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Audacy Bankruptcy Imminent

nd2023 said:
CBS FM needs to play the best of the 50s, 60s, and 70s!
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And doing that would drop them from one of the top 15 highest billing stations in the U.S. to somewhere around rank number 1500 nationally.

In New York, most revenue is from national and local agencies. They simply don't buy stations with mostly listeners over 65, which is what you'd get with 60's and 70's music. And 50's stuff would get you mostly those over 80!

Question: Why do you think playing that ancient music would be a good idea?
 
DavidEduardo said:
And doing that would drop them from one of the top 15 highest billing stations in the U.S. to somewhere around rank number 1500 nationally.

In New York, most revenue is from national and local agencies. They simply don't buy stations with mostly listeners over 65, which is what you'd get with 60's and 70's music. And 50's stuff would get you mostly those over 80!

Question: Why do you think playing that ancient music would be a good idea?
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I agree with what you said in this post. And I find that this is the double edge sword. One would think that people 65+ would have a greater connection to terrestrial radio for listening habits, than an alternate medium (streaming, satellite, music via cable company). However (as you point out), people 65+ are statistically less engaged in shopping for items like iPhones, cars, and concert tickets. Therefore, that won't bring in revenue for the station. Instead of complaining that WCBS-FM doesn't play 50s through 70s, it's more productive to examine the alternate means.

For nd2023, I'm not in the NYC market; so I looked around for the quickest ways to listen to 50s through 70s music that may already be accessible to the audience. People can listen to:
- Decade themed stations on iHeart's and Audacy's apps (free, so long as they have access to a computer or smart phone)
- Music Choice has a solid gold Oldies channel on Spectrum (need to subscribe to a package that includes it)
- SiriusXM offers decade themed channels going back to the 40s. (need to be a subscriber to a music package)
- Tune In has stations outside the market (free, but need access to computer or smart phone, and need to the station you want to find)

I'm sure there's even more. Those are the quickest. Once you let go of the "it's not on your local market's FM dial" mindset, you realize that you can find what you want all over.
 
The reality is that CBS-FM already does play the best hits of the 60's and 70's, with a smattering of the 50's thrown in. You just need an HD radio to pick it up, and be somewhere where their HD signal is solid. They run the True Oldies Channel on their HD3 (unless the situation's changed in the very recent past), which gives you most of what you want.
 
Barry said:
The Wall Street Journal is reporting Audacy is likely to declare bankruptcy within weeks, and will probably be acquired by its lenders. Any speculation whether this would have a significant effect on the stations the company owns in New York?

From InsideRadio
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How could this happen, when some Audacy stations are very popular? In L.A., KRTH is popular. When the ratings books are posted here, KRTH is always at the top, or at least second or third. Same with their 24 hour news stations in L.A. and San Francisco. That is KNX and KCBS respectively. Those are good stations, with well-reported and well-written news. Why couldn't Audacy be profitable?
"Radio Insight" says that ad spending was down. Why is that? Are they losing terrestrial audience, but still remaining highly rated among a diminishing pool of listeners?What caused them to lose money? -- Daryl
 
Daryl Lynn L.A. said:
How could this happen, when some Audacy stations are very popular? In L.A., KRTH is popular. When the ratings books are posted here, KRTH is always at the top, or at least second or third. Same with their 24 hour news stations in L.A. and San Francisco. That is KNX and KCBS respectively. Those are good stations, with well-reported and well-written news. Why couldn't Audacy be profitable?
"Radio Insight" says that ad spending was down. Why is that? Are they losing terrestrial audience, but still remaining highly rated among a diminishing pool of listeners?What caused them to lose money? -- Daryl
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It's not just profits. According to reports, they lost over $234 million in the third quarter of 2023. The company as a whole is facing nearly $2 billion in total debt over the next 5 years, with almost $930 million due by the end of this calendar year.
 
