Well, Kicks and Atlanta's Greatest Hits are now owned by an "indirect wholly-owned subsidiary" of Cumulus.
What's next? Your guess is as good as mine.
What's next? Your guess is as good as mine.
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Cumulus Now Owns Citadel
- Thread starter RoddyFreeman
- Start date
Kicks may add CMT Radio Live from 7p-mid. All of the Cumulus country stations air it.
106.7 is probably safe. Cumulus has some good classic hits stations. It actually did a little better than 97.1 last month.
106.7 is probably safe. Cumulus has some good classic hits stations. It actually did a little better than 97.1 last month.
99X will move to 88.1 next week.
By November, it will flip to all-Christmas and be found on 91.5.
In January, they will stunt with Polka and Klezmer on 104.5.
After a bad ratings book, they will be move again and known as 99X and NOW AM 680.
By November, it will flip to all-Christmas and be found on 91.5.
In January, they will stunt with Polka and Klezmer on 104.5.
After a bad ratings book, they will be move again and known as 99X and NOW AM 680.
It's still hard to believe, in this economic climate, that Lou pulled this off!
The Obama DOJ just rolled over and played dead. So much for "diversity' in media ownership. At least they *may* stop AT&T from steamrolling the telecom industry......but don't bet on it.
I really thought Cumulus would have trouble getting the financing to stay together....stock prices are dramatically down and lenders are biased towards sitting on their cash. i think Lou even got nervous a few weeks back when he moved the closing time line back to end of 2011. Radio is a risky investment these days but the margins are still very attractive and Cumulus has some of the highest margins in the industry.
I'm curious regarding spot pricing moving forward. Cox,ClearChannel, and Cumulus now hold most of the cards. Maybe Roddy will opine about the future of radio advertising from a buyer's perspective.....what will this mean for businesses who use radio. Is further consolidation good or bad?
The Obama DOJ just rolled over and played dead. So much for "diversity' in media ownership. At least they *may* stop AT&T from steamrolling the telecom industry......but don't bet on it.
I really thought Cumulus would have trouble getting the financing to stay together....stock prices are dramatically down and lenders are biased towards sitting on their cash. i think Lou even got nervous a few weeks back when he moved the closing time line back to end of 2011. Radio is a risky investment these days but the margins are still very attractive and Cumulus has some of the highest margins in the industry.
I'm curious regarding spot pricing moving forward. Cox,ClearChannel, and Cumulus now hold most of the cards. Maybe Roddy will opine about the future of radio advertising from a buyer's perspective.....what will this mean for businesses who use radio. Is further consolidation good or bad?
I'm surprised things went so smoothly, as well.
I think if any frequency Cumulus owns in Atlanta changes any time soon, it'd be 100.5, going by the ratings made available. Q and Kicks are strong, and Greatest Hits, while not at the top of the ratings stack, isn't doing THAT badly.
I think if any frequency Cumulus owns in Atlanta changes any time soon, it'd be 100.5, going by the ratings made available. Q and Kicks are strong, and Greatest Hits, while not at the top of the ratings stack, isn't doing THAT badly.
Wonderful! :
There go two of the best heritage CHRs already, (that I can think of), WBHT/Wilkes-Barre-Scranton and WSSX/Charleston. Those of you in those areas, heads-up...if you start hearing a sudden overload of songs by Nickleback, Daughtry and Justin Timberlake from more than 5 years ago and a whole lot LESS current dance and hip-hop (regardless if they're hits or not)!
There go two of the best heritage CHRs already, (that I can think of), WBHT/Wilkes-Barre-Scranton and WSSX/Charleston. Those of you in those areas, heads-up...if you start hearing a sudden overload of songs by Nickleback, Daughtry and Justin Timberlake from more than 5 years ago and a whole lot LESS current dance and hip-hop (regardless if they're hits or not)!electroboy73 said:Wonderful! :
LOL. True dat.
This morning I heard the leagal id for Kicks and it said a Cumulus station,the only change I can think of is that Kicks may bring back some older country from the 80's and 90's,as for CMT radio live, Cumulus airs that in the smaller markets,the nearest station for that here is wDEN in Macon.
