Cumulus is whoring its FM signals

[TC Talks]

Grand Valley has been buying time on stations since at least the late 80's. West Mi Public Broadcasting owns that tower and they generally have nothing to do with University operations.

[TC Talks]

Yes, but I do know tower rental is a revenue line item for WiMiPB. It's a separate entity and the license is held by the trustees not the University. The college once debated charging WMiPB rent for the property in Allendale.

Cumulus now has throw away FM's.

[Graham Wellington]

I remember reading this release about a year ago in regards to this: https://gvsulakers.com/news/2023/3/23/f ... ement.aspx

Agreed - GVSU women's basketball has WJRW written all over it, and even that may be pushing it.

[TC Talks]

Maybe that was true once upon a time, but it's not true now. The university is clearly listed as the licensee of WGVU-TV, and it is also clearly listed as the tower owner, in the FCC database.

Huh, they updated it to the downtown studio too.

Do you thing Grand Valley paid Cumulus or vice-versa? This looks like a complete sports package.

[zzand]

I can't speak to this situation but within my company A university waved a hug amount of money at us for our flagship station to be their flagship station for sports coverage. We send it out to other affiliates and make a lot of money to do so. It may be the same here.

[radionut]

Simple…

Cumulus rents tower space from WGVU.

GVSU Athletics purchases airtime for their sports from Cumulus.

The two are not related.

[The Painted Horse]

Not to beat a very dead horse but this is just one more reminder of the extent that the radio industry is struggling financially. A little money is all it takes for management to be willing to sacrifice the brand. I’d assume they get more money for the airtime than they’d be able to make selling ads during thst time frame. That pretty much tells you everything you need to know about the position the industry is in. Unfortunately there really is no way out. Truly. These companies are doomed. All they can hope for is to make enough money to pay off their monstrous debt (some worse than others). That’s best case scenario right now. They aren’t making a profit. They’re literally operating to pay off debt, make payroll every two weeks and nothing more. More large scale firings and bankruptcies are a matter of “when”, not “if”. It sucks but it’s the reality of the business in 2024 and beyond.

Tick, tock…

[Feature/writer]

.....then I assume that the sponsors of GVSU football and basketball broadcasts, and their corresponding coach's shows during the week, are secured and billed by the university and not Cumulus? Or is there some revenue sharing arrangement there?

[radionut]

In the past when GVSU had their radio “network” they purchased the air time and aired their commercials.