Daryl Lynn L.A. said:
How could this happen, when some Audacy stations are very popular?
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This bankruptcy has nothing to do with popularity or profitability. It has to do strictly with the repayment of a $2 billion debt that was used to buy CBS Radio. That's it.

"Radio Insight" says that ad spending was down. Why is that?
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Because advertisers have chosen to spend less money. This is an issue affecting ALL ad-supported media, including Spotify, Sirius, and television.
 
Back in the 1980s when NBC got out of the radio business, the stations were sold individually. In NYC WNBC was sold to Emmis who moved WFAN from 1050 AM to 660 AM while WYNY then at 97.1 FM was sold to Westwood One. It appears that financially it was a big mistake for Entercom/Audacy to buy all CBS stations.
 
exdjted said:
It's not just profits. According to reports, they lost over $234 million in the third quarter of 2023. The company as a whole is facing nearly $2 billion in total debt over the next 5 years, with almost $930 million due by the end of this calendar year.
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As was pointed out to me above, Audacy operations are profitable, despite this apparent bad third quarter. My thinking is the profitable operations aren't profitable enough to do anything serious about the debt, and unless there is thinking that the advertising market WILL turn around, Audacy and their lenders are in a tough situation. I suppose the restructuring could say, "we'll give you another 5 years," but then I am back to without operational changes what will be different? They could say, "the debtors are in possession" and for 2 billion dollars they bought 235 radio stations, but is that value going up or down in the future? A digital platform for accessing desirable demos could have been created for a lot less than 2 billion dollars.
 
BruceNYC said:
It appears that financially it was a big mistake for Entercom/Audacy to buy all CBS stations.
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The reality was that CBS wanted to get out of the radio business. Just as NBC and ABC had done before. The original plan was to spin it off into its own company. The $2 billion debt was created to fund that transfer. So someone was going to end up with that debt. Entercom was probably the strongest radio company at the time. So they ended up with that debt, and now it's starting to come due. But don't kid yourself. If it wasn't Entercom, someone was going to be stuck with that debt, and it wasn't going to be CBS. They wanted out of radio, and now they are.

SCMcKinney said:
A digital platform for accessing desirable demos could have been created for a lot less than 2 billion dollars.
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I'm not sure what you're talking about. What to you is a digital platform? Audacy bought the CBS streaming platform known as Radio.com. They changed the name to Audacy.com, but it's their own digital platform for radio. They could have done what iHeart did, and built it from scratch, but that would take years, and likely a lot of money. The bigger problem is that the "desirable demos" you're talking about don't mean much when advertising revenue drops. That's what happened two years ago, and it's affecting all ad-supported media, not just radio. So it's a much bigger problem than moving from broadcast to digital.
 
TheBigA said:
The reality was that CBS wanted to get out of the radio business. Just as NBC and ABC had done before. The original plan was to spin it off into its own company. The $2 billion debt was created to fund that transfer. So someone was going to end up with that debt. Entercom was probably the strongest radio company at the time. So they ended up with that debt, and now it's starting to come due. But don't kid yourself. If it wasn't Entercom, someone was going to be stuck with that debt, and it wasn't going to be CBS. They wanted out of radio, and now they are.
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CBS wanted out of radio for about a decade. (How many times did the "could Cumulus buy CBS Radio?" rumor circulate?) It probably would have happened much earlier had the 2008 Great Recession not happened.
 
Nathan Obral said:
CBS wanted out of radio for about a decade. (How many times did the "could Cumulus buy CBS Radio?" rumor circulate?) It probably would have happened much earlier had the 2008 Great Recession not happened.
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To be specific, Les Moonves wanted out of CBS radio. He felt it was hurting his bottom line. When Dan Mason was CEO of radio, he made a very persuasive argument to Shari Redstone to keep it. So for a while, she was in favor of keeping radio. But in the end, she too agreed it had to go. Along the way, they sold off a bunch of markets, including Buffalo and Kansas City. Ironically the companies that bought the stations in those markets went bankrupt.
 
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