The San Diego sports station is owned by Broadcast Company of The Americas. According to several of the hosts, communicating by social media, the station went dark at about 11:30 a.m. Company President Mike Glickenhaus told everyone needed to get together for an urgent staff meeting where he explained to them they were taken off the air by the people who own their tower.
Glickenhaus told them the people who own the signal have decided they are no longer interested in being partners with BCA Radio.
In a recorded message posted to the station website host Darren Smith said he wasn’t too surprised by this because it had happened before to two of the other stations the company owns. He also said there’s a lot of stuff that will come out in time but for legal reasons he could not share them at this time. He did say this is incredibly disappointing. “It’s heartbreaking. There are people in tears at this radio station. There are people worried about there future. Everything about this is miserable.” Smith said is this it for the radio station? And his answer was, “I don’ know. I don’t know.”
Afternoon host Scott Kaplan said there was a relationship issue and a break down in negotiations between the owners of the signal and the parent company of the radio station.
The station’s morning show team, Ben & Woods, tweeted that their show will be streamed on The Mighty 1090’s app and website today.
Well
Laradio.com reports this morning that Broadcast Corp of America did not pay their bill to the transmitter company. If that is accurate, that certainly is a valid reason for the transmitter company to pull the plug. Radio stations expect to get paid by their advertisers, but many radio stations and groups seem to think differently when it comes to paying THEIR bills, lol.
Wow. This one is close to home, even though I live 215 miles across the sea from the transmitter. The Mighty 1090 (XEPRS) comes into Santa Barbara like a local. It is the only sports station with a strong signal into the market, day and night. And it’s damn good.
Hope they work things out with whoever owns the transmitter. Or the land it’s on. Or whatever “owns their tower” or “owns their signal” means.
According to FCCinfo.com, five transmitters are listed: bit.ly/xeprsxmtr . The ones that show up in Google Maps’ satellite view are the three towers they’ve long used in Rancho Del Mar, south of Tijuana on the coast. One is the non-directional day tower, and the other is the directional night set of three towers at the same location. Anyone know who owns that land?
I don’t know if “owned” is the right choice of words in your first sentence where a LMA is involved.
BCA owns the programming, but not the transmitter.
And I remember when LMAs in San Diego were pretty much “sign it and forget it” affairs. Who’s next to lose their over-the-air signal? 91X?