Dec. 15, 2005: Boston Globe quotes Brier & Associates on sale of local radio station.
Classical station WCRB to be sold
By Chris Reidy, Globe Staff
WCRB's owner expects to sign a letter of intent to sell the classical radio station shortly, and according to one unsuccessful bidder, the station could fetch $90 million or more, raising the possibility WCRB will abandon its classical music format for more profitable programming.
''We hope to have an announcement imminently," said Mary L. Marshall, chairman of Charles River Broadcasting Co. of Waltham, the owner of WCRB-FM (102.5).
Marshall declined to identify the prospective buyer.
Woody Tanger, chief executive of Marlin Broadcasting LLC, which owns a classical station in Hartford and the Internet radio station Beethoven.com, said a $60.5 million bid he submitted was rejected as ''substantially too low." Tanger expects WCRB to sell for $90 million to $100 million.
Vice president Mark Fratrik of BIA Financial Network Inc., a firm advising the telecommunications industry, said of a possible $90 million price tag for WCRB, ''That's a pretty healthy price, but it has a pretty good signal."
A sale could make sense to a company that owns several stations in Greater Boston, he said. By integrating WCRB with its other stations, such an owner could realize cost savings, he said.
Among companies owning several local radio stations are CBS Radio, which just changed its name from Infinity Broadcasting Corp.; Clear Channel Communications Inc.; Entercom Communications Corp.; and Greater Media Inc.
Representatives from those companies either did not return calls or declined to comment.
In Tanger's view, WCRB's new owner would need to replace classical music with a more popular format to generate enough advertising revenue to justify paying $90 million. BIA estimated WCRB's 2004 revenue at $8.4 million.
Charles River Broadcasting disclosed plans in October to explore a sale of WRCB and its other stations.
One potential wild card is the trust of former owner Ted Jones. In 1991, shortly before his death, Jones told the Globe he had created a trust designed to keep the all-classical format for the next century.
Marshall said the language of the trust expresses Jones's intentions as a wish, not a command. Marshall declined requests for a copy of the trust.
''Unless a trust is part of a will or the subject of legal dispute, it's likely it's a private document," said Kenneth P. Brier of Brier & Associates, a cochairman of the Trusts and Estates Section of the Boston Bar Association.
New technology may allow a new owner to keep WCRB's classical tradition, Marshall said. It's possible to fit more than one broadcast of programs over WCRB's existing air space. Under one scenario, a new owner might continue broadcasting classical music on a new digital channel and broadcast more profitable programming on WCRB's existing channel.
Because only a few consumers own radios that can tune in digital channels, a sale could end the broadcasting of classical music by a commercial radio station over Greater Boston's conventional air waves, Tanger said.
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