Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Cards back to KMOX!

Effective next season.  KTRS ownership details murky.

Please note:  I merged the two concurrent Message Board threads on this topic into one, under Sports.

Update:  So why, when the smart money was all on Bonneville to become part of a simulcast with KTRS, did it go the other way entirely?

I figure that CBS sweetened the deal a hair more than 101 and KTRS could. There's a "small but significant" rights fee to the team involved in the KMOX deal. Otherwise the deal stays the same...all game avails to the Cards, pre- and post- to the station, plus whatever other programming they come up with.

Plus there's the heritage factor. And it's a fan pleasing decision and the team needs all the help they can get there. Besides, radio is becoming such an increasingly small piece of the media pie that it probably doesn't matter. There are a million other ways to hear the games.

And as I understand it, the team keeps their half-interest in KTRS, for which they paid only $2 million a few years back.  KTRS would have to scramble to come up with that much spare change to buy it back, even at the same price.  50% of a decent AM signal in the STL market, arguably one of the two best AM signals has got to be worth more than $2 mil, even in these sour times for radio revenue and pricing.

Or they could be holding on to it just to be dicks.  That's not unheard of in business.

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