WKLT-fm, Kalkaska and WKLZ-fm, Petoskey

[Ben Zonia]

Most powerful commercial FM stations in Northern Lower Michigan, 1976.

Edited from Michiguide, WJR Radioguide.

92.9 WKJF Cadillac
98.5 WJGS Houghton Lake
98.9 WJML-FM Petoskey
101.9 WLDR Traverse City
103.5 WTCM-FM Traverse City
105.1 WCBY-FM Cheboygan (but just 25 kW from 105 feet HAAT)
106.7 WWRM Gaylord
107.7 WHSB Alpena

My how things have changed.

Granted, some of the Class As had decent signals, and several stations from the Central Lower Peninsula were heard quite well in the Southern part of the Northern Lower Peninsula.

[Milk]

Tom Devitt just announced on Facebook that he's gone from KLT.

[Deleted User 12047]

Won’t Baraga buy the stations they were going to buy from the Coynes had that deal happened?

[northradiotruth]

106.7 and 105.5 FM (ESPN) both went dark today.

[TC Talks]

Perhaps they're picking up 98.9 instead?
I also cannot help but wonder if WLJN is going to wind up with 98.9.
Plenty of unanswered questions, to say the least.

That would make total sense. Seller requires both signals to be purchased, Midwestern donates this signal to WLJN like he has with the AM signal long ago.

[BigFreq]

Again, bigger no longer means better. While it does mean greater coverage... but to whom? Ratings are less significant when it comes to swaying dollars; so serving communities should become a priority. That 100kw blowtorch means a $30k a year power bill, topped with $18k in tower rent. Add all the other fun things you have to pay; operating a station like that will run you $100k a year before you add into account a single talent to the lineup and a single seller to hit the streets (that's likely another $200-250k in payroll). And, unless you think you're going to pry $400-$500k in revenue away from existing stations, you're destined to operate in the ballpark of $250-300k in annual revenue (after year two), which likely means you break even or lose. In truth, a good operator with a Class A, sitting in a small town and running a solid little community focused radio station, serving a county or two can be successful. There are plenty of blowtorches Northern has under it's belt... 98.9, 106.7, 92.5... all covering the Northern tip; where deer, elk and turkeys don't account for diaries. And let's not forget, they weren't making money off any of those signals all this time... they had to be simulcast, simply in order to deliver as much of the 11 county metro as possible. It was about diaries. But those diaries aren't going to matter if you can't reach the entire metro. It's a good time for the metro to go away and break back into two markets.

Some owners have opted to keep their towers. What would a "Mortgage" on a tower be compared to renting space? With better antenna designs available today, with null filling and main lobe beamwidth widening possibilities, would a 12 Bay antenna be a better option to save on power bills? What about a managing company that manages tower rental vs. buying your tower outright?
[/quote]

CK -- Northern sold all of their tower sites to a tower company, and I'm going to take a guess that the rent is probably in the neighborhood of $1500-1800 mo at various sites. A mortgage would have been a lot less to maintain, but keep in mind NBI was intending to sell to Blarney Stone, and when it couldn't come to a close, sold the towers sites out from under that deal. Only someone planning to jump ship would sell their tower sites; unless there were enough existing tenants on the site, and the new buyer cut them a favorable deal stick around; giving them some cash and taking away the liability of maintaining the site.

[ftballfan]

Perhaps they're picking up 98.9 instead?
I also cannot help but wonder if WLJN is going to wind up with 98.9.
Plenty of unanswered questions, to say the least.

That would make total sense. Seller requires both signals to be purchased, Midwestern donates this signal to WLJN like he has with the AM signal long ago.

If WLJN picks up 98.9 (which would be no surprise at all considering that Midwestern and WLJN have made a few deals in the past), I could see 107.9 Charlevoix being converted to a repeater of 1400/1370 (it currently relays 89.9 AFAIK)

[ADD in TC]

Seems like a 98.1 106.7 pairing would be better than Black Diamonds current 98.1 95.3 pairing.

106.7 and 105.5 FM (ESPN) both went dark today.

Off topic but it seems that WBNZ is now also dark or at least an open carrier like WQAN is currently.

[ftballfan]

https://radioinsight.com/headlines/1825 ... -purchase/

[Deleted User 12047]

And NBI is carrying about $100,000 of the purchase price in a promissory note with a monthly payoff. Something they would not do for the Coynes.