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Warm starts winking?

Scott Fybush said:
The "additional spinoff" is 102.3. The Justice Department settlement (available for anyone to look at) lays it out quite cleanly: in order to satisfy the antitrust regulators, Cumulus must abide by its already-agreed-upon plans to sell 102.3 and one additional signal. Cumulus had planned to sell WWKL and keep WTPA; the settlement modifies those plans to specify that the more valuable WTPA intellectual property must go along with the 92.1 license. Cumulus adds QXA and 106.7 and keeps everything else it has, including 104.1.
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Thanks for clarifying that. What got confusing was that it was announced back in April that 102.3 would be one of the signals.
So CHR on 93.5, Active Rock on 1057 the X, WINK 104 as it is. The question all comes down to what they'll do with 1067. And of course WIOV in Ephrata/Lancaster also comes along in the deal.
 
I think some of the confusion is because the original article in Radioinsight gave the impression that in addition to 92.1 and 102.3, Cumulus was also going to have to choose two more stations to spin off between 93.5, 104.1, 105.7 and 106.7. The sudden change of 103.3 to Wink 103 could make it appear that 104.1 was going. If you had to drop overall market income to a lower level quickly, getting rid of 104.1 would get the numbers down fast. While it would seem that dropping 104.1 would not be a smart move, Cumulus would need to view the overall merger, what the DOJ wants, a quick closing and a slew of lawsuits in the pipeline since the announcement of the merger. WNNK is just a small piece of the huge pie, outside of Harrisburg.
 
I'm sure Harrisburg is fairly insignificant to Cumulus, though they want to squeeze as much money as they can out of it. I agree that the DOJ's press releases can sometimes be a bit confusing. As I've mentioned before, the DOJ usually gives operators several options when they require divestitures for revenue reasons. I suspect that makes it a little harder to issue the news releases as they probably didn't know exactly which option Cumulus was going to take. Of course, they knew they'd take one because getting those Citadel stations is more important than putting up a fight over additional revenue in Harrisburg. A court challenge would drag out the deal too long, and spending years fighting would crater the whole thing.
 
Memo to 101 The Rose.....WINK never went all Christmas in Harrisburg....and probably won't in York. Time to roll out the yuletide classics early? On the other hand...Cumulus could fill that void by "blowing up" 106.7 early...like right after halloween...and go all Christmas until the end of the year....making a major flip on or around New Years Eve.
 
bossjock 56 said:
Memo to 101 The Rose.....WINK never went all Christmas in Harrisburg....and probably won't in York. Time to roll out the yuletide classics early? On the other hand...Cumulus could fill that void by "blowing up" 106.7 early...like right after halloween...and go all Christmas until the end of the year....making a major flip on or around New Years Eve.
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Not a bad thought. Problem is Cumulus needed revenue yesterday...and after this deal is done..the red ink is going to be even redder. Can they afford not to get things rolling with this blow torch of a signal now? But your thought certainly isn't out of the realm of possibility.
 
Seltzer said:
Not a bad thought. Problem is Cumulus needed revenue yesterday...and after this deal is done..the red ink is going to be even redder.
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Not so much. Cumulus never spends much of its own money on acquisitions. Their M.O. has always been to buy with stock and only a small amount of cash. Most of this deal was backed by private equity, and private equity spends other people's money with the hope of a return on their investment. Most of what wasn't backed by private equity was paid in stock.

I do think you'll see massive cuts at the new properties but not because there's a big fear of Chapter 11. There's really very little chance of a bankruptcy because of how private equity operates. It will be because the Dickeys, I believe, will control less than half of the new company, though they'll still be the largest single block of shareholders, and will have performance goals they'll have to meet to keep the private equity guys happy and to keep both their bonuses and their equity.
 
Can I make a request? I would like to hear "Radio Ga Ga" by Queen. Oh wait, that's all we hear in Central Pa anymore.......forget it......
 
Kent said:
Seltzer said:
Not a bad thought. Problem is Cumulus needed revenue yesterday...and after this deal is done..the red ink is going to be even redder.
Click to expand...

Not so much. Cumulus never spends much of its own money on acquisitions. Their M.O. has always been to buy with stock and only a small amount of cash. Most of this deal was backed by private equity, and private equity spends other people's money with the hope of a return on their investment. Most of what wasn't backed by private equity was paid in stock.

I do think you'll see massive cuts at the new properties but not because there's a big fear of Chapter 11. There's really very little chance of a bankruptcy because of how private equity operates. It will be because the Dickeys, I believe, will control less than half of the new company, though they'll still be the largest single block of shareholders, and will have performance goals they'll have to meet to keep the private equity guys happy and to keep both their bonuses and their equity.
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You are probably correct as this morning I was reading that Lew is looking to acquire more in the next 12 months. Won't stop til he has more stations than Clear Channel.
 
The new Cumulus is underrepresented as far as the number of stations in some large markets. New York(only WABC, WPLJ, rimshots don't count), Philadelphia (none), and Baltimore (none) come to mind.
 
observer2 said:
The new Cumulus is underrepresented as far as the number of stations in some large markets. New York(only WABC, WPLJ, rimshots don't count), Philadelphia (none), and Baltimore (none) come to mind.
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Clear Channel and CBS pretty much own Philly and Baltimore. I don't see either selling to Cumulus.
 
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