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CBS radio / Entercom in Philly

Jul said:
Please, please feel free to post any rumors and news that you, the posters may have regarding the 6 CBS radio Philadelphia stations, in this thread. With the Entercom merger near, anything can happen with 1210 WPHT, 94 WIP. 92.5 WXTU, 98.1 WOGL, KYW 1060 AM and/or 96.5 FM
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The programming on all the soon-to-be Entercom stations in Philadelphia is likely to stay quite the same in the near future.

Entercom's job is to look for synergies, ways to consolidate costs, and opportunities for greater revenues with a bigger overall platform. They are looking to "impress" the new holders of 73% of Entercom shares who will arrive with the shares CBS will give its existing shareholders.

One thing David Field is not going to do is gratuitously flip formats. A format shift can negatively affect cash flow by millions of dollars through the immediate elimination of the revenue of the existing format, startup expenses and the slow replacement of old clients with ones who believe in the new format. Generally, agencies look at multi.book trends, and with new formats they can wait for long periods of time before committing to any buys.

Entercom has to show the new stakeholders that it will make more money for them than before. That means avoiding any big impairments on cash flow like flipping formats on already profitable stations.

This is a business. Target-specific ratings only show one aspect of how well the business might be doing. 12+ ratings show absolutely nothing of value, which is why Nielsen provides them at a cost commensurate with their value.
 
Well that's because Beasley wasn't picking up the objects of Jul's obsession over the past several years: WPHT and the changes it "should" make.
 
DavidEduardo said:


The programming on all the soon-to-be Entercom stations in Philadelphia is likely to stay quite the same in the near future.

Entercom's job is to look for synergies, ways to consolidate costs, and opportunities for greater revenues with a bigger overall platform. They are looking to "impress" the new holders of 73% of Entercom shares who will arrive with the shares CBS will give its existing shareholders.

One thing David Field is not going to do is gratuitously flip formats. A format shift can negatively affect cash flow by millions of dollars through the immediate elimination of the revenue of the existing format, startup expenses and the slow replacement of old clients with ones who believe in the new format. Generally, agencies look at multi.book trends, and with new formats they can wait for long periods of time before committing to any buys.

Entercom has to show the new stakeholders that it will make more money for them than before. That means avoiding any big impairments on cash flow like flipping formats on already profitable stations.

This is a business. Target-specific ratings only show one aspect of how well the business might be doing. 12+ ratings show absolutely nothing of value, which is why Nielsen provides them at a cost commensurate with their value.
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You make good points about how Entercom will make more money when the merger closes. Maybe Entercom will change formats on some of their stations when it's an appropriate time, if not immediately after closing the merger.
 
Jul said:
I wonder will KYW and WPHT merge and become a single news/talker or will they keep KYW all news on 1060 and 1210 AM talk or will they get rid of the current format on 1210 AM to something else?
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As we keep telling you: no.
 
Jul said:
Please, please feel free to post any rumors and news that you, the posters may have regarding the 6 CBS radio Philadelphia stations, in this thread. With the Entercom merger near, anything can happen with 1210 WPHT, 94 WIP. 92.5 WXTU, 98.1 WOGL, KYW 1060 AM and/or 96.5 FM
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Polka on all six of 'em.
 
Miguelito said:
Polka on all six of 'em.
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As DavidEduardo pointed out, Entercom won't change formats on any stations for no reason. Their first job isn't to change formats, because they want to show their shareholders that they can make more money than before. There are a couple CBS Radio stations that may change formats under the Entercom ownership, but will not likely do so immediately when the merger closes.
 
miketheradioguy said:
As DavidEduardo pointed out, Entercom won't change formats on any stations for no reason. Their first job isn't to change formats, because they want to show their shareholders that they can make more money than before. There are a couple CBS Radio stations that may change formats under the Entercom ownership, but will not likely do so immediately when the merger closes.
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I talked with a relative who is a tax specialist who deals with M&A situations. There may be circumstances where the merger results in needlessly duplicated formats where there is no advantage to "owning" a market segment. In such cases, an immediate day-of-closing format flip could be done with the costs capitalized under "cost of acquisition" rather than expensed against the bottom line.

