NEW YORK — Thirty-five years ago, if one were to tune 92.7 MHz in Queens and the western portion of Long Island, there’s a good chance the only thing “Mexican” they’d hear would be the Wall of Voodoo track “Mexican Radio.” At the time, it was the home of Modern Rock outpost WLIR-FM, licensed to Garden City.
Times change, and since 2004 the facility has aired Spanish-language programming under Univision Communications ownership. Another change is in the works, and this will see the station’s return to English-language programming, under a new owner.
The bigger takeaway, however, is the extreme valuation difference between Univision’s purchase price and that from this Class A FM’s pending sale that sees Kalil & Co. involved.
The property Univision is spinning is WQBU-FM 92.7 in Garden City, which has a signal that is best-heard in lower Westchester County, western Nassau County and the Gotham boroughs of the Bronx, Queens and Brooklyn. To give it a boost in Manhattan, a 99-watt booster is used from a tower two blocks west of Penn Station. Additionally, a 1,200-watt booster from a site due north of John F. Kennedy International Airport puts a directional signal over lower Queens.
Soon, these FM facilities will be the new home for a longtime operator in the New York metropolitan area that has now found a new MHz-band home serving the Five Boroughs.
The buyer is Family Stations, the owner of the former WFME-FM 94.7 until its sale in late 2012 to Cumulus Media. Today, the station is Audacy-owned Rhythmic Adult Contemporary and classic Hip-Hop WXBK “The Block.” At the time, WFME “moved” to 106.3 MHz, a facility from 1964-1993 known as WVIP-FM. As locals can attest to, it is hardly a New York-market facility, with a 980-watt Class A signal covering northern Westchester and Fairfield County, Conn.
Now, after 18 years, Family Stations will regain much of its lost FM signal coverage; WFME still will lack a Northern New Jersey FM signal. However, listeners from Mahwah to Metuchen do have a station to tune to: On February 27, 2015, Family Radio’s service to the Big Apple and Northern New Jersey returned by way of a heritage AM station, once WQXR-AM and, later, WQEW. Today, WFME-AM 1560 uses a two-tower daytime signal and three-tower nighttime signal pushing out 50kw watts of Christian talk and teaching fare; it sold its Maspeth, Queens, tower site and uses a new site based in New Jersey.
¿NO BUENO DOLLAR DUMP?
According to the asset purchase agreement, finalized on December 2 and subsequently filed with the FCC, Univision is selling WQBU and its two boosters for $9 million.
A 10% escrow deposit is being held with Kalil & Co., as escrow agent.
Kalil & Co. represented Univision in the transaction, as the exclusive broker. As previously reported, Univision months ago retained the Tucson-based brokerage to help it spin non-essential radio stations.
Some industry observers may be asking just how non-essential WQBU is to Univision. In October 2003, Peter Handy of Star Media Group served as the broker in the purchase of the station then-known as WLIR by Univision from John Caracciolo‘s former employer, Jarad Broadcasting. Now the head of JVC Broadcasting, Caracciolo pocketed $60 million from the sale.
You read that correctly: In the 18 years since Univision purchased what is today WQBU, it is being sold for $51 million less.
Under Univision ownership, the 92.7 MHz facility wasn’t exactly the all-important facility the company needed to compete against longtime Hispanic radio leader Spanish Broadcasting System (SBS) in the nation’s biggest media market. At first, the former WLIR was used as a simulcast partner with what was WCAA-FM 105.9, Univision’s first FM in the New York metropolitan area. A Newark, N.J.-licensed facility, it could not reach Queens and Nassau County due to its first-adjacency to Cox Media Group’s WBLI-FM 106.1 in Patchogue, N.Y. In 2005, with reggaetón music surging in popularity, the stations became “La Kalle” and the WZAA call letters came to 92.7 MHz.
In late January 2007, the simulcast ended. A bold move to target the regional Mexican listener in a marketplace that had seen a surge in Hispanics from Puebla, near Mexico City, led Univision to respond with its most successful format. Alas, the growth in ad dollars in a marketplace known for Salsa and Caribbean-flavored Latin music styles never surfaced. By the end of 2012, WQBU retargeted to seek Dominicans, with that Hispanic heritage group surging in numbers across New York. However, “Mami 92.7” didn’t catch on, either. By April 2014, a switch to Spanish-language News/Talk came, with the station becoming part of the short-lived Univision América network. In October 2014, a return to regional Mexican “Qué Buena” was made. This would continue until August 2019, when it kept its branding but shifted to Spanish Adult Contemporary, the format it has today. It’s no surprise to hear a classic from Jose Jose alongside a current song from Maluma.
Once the WQBU sale closes, that programming is expect to disappear.
And, when the sale does close, the deal will cross what Hoffman Schutz Media Capital’s David Schutz calls a “psychologically significant valuation metric” — one dollar.
Based on the new 2020 Census, the 60 dbu “service area” contour of WQBU reaches 9,396,000 people. “At a $9 million announced selling price, that represents a population metric of $0.96 per person,” Schutz concludes, adding that the twin synchronous on-channel boosters in Manhattan and Brooklyn didn’t exist when Univision bought the facility.
Representing Family Stations, best known for its association with the late Harold Camping, as its FCC legal counsel is Matthew McCormick with Fletcher Heald & Hildreth.
