Perhaps, but Audacy is not interested in nickel and dime local accounts. They have massive debt. Uncle Joe's Orthopedic Mattress account won't help them...
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BREAKING NEWS!...Star 102.5 sold in Buffalo
- Thread starter Tall Thin One
- Start date
Local direct account sales in that sort of market is not "nickel and dime". We are talking about everything from local car dealers to local banks, medical service providers and hundreds of other categories and specialties.
Remember a "national" account has an agency commission and a rep commission and your national sales manager's commission.
If you are in El Paso or Davenport or Lansing or Spokane or Tallahassee you likely do better with local direct than with agency buys.
It's pretty obvious you have not been a GM or a GSM.
With all that revenue flowing in, it's inexplicable that Audacy is circling the drain. Maybe you should explain it to the Bean Counters...
Majic rockstar
Banned
So the AM stations need two strong FM signals to stay strong in the future right? Town square has two strong signals that have horrible formats right? And that would still put them at 4. Cumulus could buy Kiss and that would put them at 4 right? That leaves star on 107.7 and could get sold to a local owner. Now does this make sense? Because the way I’m looking at it Audacy is in the market to sell and this seems to make perfect sense. And if you want to go one step further Star could possibly get taken by Cumulus and plopped on 103.3 sending the edge out to pasture but I don’t see that ever happening.
Keep a sharp eye on DFW.
The final paragraph of the RadioInsight article about intellectual property and reselling of stations is quite intriguing and lines up with other speculation regarding EMF, Cumulus, and Audacy.
T
TV Junkie 12
Guest
There's no way to know if all the pieces are done moving here. There is plenty of speculation that Audacy will dump the Big Tree road property, diplex WGR (at reduced nighttime power) with WBEN and turn in the license for WWKB. There's plenty of precedent for that with what they recently did in Vegas. As far as 107.7 still being sold, Buddy is waiting for his opportunity with cash in hand and a viable business plan to make the 107.7 signal a moneymaker. Don't count him out yet.
Audacy is very profitable on operations... EBITDA. It's big and only problem is the debt service.
On operations, it appears that last year net income before taxes, depreciation, amortization and interest, was well over $100 million.
They took over the debt that CBS incurred before the Reverse Morris Trust deal and that is "unpayable" based on the post pandemic state of radio. They will have to find a way to refinance, because the lenders certainly don't want stations that are worth less than the debt.
Could Cumulus make a deal for Kiss, WGR, and WBEN? That would fill out their allocations on both AM and FM. As long as WGR has the Bills and Sabres they're viable. WBEN is still a big biller, but managing some of their talent has to be challenging. It's also an expensive format to run. 107.7, 1520, and 1400 could be spun to a local owner or owners.
Is it conceivable that Cumulus and Townsquare split up the remnants of the cluster? Or that either are legally allowed to buy further?
The Star IP could also be sold to either company. Replacing rock on WBUF, perhaps?
I was thinking that. Plus they get the Star IP and put that on 103.3
The AMs are more useful to Cumulus. They have lots of national news/talk and sports content.
I believe Buffalo only has 35 stations according to BIA. If that's still the case and my memory is correct, Townsquare can't add another FM. Cumulus, however, has room for another FM.
that would never end well.. everyone would have a different idea of what should be done.. and thered be alot of infighting and power struggles.
Even if you had liek a very clear set of rules and ways to do things.... all it would take is someone with a bit of money, to get ticked off with time on their hands. .to create astink
27 commercial stations, 8 noncommercial. 14 commercial FM in the two counties, 13 commercial AMs. 19 translators.
Sounds like you wrote the bylaws of Pacifica!
Is Cumulus interested in buying or swapping stations at this point? If Audacy has in fact sold 102.5, it would seem that is just the beginning of further moves. Their End Game may be to exit Buffalo entirely...
D
Deleted member 76036
Guest
I’m not sure how the Featured Stories feed updates, but it didn’t show up there on the homepage until over an hour after the story was posted. When I commented on here, I’m 100% sure that it wasn’t in the Featured Stories feed. I refreshed and cleared browser history/cache around 5 p.m. central time. The article finally appeared under Featured Stories when I checked at around 5:20 p.m. CDT. This seems to happen every now and then, where articles are posted and they’re hidden from RadioInsight’s homepage.
Cumulus is emerging from bankruptcy. So they own one FM in Houston, while Audacy has 4.
Is one FM in Houston worth 2 AMs, an FM, plus IP in Buffalo?
Those are usually caused by browser cache conflicts on the users end. I'll monitor to see if its a problem on the server side, but every time it has happened so far it is on local end. Flushing the cache on the device fixes it.
But this thread should not be hijacked anymore for RadioInsight tech support issues.
Not a chance. KRBE may be in play for a swap but it would be for a much bigger market than stations in Buffalo.
It would not surprise me if the third market in play is Detroit. Minneapolis is another to watch. This assumes Audacy trades the remaining Buffalo stations to Cumulus.
If Star simply disappears, that's a big, big win for Townsquare. They could reposition WMSX or flip WBUF.
Edit - will we see Cumulus-owned 93.3 in DFW go to EMF, with Audacy helping facilitate that deal by allowing EMF to use the K-Love trademark there?
Edit #2 - if some or all remaining Audacy AM & FM stations locally land in Cumulus' hands, might we see Star on 103.3 and Edge on 107.7 / 104.7?
Edit #3 - might WXLO Worcester, which enjoys decent Boston market coverage, be in play in terms of horse trading?
If Star simply disappears, that's a big, big win for Townsquare. They could reposition WMSX or flip WBUF.
Edit - will we see Cumulus-owned 93.3 in DFW go to EMF, with Audacy helping facilitate that deal by allowing EMF to use the K-Love trademark there?
Edit #2 - if some or all remaining Audacy AM & FM stations locally land in Cumulus' hands, might we see Star on 103.3 and Edge on 107.7 / 104.7?
Edit #3 - might WXLO Worcester, which enjoys decent Boston market coverage, be in play in terms of horse trading?
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