448 radio stations for sale

[Pryderi]

Any chance of a liberal pickup?

http://www.fool.com/investing/dividends-income/2007/01/22/clear-channel-frosts-fidelity.aspx

The original agreement occurred after a bidding contest for the company, which owns 1,150 radio stations and 42 TV stations, among other assets. At about the same time the sale to Lee and Bain was announced, Clear Channel disclosed that it will sell off 448 of its radio stations and all of its television stations. The radio stations that are earmarked for divestiture generally are not located in the top 100 Arbitron radio markets.

The price for the deal, which likely won't close until late this year at the earliest, values the company at $18.7 billion plus the assumption of $8 billion of debt. In reaching the agreement for the sale, the Lee and Bain firms beat out another private equity group consisting of Providence Equity Partners, Blackstone Group, and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

1. hey, look at us. We fucked this up, so please save us.

haw har har har!
serves them right, trying to recoup what their own programing and policies have squandered.

[don954]

2. god, if Sorrors or another liberal would buy these out and

make a counter to Murdock, it would help more than all the campaign contributions combined...

[seriousstan]

3. That is what killed AAR and will kill all progressive radio. These are not contributions.

These are businesses. Until we stop waiting for a "donor" to give us "charity progressive radio" we will never have any radio. The business model is there, we must make it work.

[lapfog_1]

7. AAR is not playing on a level playing field.

The publication of the advertising "blacklist" proves this. It's hard to have a business that depends on advertising if, by agreement, no one will buy ad space.

[seriousstan]

8. That has been debunked on this board way to many times to count.

:rofl: Nice try, next time do a search before you defend a losing position.

[lapfog_1]

9. You mean like this?

From http://ltradio.blogspot.com/search/label/Bias

<snip>
A few weeks back, a storm erupted in the blogosphere when an internal ABC Radio Networks memo was leaked out into the open, detailing what many referred to as, essentially, an advertiser blacklist targeting Air America Radio.

The memo angered many on the left, who saw it as yet another example of liberal talk radio being kept down while right-wing radio was being shoved down their throats.

Air America considers the memo 'business as usual'. "This is nothing new. We have been dealing with this since we launched two years ago. It is unfortunate that some advertisers are afraid of supporting the progressive voice in this country," wrote station spokeswoman Jaime Horn in an email to the Pasadena Weekly last week.

Some have questioned the legitimacy of the memo. However, I have seen similar memos myself, and I will attest to its legitimacy. It is the real deal.

ABC did not deny its existence, claiming that they do not do the blacklisting themselves, but only cater to their clients' wishes.

<snip>

Wow... I was sure I missed something... not researching and all. Guess not.

[LTR]

15. Sine I wrote that very article, I'll chime in

And if you read more about the subject at my blog, I do say that the memo was way overblown:

http://ltradio.blogspot.com/2006/12/calling-mythbusters-ltr-debunks-top.html

Yes, the memo is real. But many misunderstood what the true meaning of the memo really was. Even Thom Hartmann said on his show that it's nothing unusual.

[KharmaTrain]

11. There Was No Boycott Of AAR

The list F.A.I.R. put out was an internal "traffic memo" for ABC Radio affiliates. Problem is AAR has no ABC-owned stations. The list was one that is sent out to stations to let them know what types of commercials they're airing on their top of the hour newscasts so the station can avoid putting a competing commercial adjacent to those newscasts.

AAR's failure were mismangement and poor marketing. Will the new owner do better? We shall see. I sure hope he has deep pockets, he'll have a lot of past due bills to clear up. It also doesn't help when you're on the weakest signsls and have little to no local programming to attract local advertisers.

While I firmly believe Congress needs to review and drastically revise or repeal Telcom '96...return radio to local ownership and diversify the ownership and voices.

[LeftyMom]

4. George Soros is not our fairy godmother.

We sure as hell don't need a leftish version of Rupert Murdoch (nor, I'm sure, does Soros want the job.) Partisan news from both sides is no substitute for the unbiased truth.

[OneBlueSky]

5. "paging Mr. Geffen . . . paging Mr. David Geffen" . . . n/t

.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

6. Wow. The "shittification" of radio that Clear Channel was so instrumental in could not remain

commercially viable indefinitely?

Crappy generic playlists nationally?

"Dixie Chick"-ification of non GOP friendly artists?

EFF Clear Channel.

[KharmaTrain]

10. Great Bargains In Great Falls...

Almost all these stations they're trying to unload are in small markets...ideal for local operation...since that's what they were orginally licensed for.

Also, Bain/Clear Channel should be unloading even more properties but are trying to protect the high property values of their other properties...thus the prices on these stations are sure to be over-inflated. Now if you want to buy at above market prices in an economy that is extremely depressed...hope you've got real deep pockets.

It'll be interesting to see if the new owner of AAR does anything about shoring up that network's affiliate situation, but I don't see any real "pick ups" in the Clear Channel dump. But hang in there, 6 months or a year from now, things could be a lot different.

[B Calm]

12. I promise if I win the powerball lotto tonight, I'll but a few!

[TreasonousBastard]

13. So, CC made over 2 billion last year but the stock...

is tanking?

Something's missing from the story.

Anyway, much scarier than just CC selling itself is the amount of private takeovers going on.

30-40 billion for this outfit alone and we still have to cut taxes for the rich so they'll have enough money to "invest"?

[KharmaTrain]

14. Monster Debt

Most of the CC take-overs happened 4 or 5 years ago now...and were the end-result of other take-overs...rolling debt along the way.

For a while CC could cut corners and consolidate its losses to minimize its debt-load, but the past two years have seen radio advertising revenues plummet and CC has cut so much, there's little left to trim.

The iceburg here is all the debt that's involved. The shell game that's being played here is to stop the hemmoraging...selling these stations to maintain the "stick" or license values of the other stations and keep them high. If those prices drop, the entire industry could face serious troubles...ala the airline industry.

[LTR]

Clear Channel is selling all of their stations outside the top 100 markets

And they're selling a few select stations in the bigger markets as well, to get under the current limits (they were previously grandfathered in). This could be good for the industry, as some smaller companies are buying some of these market clusters.

So far, they've found buyers for a few markets. Some of the unloaded stations are in fact liberal talkers, including KIST in Santa Barbara (a highly rated station that the new owners will leave alone for at least the time being) and WLBY in Ann Arbor (which is being sold to Cumulus, no idea what they plan on doing with it, but ratings aren't bad).

Most of the stations are in smaller markets. CC wants to concentrate on the bigger areas.

[Robbien]

16. This is SOP. Buy up everything, gut it and then sell.

Interesting just to watch how the right wing ends up in all this privatization merry go round. If this is how they treat their own, you just know everyone else is in for a rough ride.