WSNR 620 AM To Be Sold at Auction

[Barry]

AllAccess and other trades report that the Russian language station is being put up for sale.  Its owner, Blackstrap Broadcasting, will be taking bids from interested parties for an auction on June 15. The minimum bid they say they will accept is for 16.5 million dollars.
WSNR's Davidzon Radio programming is said to have the highest number of Russian listeners outside of Moscow. As it transmits an extremely directional signal (especially at night when it uses higher power) that makes it virtually unlistenable in many parts of the NYC area, my guess is that whomever buys it will retain the Russian programming. The station's signal is probably maximized toward the areas where most local Russian people reside.
WSNR has a construction permit to raise power somewhat. Its implementation will no doubt be left to the next owner.

[WNTIRadio]

$16.5 million?!  Good luck with that.  I'll expect no bids at that starting price.  That signal is a dog, the array never should have been built as it is.

If they started at $2.5 million... maybe they would find some bids.  This isn't a non-D AM signal in NYC, this is one that barely covers all 5 boroughs.  And forget NJ, Westchester and southwestern CT.

[GSP163]

I live about 10 miles north of WSNR and it has to have one of the worst signals on AM......I used to try and listen to it when it was Sporting News Radio and unless you were south of Paramus, good luck

[luperm]

Have fun with that!  Maybe try moving the decimal point one position over to the left on that $16.5 million number.

[jhguthlac]

The owner has lost all sense of reality.  Its a poor AM radio station!

[ansky212]

Maybe they mean 16.5million rubles.

1 Russian ruble = 0.0339 US dollars

That equates to about $500k US dollars 

[DToTheJ]

The only people I can think of who could purchase AM 620 for even $10 million would be the New York Jets... and they have a history of overpaying for things... 

[reelyreal]

The current owners of Blackstrap just bought the WSNR dump and the WWZN dump in Boston for 23.46 million last year.

[Barry]

WSNR, with its 5 tower array, may be an expensive station to maintain properly.
It seems odd that they are allowed more power at night, but are even harder to receive than during the day. They are authorized for 3000 watts daytime, 7600 at night. Their construction permit allows 8500 daytime, but only 5000 at night.
And there is an application for 15,000 watts day/night. It seems there is an effort being made to improve WSNR's heavily directional signal.

[DToTheJ]

@Reely: It was in 2007 when Blackstrapped purchased those two stations; one report called the transactions "big AM buys". Yeah, "big" only in the sense that they're in top 10 radio markets. And nothing else.