Watt$ up, Doc? New horizons in low power dealing

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Pile of MoneyIt’s not out of the question for a pair of FMs in the Raleigh-Durham market to command a six-figure sales price – in fact, that would be quite a bargain, even for a pair of Class A outlets. However, this particular duo are in the FM translator class, and their combined awesomeness actually starts there manages to drill down.


The stations, being acquired by highly respected broadcaster Jim Goodmon and his Capitol Broadcasting, are W246CG and W257CS. Both are in the Durham portion of the market.

W257CS is the pick of this litter, with twice the power of W246CG. That may sound impressive, but it is less so when you do the math and calculate that doubling W246CG’s single Watt gives W257CS two whole Watts to work with.
Broadcast expert Dave Schutz of Hoffman-Schutz Media Capital has taken the $450K pricetag and developed a brand new deal metric: Price per Watt.

In this case, Price/Watts, or PPW, works out to $150K per Watt.

Schutz helpfully provided a comparison. He said, “To provide perspective, WOR-AM in New York sold for $20,000,000. With 50,000 watts, that’s only $400 per-watt, nowhere close to the Price/Watt metric of the Durham sale.”

It is the suspicion of both Schutz and RBR-TVBR that Goodmon has some upgrades up his sleeve, which if true could significantly reduce the PPW of this transaction. But until that happens, we are considering contacting the good editors at the Guinness Book of World Records.