radio.” This is the make-it-or-break-it word uttered by Tess McGill (played by Melanie Griffith) in the 1988 film comedy Working Girl. A mere underling to the powerful exec Katherine Parker (Sigourney Weaver), Tess suggests radio as a money-saving alternative for a client interested in acquiring television stations. Her idea sparks a dramatic series of events that lands her boss in trouble, scores her a corporate gig, and even delivers the handsome guy (Harrison Ford) to her doorstep.
The situation today remains the same: investing in radio is a bargain compared to investing in television and, if audience trends continue, the investment can be lucrative. While we can’t speculate on the long-term value of this FM radio station, it would be a creative approach to diversifying your portfolio and give you the opportunity to program your favorite music or shows for the masses.
Even if you don’t bid on this listing, we suggest you “stay tuned” to how it goes.
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The number one failure of radio is poor engineering. You can cover the entire state with 93,000 watts. The problem is that the center of it has to be in a metropolitan area. You can be very sucessful with 3000 watts in a big city like Las Vegas. The failure of this radio station, or at least its loss, is:
1. You paid too much for a radio station. A couple million, maybe 5 million at the max. Radio and TV can’t make that much money. They never could before.
2. To operate a radio station, you have to actually operate a radio station. That means that if you can’t afford to pay disk jockeys, you should surrender your license.
3. Dance and Alternative music would work great in Los Angeles. Should somebody edit that advice with an audio editor and change it to Los Vegas, that could greatly affect your success. If you are going to spend 22 million on a radio station, it might be a good idea too offer money to the person giving you that advice, rather than stealing it.
4. Engineering 101. The strongest area of your signal should be in the most populated area where there are likely to be listeners and advertisers. Cheap audio leads to cheap sales. 100kw from an mp3. Not good. It’s not a good idea to dynamically compress it as loud as you can get it. Not as good as my mp3 player or cd player. Too quiet, too much static.
5. Study your market carefully. DO NOT ALLOW THIRD PARTIES TO DO YOUR STUDY! You must market based on who will buy advertising, and not the general demographic. Crooner music, 70′s 80′s 90′s, Top 40, something better than that. Dance and Alternative were great in the late 1990s and early 2000′s, but died out past 2005. Oldies. The goal in radio is to cover the widest demographic possible.