It seems like entercom/audacy of the 2010s felt night and day different than the company now. There's a lot more nationalization of formats, like the "alt pop" experiment in the early 2020s which was nationally rolled out. It seems like there's more syndication and it doesn't seem like the formats are as connected to the market as they were. For example, The Point in Kansas City pre-pandemic used to be neck and neck or even ahead of Mix, and now they're far behind. What changed in this company so drastically during the pandemic to now?
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Audacy/entercom post pandemic
- Thread starter tall_guy1
- Start date
They would call it "regionalization."
Audacy Restructuring Spurs Leadership Changes Across Multiple Markets.
Audacy’s sweeping sales restructuring is reshaping local leadership, eliminating Market Manager roles across its markets while elevating regional oversight. The changes have triggered a mix of executive reassignments, advisory roles,
They went bankrupt. They changed from being a company run by the Field family to one run by the creditors.
Audacy Successfully Completes Financial Restructuring; Emerges as a Growing, Scaled, Multi-platform Audio Leader with the Industry’s Strongest Balance Sheet | Audacy Inc.
PHILADELPHIA, PA – September 30, 2024 – Audacy, Inc. (the “Company” or “Audacy”) announced today that it has successfully completed its financial
audacyinc.com
What does that mean programming wise?They would call it "regionalization."
Audacy Restructuring Spurs Leadership Changes Across Multiple Markets.
Audacy’s sweeping sales restructuring is reshaping local leadership, eliminating Market Manager roles across its markets while elevating regional oversight. The changes have triggered a mix of executive reassignments, advisory roles,www.insideradio.com
They went bankrupt. They changed from being a company run by the Field family to one run by the creditors.
Audacy Successfully Completes Financial Restructuring; Emerges as a Growing, Scaled, Multi-platform Audio Leader with the Industry’s Strongest Balance Sheet | Audacy Inc.
PHILADELPHIA, PA – September 30, 2024 – Audacy, Inc. (the “Company” or “Audacy”) announced today that it has successfully completed its financial
The CBS/Entercom merger was approved in November 2017. So for most of the decade of the 2010’s Entercom was a much smaller company, probably able to react much quicker to changes/needs without carrying a huge amount of debt. My personal sense is Entercom was more like a small (even if not tiny) family owned company before the purchase of CBS Radio. My hunch is there was a change in culture at the company post-CBS purchase.
Post-CBS seemed different, but 2020 is when things like the national "alt" rebrand happened and a lot of non-coastal markets started relying a lot more on centralized playlists.
That's because 2020 is when they went broke. The sharp decline in advertising during the first months of the pandemic, and incomplete rebound, hurt Audacy hard.
Even though they didn't go bankrupt for several more years, in 2020 it became clear that the revenue no longer supported the business and the debt it held.
Not a whole lot. I haven't seen them launch any new national shows.
But what happens when they are run by creditors?
They cut and slash to minimize expenses and maximize profits for shareholders (and themselves, of course).
c
Does any company operate today the same way it did pre-pandemic? Some may have changed more than others, but nobody operates like it used to.
That has been the case most everywhere. iHeart and Cumulus also have less local programming. As an example, I went to Arkansas to visit family about six weeks ago. When I went to college there in the mid-90's, KKIX and KEZA were the crown jewels of the market. Today, they're servers at the transmitter sites. So are the other two iHeart stations in the market. Drive an hour south to Ft. Smith, and the iHeart stations are also servers at the transmitter sites, and they've been that way longer. IHeart sold the Radio Center several years ago. Cumulus started operating its Ft. Smith stations out of Fayetteville a couple or three years ago. It also moved its Topeka stations to Corporate Woods in Overland Park about a year ago.
Fewer advertisers, fewer listeners in drive time, less money flowing in. It's hitting radio everywhere. You can't be a local company without enough local dollars.
They didn't do a good enough job of it, because there were no profits for shareholders at Audacy in several years before their bankruptcy.
I sold my Entercom/Audacy stock at a loss of about 97% when it became clear David Field was incapable of delivering profits.
The CBS turned Entercom clusters were probably the last major holdouts (on the large corporate scale) to have stations that had a live, local jock in studio from the morning show until midnight. It was bound to happen eventually, but they continued the "live and local" strategy long after then-Clear Channel, Cumulus, etc., had moved to automation/tracking/etc.
How about iHeart's WKTU?
How about Cumulus' KPLX in Dallas?
Meanwhile Audacy's country stations run a syndicated mid-day and evening show.
There are, of course, exceptions. I'm not looking to nitpick or name the stations that go against the common format. Literally all I was saying is that when the old CBS stations were still CBS in the late 2000s and early 2010s, they were, as a whole, still live and local all day when others were not.
The thing that made CBS Radio different was it had other revenue streams besides radio, which isn't the case for other big radio companies. When their radio stations started to lose money, they couldn't absorb those losses. They had to cut expenses. Once CBS radio was sold to a radio-only company, they had to made adjustments at music stations just like everyone else. Having live & local talent didn't absolve them from losing audience and money.
So basically it became satellite radio with commercials? The same content nationwide.
If you're referring to the iHeart stations in Ft. Smith and Northwest Arkansas, KKIX and KMAG have a personality or two out of Little Rock as does KMXF. KEZA and KIGL would seem to be all national or regional personalities. I'm not sure how the playlist stacks up versus the other stations nationwide, but iHeart has scheduled music logs out of a central location for some of its stations for as long as 20 years, when it was still Clear Channel. So, if that's what's happening, it's been a long time coming.
Keep in mind one of the reasons to have local playlists is to qualify as a chart reporter. KMAG is the #1 station in Fort Smith, but it doesn't report to a music chart. Stations that utilize the centralized scheduling by iHeart have no input into the music charts. Jess Jennings of KSSN Little Rock programs KSSN, KKIX, and KMAG, and he is a chart reporter.