REC Networks makes some remarkable math: the entity doing business as translator-mongers Edgewater Broadcasting and Radio Assist Ministries is cleaning up on the FM dial. Combined, Edgewater/RAM currently hold 1,026 construction permits for translator stations. This is of more than 4,200 license applications filed (~2,300 applications still pending).
Of these, REC then lists (in an e-mail) 83 sales or transfers of Edgewater/RAM construction permits – the recipients of whom just happen to be other translator-mongers, like the American Family Association and Calvary Chapel Church, Inc.
Three multi-translator transactions involved Edgewater/RAM handing over 26 construction permits in Florida to “Reach Communications (Calvary Chapel Church, Inc.)” for $326,500. The total revenue generated by the 83 transactions is just over $800,000.
“Turning the tables” indeed. There’s 943 permits still in play, and Edgewater/RAM is bound to pick up a few more from the pending applications. Let’s assign them an arbitrary price, like $5,000 each, and multiply.
Conservatively-speaking, the Edgewater/RAM cartel is sitting on $4.7 million worth of spectrum, which seems to be getting sold piecemeal (outright and/or via shadow corporations) to the biggest dogs in the godcasting game. The finesse with which the system has been played here is astounding. (This estimate only accounts for the spectrum Edgewater/RAM already holds the right to develop.)
The extra-scary bonus: some of the other companies taking transfers of translators appear to be commercial (read: for-profit) ventures. For example, Laramie Mountain Broadcasting, which happens to buy and sell stations in the front range of the Rockies, netted two translators for $20,000. The nebulous “Airport Investors” grabbed a slew of translators in Delaware, Maryland, and Massachusetts for $31,000.
We got some sinnin’ goin’ on, indeed.
Skip to content