The reason why so many of these things lead to bankruptcy is the buyer gets a lot of crappy stations along a handful of good ones. That's what killed Citadel, Cumulus, and Alpha. I don't see that Alpha has really done the hard work of shutting down the dogs. That's Jeff's first job. He's got to clean house before the hole gets too deep. But I agree with the view that he needs to buy something else to make this work and hold these stations together. I don't think that thing is more radio stations.
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Connoisseur Media to acquire Alpha Media
- Thread starter atthestars
- Start date
The reason why so many of these things lead to bankruptcy is the buyer gets a lot of crappy stations along a handful of good ones. That's what killed Citadel, Cumulus, and Alpha. I don't see that Alpha has really done the hard work of shutting down the dogs. That's Jeff's first job. He's got to clean house before the hole gets too deep. But I agree with the view that he needs to buy something else to make this work and hold these stations together. I don't think that thing is more radio stations.
The first full wave of consolidation in 1995 found lots of companies buying other groups that had accumulated mediocre AMs from "back in the day" when those AMs were very viable. But by 1995, they were the equivalents of sea anchors, slowing down whole companies.
The promise of AM stereo kept many companies from selling those stations. That never panned out, and in the meantime the publicly traded groups were finding they had to take impairment charges on the AMs that were the worst-off.
I'm lucky, im working with a good foundation but theres still alot of moving parts.....when i worked in Wester PA, it was 2 of us running 3 stations, but two of them just say there and ran themselves, WW1 Hot AC on Storq and Adult Standards on SAtellite. It was the coujntry station that required and got most of our attention
It's tough some days, but HEARING the end product of your work is nice
What do you think it is then? A network to create & distribute their own shows & services? A podcast company? His own digital platform to rival iHeart and Audacy? Or maybe all of the above, but where do you think he starts?
I don't know.
Both Cox/Apollo and Alpha are in Dayton, but I'm thinking Warshaw would not be able to grab Cox's 3 stations.
Anna and Raven are already syndicated across the country. Their home base is Connoisseur's AC Star 99.1/Bridgeport, CT.
At this point, flat revenue is significantly outperforming the market. For example, Cumulus revenue was pretty sharply down in the first quarter, -6.5% YoY.
I don't think any of the other large broadcast chains have reported Q1 earnings yet. iHeart, Urban One and Saga are due in the next 7-10 days.
Jeff Warshaw says he's looking to buy more radio:
www.insideradio.com
Connoisseur Media’s Jeff Warshaw Eyes Further Expansion After Alpha Media Deal.
After past attempts to acquire Cumulus Media and Saga Communications were denied, Connoisseur Media CEO Jeff Warshaw is purchasing Alpha Media and will expand from owning six radio stations to
A few things to look forward to on the streaming front:
Connoisseur is a Triton Digital client. They are most certainly looking forward to the addition of many stations. However...
Amperwave (Audacy) may not be willing to lose the still current Alpha stations without a fight. They will certain try to make Connoisseur an offer that will convince them to leave Triton Digital altogether.
Will Connoisseur remain on the IHeart App with the Long Island and Connecticut stations joining in or break off with an app of their own?
Will be fun to watch and see how it all shakes out.
Connoisseur is a Triton Digital client. They are most certainly looking forward to the addition of many stations. However...
Amperwave (Audacy) may not be willing to lose the still current Alpha stations without a fight. They will certain try to make Connoisseur an offer that will convince them to leave Triton Digital altogether.
Will Connoisseur remain on the IHeart App with the Long Island and Connecticut stations joining in or break off with an app of their own?
Will be fun to watch and see how it all shakes out.
I've wondered about that, too. Alpha has seemingly wanted to get on as many different aggregators as possible. Connoisseur does not seem to share that approach at the moment.
Not sure about Connoisseur, but Alpha has its own radio skills built into Amazon Alexa, too. If I tell Alexa to play 104.7 FM, it will play my local 104.7, which is an Alpha station. I understand Amazon was working on integrating other skills into that system, but I don't know if it's happened to date.
We assume that the current management stays in place. Only possible initial changes would be at the very top, and even then those are the people who know the stations and budgets and outstanding issues.
The hard part is that a smaller company is absorbing a much bigger company. So that means a strain on infrastructure. When Clear Channel expanded in the early 2000s, it's human resources department was greatly strained. Warshaw is going to want to consolidate, but he should be careful how he does that, because his own infrastructure won't be able to handle all of the new facilities and people.
That's because they made lots of purchases of small groups and even single stations. They started assembling that when the rules changed in 1995, and kept building on that every year.
He is buying a group that already has that infrastructure. One purchase, and he can fold his tiny group into theirs now.
We'll see what he does. When David Field bought CBS Radio, he didn't use the CBS Radio infrastructure.
He already had a large infrastructure, built over decades starting with his father's stations in North Carolina.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
I think the two of you are past comparing apples and oranges with Connoisseur and the then-Entercom.
It's becoming closer to comparing apples and walnuts.
In the case of Entercom, it is apples and cement blocks.
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