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Entercom Merger

S

SirRoxalot

The first fallout from the impending Entercom/CBS "merger" splits Buffalo from Rochester when it comes to regional oversight. Mike Doyle will still oversee sales for the entire company, and handle regional responsibilities for Cleveland, Detroit, Indianapolis, Minneapolis, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, Portland, Rochester, and Seattle (a LOT of territory, from coast to coast).

Oddly, the Buffalo cluster will report to a Mark Hannon, CBS market manager for Boston, who's being elevated to Regional President status and adding Buffalo, Washington DC and Wilkes-Barre to his responsibilities. Hannon will report to Doyle.

It makes you wonder about why Buffalo and Rochester are coming under separate oversight. Is there a hatchet-man waiting in the weeds?
 
Entercom is by far, the best large radio company, perhaps ever in the history of radio. I am personal friends with David Field, Weezie Kramer and Mike Doyle and they are geniuses when it comes to running great broadcast facilities, and locally, it does not get any better in corporate. Entercom takes 50 cents of every dollar spent in Buffalo. The management at Entercom Buffalo continue to be my mentors, and because of the great radio off and on the air that they put out, it is unlikely anything will happen in Buffalo. I have had many conversations with all corporate management, and they have all rave about Buffalo. They do not worry about Buffalo, because it is such a great market for them. I still keep in touch with these folks, and they are all excited about the merger, with Buffalo leading the way. The reason I bought so much stock in Entercom is a know first hand what a great company this is. Marconi invented radio, but this group made it better. I think you will see that Entercom will continue to grow.
 
CBS got out of Buffalo long ago when they sold to Regent(Town Square). This current merger will still have an impact on Entercom Buffalo. It's naive to think otherwise. Buffalo is hardly "leading the way" in the new configuration.

In other news, Iheart just reported a loss of $248 Million in the 3rd quarter. Maybe they can "merge" with whomever is left...
 
The Regent Buffalo cluster was owned by American Radio Systems (who also owned WCMF in Rochester-I was at work one day and kane-o had an ARS t-shirt on... we reminisced) Back to the post, former CBS radio head Dan Mason came to Vegas when I was there to proclaim "CBS is only interested keeping the top 25 markets." Vegas was at that time market #33 and Buffalo and Rochester were 50+. Regent got Buffalo and Entercom got Rochester
 
TheBigA said:
I think they still own the Vegas cluster of 4-5 stations, and a few others below market 25. Palm Springs comes to mind.
Click to expand...

Riverside / San Bernardino
Victorville
 
Didn't Regent pay some absurd price for the CBS Buffalo cluster... something like $250 million? Regent later spun WECK to Culver Communications for $1.3 million, and later declared bankruptcy. It was taken over and re-branded by Townsquare with underwriting from Oak Tree Capital, which is now seeking to exit its position Townsquare. Cumulus rolling out a preliminary bankruptcy plan; Entercom rolling into and controlling CBS; there sure are a lot of moving parts in the local broadcasting clock.
 
I also recall that CBS wanted to jettison their smaller markets (as Penrod stated). That was about 10 years ago. Since then, CBS decided they wanted out of Radio altogether.

If CBS still had the Buffalo stations, then Entercom could have picked up 1 or 2 more FM signals in this merge. They only have 2 viable FMs right there now. The Bills have zero national relevance and can't even get on FM in Buffalo.

E9 is correct about moving parts. The CBS/Entercom empire may find the "parts" have very limited value...
 
Element9 said:
Didn't Regent pay some absurd price for the CBS Buffalo cluster... something like $250 million?
Click to expand...

I don’t remember it being quite that high, but it leveraged the entire company to make that deal, and that was probably what drove it into bankruptcy.

Edit: Doing a quick Google search, Regent paid $125 million for CBS Buffalo.
 
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