Whew...I'm just now coming up for air and I know that I owe a buncha
people a buncha replies, but I gotta start somewheres....
||PS>Diane Levesque wrote in a message to All:
||
||PS>DL> Hi, I was just wondering if I could get some thoughts on the
||PS>DL> matter of private shortwave station cash flow.  Quite a few
||PS>DL> private stations seem to be up for sale these days, even
||PS>DL> some operated by religious orgs. that take on apparently
||PS>DL> pre-paid programming.
||
||PS>DL> Is it proper to conclude that the provable shortwave
||PS>DL> listener base (whether as a public to do public service to,
||PS>DL> or as a viable commercial market), isn't big enough to
||PS>DL> support positive cash flow through station operations?
||
||PS>DL> Anybody have any other explanations or theories?
PS>   How about that Shortwave stations traditionally carry no advertising?
PS>   Consequently, they have to be financed by other means - usually by
PS>   governments as a P.R./Propaganda move.
Old Cold War rules. That changed with the advent of Joe Costello's WRNO
("Worldwide Rock Of New Orleans") in the mid-80's, the first U.S.
commercial station with a shortwave license in this country. But it did
end up losing money over the years and changed format to rightwing
syndicated talk shows and thus made the move back to propaganda, albeit
the pre-paid variety.  Still carried advertising, but of the
survivalist/soldier-of-fortune type.
PS>   I don't know that advertising would be illegal, but most SW listeners
PS>   would just move on once they heard commercials.  If your prospective
PS>   advertisers knew this, there would go your market, huh?  In fact, since
Not necessarily; shortwave radio certainly has become the stomping
grounds of the paramilitary rightwing whatnots and even hitting
Associated Press articles as somehow affiliated with this or that
rightwing shortwave program.  There was a survivalist convention here in
Phoenix AZ that featured a few of these radio personalities, including a
(relatively) prominent one from Tucson, and the guy what got recruited
to do negotiations during that Ruby Ridge thing.  Oh, there's an
audience, alright--but not necessarily the type that you'd like to
showcase to the rest of the world via the global reaches of shortwave.
PS>   "religious" stations are really just informercials, ostensibly on God,
PS>   but in actuality on supporting the likes of Tammy Lee's hairdressers,
PS>   that's probably why a lot of them are biting it - they're just not
PS>   pulling in enough donations.
Yepper; the mediocre/trash ones, like weeds, never go away, but one of
the best shortwave religious producers with an excellent news
department, Christian Science Monitor, is even getting out of it.
And yet there's a rare left-wing station out there, in Costa Rica but
funded by U.S. donations, that seems to be doing very well despite the
frequent problems with Mom Nature tangling with its antennae.  Stateside
HQ in the northwest somewhere (Seattle?), I'm referring to Costa Rica's
Radio For Peace International.
PS>   Summary:  There's no money in shortwave.  A cable station would be a
PS>   much better bet....
PS>cul, ps
Hey, don't tell me THAT!!!  However, that's why I posted my question the
way I did...if you had inherited a shortwave radio station and needed to
do something with it, lacking buyers, how would you go about turning it
around?  See, that makes your response non-applicable.  
Anyhoo, I like that other answer I got about doing an all-sports
station.  Soccer is THE international sport and yet in this country it
has only recently gotten token coverage.  While it may be argued that
satellite and cable TV sports channels cover that territory, it's
worthwhile to point out that it's a popular shortwave format insofar as
folks overseas do most of the listening to shortwave and many, many
South American and Australasian stations cover it on all available media
including shortwave.  In short, it's A Big Deal  everywhere else but
here and I'm certain that the sports audiences abroad are hungry for
thusfar uncovered games of the genre in the US.
 * SLMR 2.1a * Lemme see what's in this waveguide @#!*%$#@  NO CARRIER
--- WILDMAIL!/WC v4.12 
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