105.9/WCAA Sold

[NJMike]

A couple of posts back somebody mentioned that 105.9/WCAA (along with sister station 1290/WADO) was sold:  http://www.radio-info.com/smf/index.php/topic,41110.0.html

Does anybody know is this is true?  If so, what company where they sold to?  Are they likely to remain Hispanic? 

My hope would be a flip to AC to directly compete with Lite FM..."the new Sunny 105.9"

[disney fanatic]

I hope WADO will flip to oldies soon if Univision is getting out of the way. Last year, when WCBS-FM dropped oldies to "Jack", they don't get an oldies station at all unless I have a station up in the Hudson Valley which is WBPM's "Cool 92.9" where it still carries an oldies format and listeners would benefit by the loss of WCBS-FM. They picked up some listeners in the Hudson Valley doesn't care about CBS-FM's "Jack" format anymore since they dropped it one year ago. I hope WADO should go with oldies soon to pick up older listeners. That's why AM is an older demo format and oldies should go with it. Right now in New York City, they don't get an oldies station at all, but not yet if Univision is getting out of the picture. Mark Simone did really well on Saturday nights on WABC playing oldies, but I hope Mark would do a better job. Let's see if oldies is coming back to New York once if Univision is straighten it out.

[MarcB]

WCAA/WZAA and sister station WADO weren't sold directly. Their parent comapny Univsion was sold. The company was sold to a group of investors among them Hiam Saban who was partners in the Fox Family Channel. Unless they eventually spin-off all their divisions it's doubtful they'll be anything but Spanish. Also take over won't happen until 2007, so even if they were gonna change it wouldn't be until 2007.

It is funny however how WCAA's parent company got sold twice in the past few years. From Hispanic Broadcasting to Univision. And now Univision to this new group.

[DavidEduardo]

A couple of posts back somebody mentioned that 105.9/WCAA (along with sister station 1290/WADO) was sold:  http://www.radio-info.com/smf/index.php/topic,41110.0.html

Does anybody know is this is true?  If so, what company where they sold to?  Are they likely to remain Hispanic? 

My hope would be a flip to AC to directly compete with Lite FM..."the new Sunny 105.9"

WCAA has no suburban signal, so they would never consider an AC format.

In any case, the entire company, Univision Communications, was sold for $13.7 billion. The reason it got such a high price is that the only growth secotr in radio and TV is Hispanic, and an extra value was placed on the company due to its great success in serving this audience segment.

Don't bet on changes. Especially to English, where revenues are declining.

[neo11]

WCAA has no suburban signal, but WZAA on 92.7 does, somewhat.  It covers most of Nassau County, Westchester county, and Fairfield County, CT.  WCAA does cover Bergen County and northern NJ where there are some areas with large spanish-speaking populations. 

Now, as for whether WZAA was a good purchase or not for Univision, I'd say no...I don't think there was any noticeable increase in their ratings, even on LI, after the simulcast began.  I may be wrong about that but it's been discussed before on this and other boards and that seems to be the consensus.

[DavidEduardo]

WCAA has no suburban signal, but WZAA on 92.7 does, somewhat.  It covers most of Nassau County, Westchester county, and Fairfield County, CT.  WCAA does cover Bergen County and northern NJ where there are some areas with large spanish-speaking populations. 

Now, as for whether WZAA was a good purchase or not for Univision, I'd say no...I don't think there was any noticeable increase in their ratings, even on LI, after the simulcast began.  I may be wrong about that but it's been discussed before on this and other boards and that seems to be the consensus.

The useful coverage of 92.7 is strictly on LI, from eastern Queens eastward, almost all in Nassau County.

Most of the 92.7 listening is ascripted to 105.9, which had a the second highest Spanish-language cume in May, beating even WPAT.

[neo11]

Well I'm not so sure about that...I remember back when WLIR was on 92.7, it would show up pretty consistently in the 12+ numbers in Westchester (back when there was a Westchester book), Stamford and Bridgeport, CT.  It would usually be at around a 1.0 and sometimes was ahead of some of the last-place NYC commercial FM's, which also come in well in those areas.

Also, Nassau county, with a population of 2 million, is nothing to scoff at in terms of coverage.

[JayD]

ah - the sound of "Party 105" in NYC sounds so sooothing ...lol one can only wish

[DavidEduardo]

It's swell to dream, but with 1.3 million cume on 105.9 in May, that would be among the more unlikely things... somewhere right up there with the iminent Klingon invasion of Earth.

[neo11]

The cume may be very high, but the billing certainly is very low.....