So You Want to Own Your Own San Angelo Radio Station?

Update: Since this story was published, the radio station has been purchased by Darryl DeLaughter and is currently being run as a rock music station. KMLS is no longer for sale.

An Ashburn, Virginia company is offering the for sale a Class C 25 kW radio station license for the San Angelo Designated Market Area. The antenna site is just east of US 277 near the Tom Green County line.

Radio station KMLS, 95.5 FM from Miles can reach as far south and west as Lake Nasworthy and touches all of the denser San Angelo area.

Starting a radio station from scratch is an expensive proposition. Miriam Media is selling the FCC license for $350,000. Building a tower will put you back another $500,000. And then there is the equipment required to broadcast your content. An example equipment checklist with costs is here. 

Meanwhile, this isn’t the 1950s anymore and people aren’t captive audiences to radio in their cars, home and work like they were back then. With cell phones, XM/Sirrius Radio, and paired iPhone MP3 players, along with 26 other radio channels on the FM and AM dial in San Angelo, all competing for the same listening audience, one can conclude than shelling out $2 to $3 million for another radio station is a bad investment.

Nonetheless, BIA/Kelsey, and industry think tank on local media argues that there is opportunity. Radio advertising spending is “11.5 percent of all advertising revenue being spent in local markets, fourth amongst all local media segments, behind direct mail (27.2 percent), newspapers (16.1 percent) and TV (14.9 percent),” Kelsey wrote in a 2013 study on local radio.

Kelsey suggests that radio stations combine digital (or, Internet) offerings to supplement on-air advertising revenue. Many radio stations are making a successful go at it, Kelsey wrote.

But the most appealing aspect of owning a radio station is their increasing equity values.

“Like other local media companies, values of public radio companies have increased by 68.2 percent through the first three quarters of 2013, easily beating the performance of the overall stock market. But as competition for audience share continues to cut into audience share for radio stations, the industry needs to be on its toes to remain competitively viable,” Kelsey wrote.

Learn more about the San Angelo FM radio FCC license here.

Update Oct. 28, 2015:

Since this story was published, the radio station has been purchased by Darryl DeLaughter and is currently being run as a rock music station. KMLS is no longer for sale.