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Cumulus Media Seeks Foreign Ownership Ruling From FCC

The US government owns radio stations in lots of foreign countries. The US military owns AFRTS stations throughout the world, and many US companies own radio and TV stations in other countries. As far as foreign entities "messing with the US," you should know that both China and Russia broadcast government sponsored radio programming on US stations. However, those stations are owned by US citizens. Same with social media. Those companies are US owned, but the internet is world wide. So they're accessible to anyone in the world.

The sale of any broadcast station would require the permission of the FCC. If an adversary tried to buy a station, the FCC could deny the sale. And by the way, if a citizen objects to any person buying a broadcast station, they could file a petition to deny. Lots of options available. No reason to prohibit innocent foreigners just because of the few bad ones.
 
I sort of doubt that foreign investors in Cumulus would destroy broadcasting in the US.

As for the Chinese and Russian programmed stations, I don't see how that would hurt the US any. Most of them (all of them?) are on the AM band, which only has 16% of radio listeners.
 
First, would Virgin Radio U.S. or Absolute Radio U.S. be the worst thing ever?
Second, I am curious to know what foreign entity Cumulus has in mind. I've got to think they didn't just pull this idea out of a hat.
 
gr8oldies said:
Second, I am curious to know what foreign entity Cumulus has in mind. I've got to think they didn't just pull this idea out of a hat.
Click to expand...

Interesting question. Lots of big foreign media conglomerates would love to have a foothold in the US. Let me throw out one name: Vivendi. It's a French multi-media conglomerate that owns Canal TV in France, but also owns Universal Music Group. One thing few Americans know is that most of the music they hear on the radio is owned by either Vivendi or Sony. In the last few weeks, Vivendi has been looking to sell off a portion of Universal. They could use a portion of the proceeds to make another purchase. That would reunite radio & records under one owner, something that hasn't happened since the 1980s.

One other point: You can bet that Cumulus isn't the only radio company that is seeking foreign investment. It's very likely iHeart would like to do the same with its remaining debt.
 
While this may be new for the US, North American companies have been able to do this in other countries at various times - iHeart is in Australia and New Zealand, a group in Canada (CanWest) bought a North Dakota TV station in 1974 to target Winnipeg, and expanded into the UK, Ireland, and NZ broadcast markets. Emmis is (or was?) in Hungary and Slovakia. Italian personality Marco Mazzoli invested in bringing the dance format to a significant portion of Florida. UK broadcaster & entrepreneur Ricki Lee is bringing local radio back to communities in Upstate NY that were in danger of losing it.

I used to be loudly against consolidation, and I think it's done its damages. But given the realities of current radio, I don't think programming would be any worse because of foreign investment and might actually be better. I say it's worth trying.
 
Andy Travis said:
While this may be new for the US, North American companies have been able to do this in other countries at various times - iHeart is in Australia and New Zealand, a group in Canada (CanWest) bought a North Dakota TV station in 1974 to target Winnipeg, and expanded into the UK, Ireland, and NZ broadcast markets. Emmis is (or was?) in Hungary and Slovakia. Italian personality Marco Mazzoli invested in bringing the dance format to a significant portion of Florida. UK broadcaster & entrepreneur Ricki Lee is bringing local radio back to communities in Upstate NY that were in danger of losing it.
Click to expand...

Emmis is no longer in Bulgaria, Hungary and Argentina. The Hungarian station had its license cancelled, Bulgaria was not profitable and Argentina was rendered a loss and sold back to the original owner due to currency devaluation.

Saga sold its Iceland station. iHeart sold its half-interest in Mexico's Grupo Acir. Richard Eaton of United Broadcasting used to own the famous XERF in Villa Acuña, México.

Grupo Prisa from Spain owns all or part of stations in Mexico, Dominican Republic, Colombia, Ecuador, Costa Rica (just sold), Guatemala, Argentina, Chile. Mexico's EXA group has stations in about 6 Latin American nations, fully owned. Another Mexican company has radio and TV in about 10 countries in Latin America.

In Europe, there are many media companies with radio or TV in several nations.

Metromedia used to own stations in Russia as well as Germany, Latvia, Slovakia and others.

Heck, closer to home, I had my 12 station group in Ecuador taken from me by a hostile government.

But, in general, many countries around the world allow a percentage... usually less than the majority... of foreign ownership of local media outlets.

