Allen Loudell is a regular attendee at the Winter SWL Fest, avid
shortwave listener, and one time speaker at the Fest. Allan is
mentioned in the following article from the Wilmington News Journal.
The radio station of which he is the Program Director is one of the
last local news stations with a true local perspective. I hope Clear
Channel sticks with their plan to keep the local focus.
Joe Buch
<http://www.delawareonline.com/newsjournal/local/2004/08/
25wilmsoldtoclear.html>
Wednesday, August 25 , 2004
WILM sold to Clear Channel
Radio giant to pay almost $4 million for family-owned station
By STEVEN CHURCH
08/25/2004
Wilmington radio station WILM 1450 is being sold to radio conglomerate
Clear Channel Communications Inc. for almost $4 million, a deal that
marries one of the last, family-run, all-news broadcasters in America
with the country's biggest radio company.
General Manager E.B. Hawkins said Tuesday morning that his family,
which has owned the station since 1949, has rejected several offers in
the last five years, including some that were for more money. Clear
Channel appears dedicated to keeping the station's local news format
intact, which is why the family agreed to sell, he said.
Hawkins said the current management team is expected to remain at the
station, although a final decision will be made by Clear Channel. The
Federal Communications Commission is expected to approve the sale in
about 60 days, he said.
Clear Channel, which is buying the station through a subsidiary called
Citicasters, likes the news emphasis of the station, said Joseph
Puglise, market manager for Clear Channel in Delaware.
Experts said WILM is among a dwindling number of all-news radio
stations that produce nearly all of their own programming. Syndicated
talk radio programs have nearly taken over the AM radio dial because
that format is cheaper for station owners to air than locally produced
news reports, a staple of WILM's programming.
Clear Channel is the biggest radio station owner in the country and is
known for using syndicated programming to bring in strong profits,
said Edward Atorino, a stock analyst with Fulcrum Global Partners LLC.
Last year, the company's radio stations had a profit margin of 40
percent, Atorino said. Revenue from all Clear Channel divisions was
$8.9 billion.
"They are very profitable and very well run," Atornio said.
Phila. stations top locals
The Wilmington media market is unusual because most of its listeners
tune into Philadelphia stations, not local broadcasters, said Mark
Fratrik, vice president of BIA Financial Network, a media consulting
company. Only about 38 percent of radio listeners tune into local
stations, he said.
WILM ranked sixth in listeners out of 12 stations in the Wilmington
market, Fratrik said. His company estimates that WILM had about $1.3
million in revenue in 2003.
Clear Channel bought WILM because the station's programming will fit
in well with the company's other four Delaware properties, Puglise
said. The company owns two talk radio AM stations, WDOV in Dover and
WWTX in Wilmington. It also owns the FM music stations WRDX in
Wilmington and WDSD in Dover.
WILM will be able to put much of its news programming on the Dover
stations, moving the entire WILM morning news show to WDOV, 1410 AM,
Puglise said.
"This may be one of those mergers where there will be more local
programming afterward than existed before," he said.
Allan Loudell, the station's program manager and longtime host of the
morning news program, said the news staff was anxious when the sale
was announced to employees Monday.
But he said he was optimistic that Clear Channel would keep the local
news format. The company has a financial incentive to focus on local
news because that is what listeners have come to expect from WILM, he
said.
"If you don't do a lot of local programming, you are not going to have
great success," Loudell said, although he acknowledged that some
things are bound to change. "Are we looking at a possible tweak here
and there, yeah."
There are about 1,000 radio stations in the United States that focus
on talk shows and news programs, said New York broadcast consultant
Valerie Geller. Of those, only a handful are still independent, she
said.
"It is amazing that WILM was able to be an independent as long as it
was," she said.
A spokeswoman for the FCC said the agency does not keep statistics on
how many radio stations are independent.
Talk radio has risen in the last decade as federal rules were changed
to allow companies like Clear Channel to own several stations in the
same market. That has led to clusters of stations that are owned by
the same company and share programming, said Fratrik, with BIA, the
media consulting company.
WILM remained independent during the wave of radio station mergers
that began in the 1990s. Clear Channel used the federal rule changes
to become one of the world's biggest media companies, with 1,200 radio
stations, 41 television stations and 776,000 outdoor advertising
displays in the United States.
Founded in 1928
WILM was founded in 1928 by radio engineer E.B. Boyle on the top floor
of the Bendheim Shoe Store on Market Street in Wilmington. In 1949,
the station was purchased by Hawkins' father, Ewing Hawkins, who was a
beer distributor in Delaware.
Former employees have said WILM has long maintained a much bigger news
staff than most local news stations of the same size, sometimes to the
detriment of the bottom line.
"What struck me was that the station was a throwback to the days of
full-service news and talk radio, where a lot of the programming was
locally produced," said former WILM reporter Jim DeSousa. "We really
had an astounding number of people on the payroll."
Former WILM reporter Sharon Mittelman said many radio journalists got
their break in broadcasting from the station. Mittelman left the
station last year and became a writer and anchor at the national CBS
Radio News in New York.
"It was the experience of a lifetime to work for WILM," she said.
Hawkins said the station put more of its resources into producing good
news and local talk radio programs than into marketing and
advertising, which affected the company's bottom line. He said for the
last 50 years the company "has been breaking even."
"It's just a fabulous product that has been undermarketed," Hawkins
said.
Contact Steven Church at 324-2786 or schurch@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Copyright ©2004, The News Journal.
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