Report: Disney AMers Remain On-Air

After 18 years of using the AM band as a platform to bring its content to a nationwide audience, Radio Disney was planning to shut down all but one of its remaining terrestrial signals in big markets around the country Friday, potentially leaving some big holes on the AM dial until new owners could be found for the licenses.

However, according to Scott Fybush and fybush.com, listeners who tuned into WQEW 1560 AM in New York, WMKI 1260 AM in Boston, WWJZ 640 AM in Philadelphia or WDDZ 1250 AM in Pittsburgh found them still on the air.  Fybush's NERW is reporting those signals will remain on the air indefinitely until Disney is able to sell them.

Why the change of heart?

This is not the first time Disney has made plans to shut down a big chunk of its AMs. Previous waves of sell-offs have included former Disney outlets in Providence, Hartford, Albany and elsewhere – and each time, most of those stations have gone silent under FCC special temporary authority while awaiting sale.

This time, though, things are a little different: NERW has learned that when Disney’s corporate office put out the release in August announcing Friday as the shutdown date, it prompted concerns from lawyers elsewhere in the company.

The issue:  Can a company as big as Disney make an economic argument to the FCC about the need to take signals silent in some of the nation’s biggest markets, especially when the Radio Disney national programming feed isn’t going away? With much more valuable licenses at stake (think Disney-owned ABC owned-and-operated stations such as WABC-TV and WPVI), Disney quietly made the decision not to test the Commission’s patience with silent STAs.

NERW reports the signals will stay on the air with the national Radio Disney feeds and each local studio/office will stay open with the FCC-mandated minimum of two staffers while the planned layoffs take effect for everyone else. But local promotions will end, and whatever local ad sales Disney had been doing will end as well.