They run CMT Live in Dallas (bigger than Atlanta) on the legendary 99.5 The Wolf as well as the legendary WSM-FM in Nashville.
I regard to the Cumulus Chr sound; Keep in mind that if Cumulus buys a bunch of chr's and converts them to sound like a Q100 Adult Top 40 sound, then that make Atlanta's Q100 blend in with the rest because that will become the new norm.
In other words, the traditional ClearChannel chr sound has been considered "the norm" because they own a bunch of chr's, and while many of them are different from each other, overall they have a certain distinct sound. So, lets say Cumulus takes over a lot of Chr's as the second largest radio company in the U.S. and converts a bunch of chr's to the adult top 40 sound. That would cause the adult top 40 sound to become a new norm (in addition to the "ClearChannel norm") and Atlanta's Q100 would no longer be such a big deal for being "different" because it will no longer be different, and as long as you have a Cumulus or a ClearChannel chr in your town, you will be part of the norm. Atlanta technically now has both of the biggest radio companies providing a chr within their city, so... is it now safe to say that the Atlanta market is one of the biggest and best, thriving chr / top 40 markets?
This was not intended to be facetious, by the way. Real thoughts...
Oh, and to be perfectly honest with you, I'd pick having the current WWVA and WWWQ sound (with a WVEE, WSTR, and WAMJ) over having a bunch of rhythmics and chr's within my hometown all basically playing (and not playing) the same things (which pretty much is all that's been going on now in the west coast). The WWVA playlist (and entire Atlanta radio market as a whole) kicks ass over all the top 40's and rhythmics I can get in any of the west coast cities I've been in. Hopefully they will soon be placed on a more powerful signal. I also hope Journey will be placed on a stronger signal as well.
In other words, the traditional ClearChannel chr sound has been considered "the norm" because they own a bunch of chr's, and while many of them are different from each other, overall they have a certain distinct sound. So, lets say Cumulus takes over a lot of Chr's as the second largest radio company in the U.S. and converts a bunch of chr's to the adult top 40 sound. That would cause the adult top 40 sound to become a new norm (in addition to the "ClearChannel norm") and Atlanta's Q100 would no longer be such a big deal for being "different" because it will no longer be different, and as long as you have a Cumulus or a ClearChannel chr in your town, you will be part of the norm. Atlanta technically now has both of the biggest radio companies providing a chr within their city, so... is it now safe to say that the Atlanta market is one of the biggest and best, thriving chr / top 40 markets?
This was not intended to be facetious, by the way. Real thoughts...
Oh, and to be perfectly honest with you, I'd pick having the current WWVA and WWWQ sound (with a WVEE, WSTR, and WAMJ) over having a bunch of rhythmics and chr's within my hometown all basically playing (and not playing) the same things (which pretty much is all that's been going on now in the west coast). The WWVA playlist (and entire Atlanta radio market as a whole) kicks ass over all the top 40's and rhythmics I can get in any of the west coast cities I've been in. Hopefully they will soon be placed on a more powerful signal. I also hope Journey will be placed on a stronger signal as well.
KDM 7000 said:
But that doesn't mean that I don't still prefer Q100 to be a little less adult leaning and more "regular chr'ish". It can still easily be done without making WWWQ and WWVA sound identical....
Maybe now someone will fix the processing on 106.7. It's been sounding a little better lately in terms of frequency range (especially on the high end, and there seems to be less clipping--it all sounds cleaner), but dynamic range is still horribly compressed. Still need more bass (compare with River).
I was listening to a satellite radio, and the processing sounded just the same as 106.7's. I can understand compressing the dynamic range to save digital bandwidth, but why do this on analog so much? That's the one thing I don't like about music on satellite--reception/RFI issues aside, it generally sounds worse than terrestrial radio, apples-to-apples. And satellite has its own reception issues.
