A group of Spanish radio brokers are close to making a deal to buy KTRB, the financially-beleaguered radio station, (860 on the AM dial) that serves as the flagship outlet for Oakland A's baseball and Stanford football and basketball.
The asking price of the station ranged from around $10-12 million, including assumable debt.
Likely buyers, including the Spanish brokers and a religious-oriented company, (Principle Broadcasting) have emerged as "strong candidates" to make a deal.
The A's, who have been in the mix and would like to purchase the station, have now apparently dropped out of any serious discussions to make the move. All along, according to industry people, the A's had no intention of overpaying for a station that has significant internal issues, most notably, a weak signal and a tower maintenance problem. Although KTRB is a 50,000-watt outlet, it is difficult to hear in many parts of the Bay Area.
In addition, the station signs off at sunset daily, with only limited albatross programming and a non-working website.
We should know soon when a deal is brokered.
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I'm not suprised that the As passed on KTRB. Hopefully Lew the Wolff will get smart and buy a real station like KGO!
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I see it as more Wolff giving the finger to the bay area..the fake and bogus offer was never meant to be accepted unless KTRB owners went insane.
ReplyDeleteNo,the refusal by the A's to buy and improve is their trademark. Just like Cohan refused to sell to a winner like Ellison for more and instead took less to let Hollywood in to screw Warriors fans,Wolff is also short changing A's fans.
Hey,this is an org. that would rather shower with leaky toilet water and complain instead of fixing the problem themselves. That's Moneyball and Wolff in sheeps clothing combined philosophy for you.
"All along, according to industry people, the A's had no intention of overpaying for a station that has significant internal issues, most notably, a weak signal and a tower maintenance problem. Although KTRB is a 50,000-watt outlet, it is difficult to hear in many parts of the Bay Area.
ReplyDeleteIn addition, the station signs off at sunset daily, with only limited albatross programming and a non-working website."
Reeks of sour grapes Mr. Lieberman. If the A's had ponied up wouldn't they change things at the station? Fix the tower, increase the hours, improve the website etc? Of course they would, and so are the new owners. Basically the A's were hoping to purchase a fixer-upper for next to nothing. Once again A's fans get played by ownership.
Pappas Broadcasting, the owners (or former owners), still owe former employees thousands of dollars. I wonder if the new owners are aware of this, and are these owed accounts included in the "assumable debt" ?
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