Wow, aren't you Mr. Sunshine. I guess you define a "generation" as 50 years.
Some companies over-leveraged themselves. Some did not. CBS, Entercom, Cox, and others survived the economic downturn nicely. Citadel & Regent went bust. Cumu-less would have gone bust if the banks didn't already own the vast majority of the company. Ditto Clear Channel. Mostly, shareholders got screwed, while the banks ended up with the properties.
Citadel's management took the Buffalo cluster from #1 to #3 in billing in less than 10 years. That's not a very pretty picture. Ratings have been strong for some stations, and very up-and-down for the ones that corporate messed with the most. Cumu-less might be wise to look at Citadel's track record over the last 10 years before they impose their will.
Maybe the banks that own Cumu-less will look at the long haul, and decide that a 35-40% profit ain't a bad return on their investment. Or, maybe they think that they can pump up the cash flow, and spin some or all of the smaller stations to another player. I'm not seeing many people jumping into the market unless the price is very right.
The Cumu-less purchase of Citadel is a combination of the Dickey's needing to restructure their teetering empire, Dickey ego to play with the big boys, and shareholder disastisfaction with Farid's greedy attempt to scam tens of millions for him and his cronies. It ain't like Citadel's been a benevolent owner - which makes the idea of "$51-million in synergies" even more frightening.
One thing I do know. Buffalo will survive. Buffalo, in fact, offers a lot of opportunity, and a lot of resources for people with the vision to take advantage of them. We're ahead of the curve on transitioning from a manufacturing economy to a more service-based economy. Now, if we could just get Albany out of the way, and make NY a little more favorable to business, and a little less favorable to freeloaders, we might actually make progress.
