If I wanted to buy an AM station, just out of plain curiosity of owning a station or because it seems as if no one cares about AM radio altogether anymore considering the fact that to most people it's "dying" or "dead", how much would one cost? Or would it cost anything at all?
If you are willing to move to TimBukTu and get comfortable with the natives in some "small town America" the starting price seems to be about $75,000.... but they are not available just any day of the week you decide you are ready... you might have to hunt for awhile.
$150,000 to $300,000 will turn up quite a few prospects without the long wait. Which one do you want, and which ones do you want to run from then becomes the question.
Here is the biggie: Besides the purchase price, how much cash are you going to have to put into the operation your first year or years. Rusty tower about to fall over? Transmitter that limps along and may emit blue smoke any day now? Rent payments because the real estate was not owned the the seller? Does the studio and office look like it was a high-school Halloween haunted house about two years ago? What will it cost to make it look professional... and in turn make it look like YOU are a professional?
Did the previous owner work out of his shirt pocket... will you need a computer and accounting software for the office?
If you were really ready and trained to operate this station absentee, you wouldn't have asked us your question. I make the assumption you need to pick yourself up and relocate to the community where you just bought your station. Put a cost figure on getting that done. Utility deposits for both you and for the station. Ka-ching!
Yu are going to need for a lawyer who specializes in all this transfer nonsense to file your papers with the FCC, and probably to file some incorporation papers and doing-business-as papers at the local courthouse and statehouse.
All of this miscellaneous flotsam can cost you as much cash right up front as the price of the station itself.
Have fun!!
