Now that you mention it, my counterpart in Rochester was laid off before I was.
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Audacy Stock Trading Halted
- Thread starter JJSPC
- Start date
Do you know if CBS was looking to unload Orlando also? It was even smaller, and was just 3 FM’s like Phoenix with no other assets. The classic hits station in Orlando seemed to be the most successful, with the hot AC meandering along.
Yes
Les Moonves had publicly placed CBS’s radio division on the block in 2008 and tagged the smaller clusters like Orlando and Cleveland for immediate sale “if the price was right”. Took him nine years to actually get them sold, though.
Interesting, that wasn’t long after CBS unloaded a number of markets in 2006 or 2007 I think. I know they sold Denver, Cincinnati, that poorly inefficient “cluster” of a few AM’s in Greensboro-Winston-Salem, and some others.
But they did not sell the stand-alone FM in Palm Springs. I guess it was an excuse for some of the executives to go and play golf or party in the desert.
CBS bought WLNY-TV because the selling owner included a membership to a Long Island golf course so it wouldn’t be that far off.
Along with trading out of Tampa with Beasley (that also bolstered their Philadelphia cluster) and unloading West Palm Beach. Buffalo and Cincinnati (and Memphis) went to Entercom, who later traded some of those clusters with Bonneville for other assets IIRC.
Maybe. But both Palm Springs and Riverside were on Moonves' list for sale. As was the cluster in Victorville.
I remember when the Cincinnati deal happened, Entercom did not want WGRR. They never even operated it to my knowledge, it was swapped it to Cumulus to get 94.9 and the class A 97.3 - both of which weren’t very high performers. That was a baffling decision.
Worked out for Cumulus since WGRR is the highest rated music station in the market generally and one of the most successful classic hits stations in the country.
The stream of WGRR is getting a 2 share. Not bad for a stream.
M
MM797
Guest
With the market capitalization of the Audacy stock at the trading halt being under 17 Million dollars, it appears to me that offering the current shareholders a premium to the current 9.36 cents per share stock price to buy them out and take the corporation private would be the best move that they could make. What they would save in removing the expenses of maintaining a publicly traded company would go a long way toward the continued solvency of Audacy. There is a whole slew of expenses related to law, accounting, reporting and the specialized staff that are necessary and unique to the publicly traded company status requirements. They could reduce a lot of the staff and third party contracts that are directly related to that and quickly be in a better position.
What do others here think about this?
What do others here think about this?
Except that a huge percentage of the shares are owned by funds, both mutual funds and private ones. Most likely think that Audacy will "make a deal" with the lenders and the shares will recover value. So the downside now is minimal, and it's better to see if there is a big upside.
Not enough to save the current situation. The solution for making it an ongoing business is in negotiation for different debt terms, a partial exchange of equity for debt or a planned bankruptcy... having the Fields buy a lot of stock does not solve the problem.
They still have to do most of that for federal and state tax returns and, significantly, for the lenders. So the savings are minimal..
I had forgotten about that. Before that sale, WGRR was actually rumored to flip as CBS (or maybe it was still Infinity!) registered domains that pointed to it flipping to Jack FM. At least it was the assumption at the time, I don’t know if it was ever confirmed as nothing came of it (but the station was sold not long after, anyway). But the station was definitely turned around.
Some new analysis on the Audacy debt situation. One of the covenants that needs renegotiation is that the debt can't be 4 times the size of earnings:
www.insideradio.com
In the meantime, they really have to focus on digital growth, because that's the only area that has potential.
Analysts Say Audacy Is Threading A Financial Needle And A Restructuring Remains Possible.
With Audacy’s stock now trading over the counter after the New York Stock Exchange began proceedings to delist it, and with shareholders set to vote Wednesday on a reverse stock
In the meantime, they really have to focus on digital growth, because that's the only area that has potential.
Another thing Audacy has done that I find somewhat surprising, at least here in Greenville-Spartanburg…they’ve brought back weekenders on the CHR and AC instead of just having a weekday personality voicetrack. I’m not sure how much of it is voicetracking, but it caught my attention since they were axed pretty much across the cluster ages ago.
Just like iHeart, they're using VT's from talent in other markets over the weekend. Makes sense when you think about it.
Has anybody grown their digital revenue even close to the levels of their OTA properties? Not counting streaming of OTA stations. Check out SPOT (Spotify) negative earnings per share. Digital is most likely the future but will it grow fast enough to allow Audacy to pay their debts in the next couple of years?
IMHO I doubt a name that nobody can spell correctly the first time will "save the day"? Maybe the next owners can do something with the digital stuff that will pay off in the future .
Yes, Townsquare now has 53% of its revenue from digital. They do online marketing plans for clients, who also buy radio.
My view is that the money isn't in streaming. The royalty costs are too high. It is creating online content that attracts millions of clicks that you can sell directly to advertisers, and creating subscriber-based podcasts. Will it make $2 billion? No, but it will reverse the downward slide of the stock price.
Heard an interesting statistic just today: Of all active podcasts, what is the highest subscriber percentage of any podcast? 5% That podcast? Joe Rogan.
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