In this week’s issue… Audacy files Chapter 11 – Squier family sells WDEV – Townsquare turns off more signals – WBZ’s Rich pulls back – Remembering Doug Cope – New Year format changes
By SCOTT FYBUSH
*Happy new year, and many thanks for your patience – while we’d intended to be back with a new issue of NERW last week, family health issues intervened, and so this week’s column ends up covering nearly a month’s worth of news across the region.
We’ll try to get back on a regular schedule as quickly as possible, though next week’s column may also be delayed due to travel.
(And stay tuned also for the start of our 30th anniversary celebration!)
*Amidst all of the expected news of format changes and personnel moves over the holidays – and there’s lots of that in the subscriber-only portion of the column – there was one big piece of news.
That was Audacy’s pre-packaged Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing on January 7, the inevitable conclusion of a story that began with Entercom’s acquisition of the CBS Radio stations and all the debt that came along with that deal.
With that $1.9 billion debt load hanging over the company, it was all but inevitable that creditors would force the bankruptcy filing, which will give control of the company to a lender-led group and will remove David Field from his position as chair of the Audacy board.
Don’t expect big changes in Audacy’s operations as a result of the fast-tracked filing, which is expected to be approved next month: the company says it expects day-to-day activities to continue unchanged at its stations. There’s no reason to think Audacy will sell many of its stations, either – the company says revenues are recovering from the pandemic-era downturn, and it’s not as though there’s a long list of buyers with cash in hand for those clusters, either.
(We do, however, expect Audacy to continue selling off the properties it identified for its Audacy Atlas divestiture trust last year, including several tower sites around the region; just this past week, it reached a deal to sell its studio real estate on a valuable development property in Phoenix.)
The landmark 24th edition of the world-famous Tower Site Calendar is in production, and your support will determine whether it will be the final edition.
It’s been a complicated few years here, and as we finish up production of the new edition (including a cover reveal, coming later this week!), we’re considering the future of this staple of radio walls everywhere as we evaluate our workload going forward.
The proceeds from the calendar help sustain the reporting that we do on the broadcast industry here at Fybush Media, so your purchases matter a lot to us here – and if that matters to you, now’s the time to show that support with an order of the new Tower Site Calendar. (And we have the new Broadcast Historian’s Calendar for 2025 ready to ship, too. Why not order both?)
Visit the Fybush Media Store and place your order now for the next calendar, get a great discount on previous calendars, and check out our selection of books and videos, too!
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