With 5 stations about to be sold in Boston (Nielsen market #10), including CBS’ sports powerhouse WBZ-FM and NewsRadio WBZ-AM, the ownership landscape will certainly look different if the Entercom/CBS merger goes through. The question is who will enter that market as the next big player or will these stations be scattered around to other owners. Here’s what we know.
The major players in Boston right now are Entercom, CBS, Beasley and iHeartmedia.
It’s obvious that if the deal goes through Entercom will be maxed out in Boston. And now we also know that David Field has chosen to keep WEEI-FM in his stable over WBZ-FM when it comes to the sports format. Those two stations are consistently in a fierce battle for ratings in Boston. WEEI-FM carries the Red Sox while WBZ-FM airs Patriots football, Bruins hockey and Celtics basketball games.
Beasley is maxed out in that market so unless they are swapping, it looks like they are out. iHeartmedia owns six stations in Boston. Will they look to add any signals or do some trading? Will there be a new player. If someone new steps into Boston to gobble up all five stations they would have a nice cluster ready to roll. Entercom has announced deals are already in the works for all the stations that the company must move in order to close the merger. Is this an opportunity for Hubbard to move into the Boston market? We should know fairly soon, Entercom CEO David Field has never wavered from his statement that this deal will close in the 4th quarter of 2017.
The three CBS stations that will be moved are:
WBZ-AM/Boston
WBZ-FM/Boston
WZLX-FM/Boston
The two Boston Entercom stations on the block are:
WKAF-FM/Boston
WRKO-AM/Boston.
Keeping WAAF over WZLX??? Wow – that’s crazy!
WZLX bills more, has far more AQH listeners, and has a far superior signal.
I can understand wanting to keep WBMX and WODS, since the incumbent Entercom stations do not have strong appeal with advertisers looking to reach females.
Unloading high maintenance, spoken word AM stations whose enterprise value will fall faster than the FM brands as time moves along is a good move.
Still, keeping WAAF over WZLX is a total head scratcher. I can only assume there is some sort of revenue concentration cap that Mr. Field is trying to stay safely within.
Chris Stigall is the BEST faker in the radio biz!