I understand the "loudness war" issue, but this goes beyond that. And 106.7, AFAIK, doesn't have any HD subchannels to siphon off HD bandwidth. Journey has some excessive compression, but they have an excuse, being an HD subchannel, and it's not anywhere near as compressed as 106.7.
I was listening to a satellite radio, and the processing sounded just the same as 106.7's. I can understand compressing the dynamic range to save digital bandwidth, but why do this on analog so much? That's the one thing I don't like about music on satellite--reception/RFI issues aside, it generally sounds worse than terrestrial radio, apples-to-apples. And satellite has its own reception issues.
I understand the "loudness war" issue, but this goes beyond that. And 106.7, AFAIK, doesn't have any HD subchannels to siphon off HD bandwidth. Journey has some excessive compression, but they have an excuse, being an HD subchannel, and it's not anywhere near as compressed as 106.7.
That maybe true,but the top 8 @8 is so popular,a couple of years ago Kicks tried to run GAC Nights,that has since gone away.
I doubt there will be wholesale on the air changes at any of the C & C1 FM's Cumulus has for a couple of months. One set of studios will move. Which one has the best rent deal? I am afraid that a lot the support / sales staffers especially EX Citadel will be gone by Christmas. The bigger the cluster the bigger the savings. Nothing personal against Cumulus, that is just the nature of this and a lot of other businesses. I personally have been in a few of these situations, and it sucks for both: those who leave and those that are left behind doing twice as much work for the same pay. I do hope everybody axed gets a good severance package.
I know Kicks and Atlanta's Greatest hits 106.7 will move out of 210 Interstate North Pkwy some time next year and move into the Cumulus building,Kicks has been at 210 Interstate North Pkwy since the stone ages.
secondchoice said:
I would think it will take much longer than a few months to integrate the Citadel properties in Atlanta.
Studios may move in a year. Until then I would think many of the support folks will still be needed.
Sales is another matter. The good salespeople will stay.....the "not so good" will get the axe.
I would imagine management has already lined up new gigs and will exit the building quickly (if not already.)
What makes you the think the "good" salespeople or others will want to stay? Especially the ones that made it through the ABC Radio abortion. That's a tough road to hoe each time. Some of the best people in the business of all positions left through the Citadel acquisition because they were good enough to go anywhere, and most are better off now than staying.
And someones comment earlier about "severance," doesn't exist for the common radio employee anymore. Do think Citadel was writing checks to all the people they blew out that gave five, ten, fifteen years of their lives to what they thought was going to be the company they expected to retire with (ABC Radio). So not one extra dollar is going in anyones pockets as they exit 210. Cumulus is far from the type of company people try to get hired at for their reputation as a company people want to work for over other radio companies. Its more of a lack of choices left issue, just saying...
Good luck everyone!
And someones comment earlier about "severance," doesn't exist for the common radio employee anymore. Do think Citadel was writing checks to all the people they blew out that gave five, ten, fifteen years of their lives to what they thought was going to be the company they expected to retire with (ABC Radio). So not one extra dollar is going in anyones pockets as they exit 210. Cumulus is far from the type of company people try to get hired at for their reputation as a company people want to work for over other radio companies. Its more of a lack of choices left issue, just saying...
Good luck everyone!
WYAY had Smooth Jazz on their HD2 back in early August. I was up in the area about 50 miles east of Atlanta for a wedding and it was nice and clean in the car, minus the subtle HD artifacts. Well, when it came in.
106.7 analog and HD1 sounded really good to my ears - clean, well-balanced highs, not muddy. Lows could use a little work. Also helped to have a decently EQ'ed car radio.
KICKS sounded good but 'YAY stayed on in the car most of the time so I picked it apart.
Cumulus will have their hands full with 'YAY, Q, Kicks, Journey, Rock, X.
106.7 analog and HD1 sounded really good to my ears - clean, well-balanced highs, not muddy. Lows could use a little work. Also helped to have a decently EQ'ed car radio.
KICKS sounded good but 'YAY stayed on in the car most of the time so I picked it apart.
Cumulus will have their hands full with 'YAY, Q, Kicks, Journey, Rock, X.
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