Now in our third month of looking to make a go of this AM and FM station. What we thought would be difficult has been a pleasure...and what we thought would be the easy part has been the toughest challenge.

First, the tough part.

The technical challenges. They've been formidable to say the least.

It took us a full month to begin live broadcasting on the FM because when I arrived there wasn't even a studio. Only the AM was on the air and that was a completely computer generated broadcast.

The month of September represented one setback after another. Internet, antenna, RF at the transmitter site, you name it. Three engineers and yours truly had quite a time putting this thing together to the point where we could get on the air with a live broadcast.

As October dawned, we were at least on the air with live programming, but now we began to be dogged by other technical issues.

All of those stem largely from local IP challenges which we have found the answer for solving. More on that in a moment.

Meanwhile...my trusty sales associate Pamela and I have made inroads in the business community. She has been a tremendous blessing and is worth her weight in gold. She has added a number of accounts and advertisers are getting great customer srvice and a lot for their money.

The sales portion...the one aspect we thought would be difficult...has been a pleasant surprise.

Every year in Dothan, they hold their annual Peanut Festival. The event draws well over a hundred thousand people. We decided to participate and buy a booth for all 9 days of the gig.

Thankfully, 5 area restaurants purchased ad time as sponsors, which covered the costs. Then as we met hundreds of people at the festival, we were pleasantly surprised at the number of people who both love oldies AND are already listening to the station.

It was encouraging to say the least and it was a nice boost as October came to an end.

Now in November...we have found a contradiction of sorts.

We are seeing a plethora of opportunities to turn this format into a wildly successful station. However, the unforeseen expenses with the technical issues (which by the way are STILL with us, mainly on the I-T side) have eaten into a lot of my available capital and thus forestalled our opportunity to make upgrades which will both eliminate our technical issues AND increase our coverage area up to triple its present contours.

I have a standing offer to raise my tower height from 285' to 650' by entering into an agreement with the local ABC-TV affiliate to move to their tower. I also have an opportunity to move my AM tower location and get a significant power increase as well.

Therefore...I'm offering anyone who may be interested the opportunity to invest in Bob Mathers' radio station efforts here in Dothan.

I have a business plan, a first year pro forma and a vision to take this station to not just local success...but to use the prototype to employ in other markets.

The plan is sound, realistic, and provides a relatively low risk for a reasonably high return.

Furthermore...the amount of capital I need is well under a hundred thousand dollars and I'm willing to sell up to 49% of ownership for the specific amount needed.

One or many can make up the 49%.

The radio industry overall is in a slump, but Dothan is a different town. Not only is the economy much more sound here than most other areas of the US...but the demo is overwhelmingly older (and more affluent) and is hungry for oldies (we're the only station playin' them in town) and we're liking what we're seeing and hearing.

I will be glad to answer all inquiries to my personal email at bobmathers@hotmail.com.

Thanks,

Bob

• RE: The State of Things in Dothan - John 11/14/2008 12:00:34 EST (1)