As to Mazzoli's operation, it covers very little of Florida. The main station is on one of the Florida keys, and covers fish and turtles. It has two very limited translators in the Miami metro, but they reach only a small part of the population. They also own an FM in Belle Glade, which covers mostly swamp and Lake Okeechobee, with a signal that dies before it gets to most of the Palm Beach population.
 
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TheBigA said:
You're right, and here's an update on your linked story. In February, the FCC approved the company, which is 100% Italian owned, to buy the stations. So there is precedent to what Cumulus is seeking to do:

http://www.insideradio.com/free/ita...cle_790006d4-38ce-11e9-aedd-432b074feef5.html
Click to expand...

Having recently driven from one end of Italy to the other, (literally) spending a lot of time listening to the radio, I was quite impressed how well the Italians did, in particular, with music radio. There was a series of stations that carried their version of Classic Rock, that I spent most of the time listening to.

Besides having a really tight and well managed playlist, I was impressed with their use of RBDS-station forwarding in my rental car radio. Driving along my radio would automatically, seamlessly, switch to another transmitter site that carried the same station/format. I could literally listen to that one station from Lake Como to Mezzogiorno.
 
TheBigA said:
The US government owns radio stations in lots of foreign countries. The US military owns AFRTS stations throughout the world, and many US companies own radio and TV stations in other countries. As far as foreign entities "messing with the US," you should know that both China and Russia broadcast government sponsored radio programming on US stations. However, those stations are owned by US citizens. Same with social media. Those companies are US owned, but the internet is world wide. So they're accessible to anyone in the world.

The sale of any broadcast station would require the permission of the FCC. If an adversary tried to buy a station, the FCC could deny the sale. And by the way, if a citizen objects to any person buying a broadcast station, they could file a petition to deny. Lots of options available. No reason to prohibit innocent foreigners just because of the few bad ones.
Click to expand...

The trouble is when the 'bad ones' are discovered?
Remember, there are many Americans who think Pro Rasslin is real and all the 'reality shows' are real.
Just don't want to see this country be divided further or for an extremely long time with another source such as Radio.
Also, if foreign ownership gets approved, then TV will be next.

Yea, the US runs Armed Forces Radio in other countries but that is clearly 'stamped' of what it is.
The same for VOA.
Just not comfortable with foreign oligarchs taking over the airwaves.
I don't trust the current head of the FCC, he's not looking out for the broadcasters.
 
This might be seen as a surprise. A new investor in Cumulus has emerged:

www.rbr.com

Soo Kim’s Latest Investment? A Reborn Radio Giant | Radio & Television Business Report

Soohyung Kim has become known for his Standard General's equity interest in TEGNA and for his partnership in New York with Jeff Smulyan that involves Hot 97 and WBLS. Now, it's become known that Kim has attributable interest in the radio broadcasting company led by Mary Berner.
www.rbr.com www.rbr.com

Kim's company is a major player in Bally's and has been involved in other media.

Could this be tied in with Bally's purchase of the Fox regional sports networks?
 
TheBigA said:
This might be seen as a surprise. A new investor in Cumulus has emerged:

www.rbr.com

Soo Kim’s Latest Investment? A Reborn Radio Giant | Radio & Television Business Report

Soohyung Kim has become known for his Standard General's equity interest in TEGNA and for his partnership in New York with Jeff Smulyan that involves Hot 97 and WBLS. Now, it's become known that Kim has attributable interest in the radio broadcasting company led by Mary Berner.
www.rbr.com www.rbr.com

Kim's company is a major player in Bally's and has been involved in other media.

Could this be tied in with Bally's purchase of the Fox regional sports networks?
Click to expand...

Ballys doesn't own the RSNs they still belong to Sinclair. Ballys is paying $85m over 10 years for the naming rights to all the sports channels: Sinclair Broadcast Group to rename sports channels after Bally’s casinos

The two companies just signed a deal for Sinclair to rename its 21 sports networks Bally Sports, source said.

Bally’s, which owns Bally’s Atlantic City Hotel & Casino, will pay Sinclair $85 million over a 10-year period for the naming rights, giving it exclusive access to fans of 42 major teams, including the Arizona Diamondbacks, the Detroit Tigers, the Tampa Bay Rays and the Kansas City Royals, sources said.
Click to expand...
 
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