>>How much in smaller cities? Say Austin?
>
>Dunno, but it's probably roughly proportionate to population. Metro
>Austin has a population of around 1 million, compared to 18 million
>for metro NYC. If you figure the NYC license at $120m, then Austin,
>with 5-6% the population, would come in at $6-7m.
These figures would apply to the main part of the dial, right? Isn't that why, or at least partially why, WBAI's frequency (99.9) is worth so much? Aren't the costs for left-of-dial frequencies much, much cheaper, or are there no more slots left?
As for Austin, it could be more, as the city is growing like crazy and is full of highly educated and wealthy people (the oil and computer rich). The LBJ-family company owns five stations in Austin--yes, five; the joys of deregulation--and the company is valued at over $100 million. One would think a healthy chunk of that is for the frequencies.
And Austin does have an excellent community radio station, KOOP, which used to broadcast Pacifica programming. Pacifica yanked it because KOOP preceded the Pacifica Nightly News with a blurb that encouraged Pacifica to settle its labor disputes in favor of the workers, etc.
Eric