Alpha Media courting SummitMedia?

[passtheword]

From today's Tom Taylor's Now Newsletter (1/21/15):

"It’s such a logical tie-up, given that Summit would let Alpha upgrade its current competitive positions in Richmond and Louisville, essentially combining the former forces of Main Line (absorbed by Alpha) and Cox (bought by SummitMedia). And surely Larry Wilson, like many other operators, covets the Birmingham cluster that’s the jewel of SummitMedia. Wilson is said to be pursuing some kind of group deal, after announcing the acquisition of the three FMs from Coast Radio. Is the deal with Carl Parmer and the folks at Summit?"

 

[Kent]

Might make sense. Summit has been rumored to be having issues for the last year or so.

 

[Charles35080]

Makes sense for Birmingham. Doesn't make sense for Louisville. Summit owns a slough of signals in Louisville (WVEZ, WQNU, WRKA, WSFR), and so does Alpha (WDJX, WGZB, WMJM, WXMA, WGHL). Something would have to give in the River City.

 

[Kent]

The report from Tom Taylor this morning says Alpha/Summit talks have apparently cooled. If such a deal happened, you'd actually see a recoupling of Louisville stations as both Alpha and Summit have some ex-Jacor stations that were divided up after it was merged into Clear Channel a little over 15 years ago. Half went to Cox, and half went to Blue Chip. There would also be overlap in Richmond. I suspect, if such a deal were to happen, you'd see Alpha keep most of the Summit stations in Louisville but find some way to integrate WDJX and the format of WGZB into the cluster and spin everything else. In Richmond, they'd probably keep the Summit stations and unload their current cluster, though they might try to rotate in their new country station at the expense of Easy 100.9 (modeled after WEZZ).