So, in a couple of the cases where Entercom pre-merger and CBS pre-merger have non-advantageous directly competitive formats where an instant flip could be done without impacting the bottom line. The rules are complex, and none of us knows all the inside facts.. but this is certainly long shot possibility.
 
miketheradioguy said:
As DavidEduardo pointed out, Entercom won't change formats on any stations for no reason. Their first job isn't to change formats, because they want to show their shareholders that they can make more money than before. There are a couple CBS Radio stations that may change formats under the Entercom ownership, but will not likely do so immediately when the merger closes.
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Obviously you couldn't figure out that Miguelito was being sarcastic.
 
MarcB said:
Obviously you couldn't figure out that Miguelito was being sarcastic.
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That was kinda shocking. Obviously, Entercom is going to flip them all to Christmas when the deal closes.
 
DavidEduardo said:


I talked with a relative who is a tax specialist who deals with M&A situations. There may be circumstances where the merger results in needlessly duplicated formats where there is no advantage to "owning" a market segment. In such cases, an immediate day-of-closing format flip could be done with the costs capitalized under "cost of acquisition" rather than expensed against the bottom line.

So, in a couple of the cases where Entercom pre-merger and CBS pre-merger have non-advantageous directly competitive formats where an instant flip could be done without impacting the bottom line. The rules are complex, and none of us knows all the inside facts.. but this is certainly long shot possibility.
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I haven't thought of other overlapping markets where format changes may occur under Entercom post-merger, although I do have concerns about some radio stations that would be spun and flip formats under the new owners. The official decision of which stations get spun depends on the outcome of the government approval.
 
miketheradioguy said:
I haven't thought of other overlapping markets where format changes may occur under Entercom post-merger, although I do have concerns about some radio stations that would be spun and flip formats under the new owners. The official decision of which stations get spun depends on the outcome of the government approval.
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That will be the leading driver of the decision of which stations get spun, but it may not be the only one. If Entercom swaps stations, the revenue of the stations swapped need to equal the ones being acquired, or cash will have to make up the difference. Entercom could, for example, find itself holding onto a lower revenue station in San Francisco if it swaps some of its excess there. It shouldn't have any real DOJ concerns in that market, and the FCC only cares about its total station count.
 
Kent said:
That will be the leading driver of the decision of which stations get spun, but it may not be the only one. If Entercom swaps stations, the revenue of the stations swapped need to equal the ones being acquired, or cash will have to make up the difference. Entercom could, for example, find itself holding onto a lower revenue station in San Francisco if it swaps some of its excess there. It shouldn't have any real DOJ concerns in that market, and the FCC only cares about its total station count.
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So if Entercom spins off some of their stations to EMF, could they give 106.9 to Entercom? 106.9 should be able to fit within the ownership caps, and it could flip to a simulcast of either KYW or WPHT or a new format.
 
It's theoretically possible, but I don't see it happening. Only way I see EMF letting go of 106.9 is if it gets a replacement for it in the non commercial band.
 
Kent said:
It's theoretically possible, but I don't see it happening. Only way I see EMF letting go of 106.9 is if it gets a replacement for it in the non commercial band.
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Why would EMF ever do that? A spot in the portion of the FM band that contains the market's most listened-to music formats is pure gold for EMF. Why would it want to swap that for a frequency amid NPR affiliates and college stations?
 
CTListener said:
Why would EMF ever do that? A spot in the portion of the FM band that contains the market's most listened-to music formats is pure gold for EMF. Why would it want to swap that for a frequency amid NPR affiliates and college stations?
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From what I understand, David Field points out very well that swapping stations with other owners rather than just selling them would be the likely outcome for the spinoffs because he considers it more "tax-friendly". So if Entercom plans to spin some of their stations to EMF, they would give one of their stations to Entercom in return, and I think that 106.9 could be an optimal target for Entercom.
 
Kent said:
It's theoretically possible, but I don't see it happening. Only way I see EMF letting go of 106.9 is if it gets a replacement for it in the non commercial band.
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I've seen EMF selling a Ft. Myers FM to a commercial broadcaster, who then flipped the station to Rhythmic CHR, and reverted the station back to its commercial status this past June. It would be interesting to see if Entercom could do the same thing, if they trade any of their spinoffs to EMF.

The whole CBS Radio-Entercom merger is supposed to be tax-free, as this is being done using the Reverse Morris Trust. Entercom will certainly benefit from swapping stations rather then selling since it would not only avoid tax penalties, but would have the potential to expand their holdings in certain markets where they're not at capacity. For example, one of the biggest rumored CBS Radio/Entercom spinoff swaps would happen in the Seattle and Phoenix markets, where Entercom, Bonneville, and Hubbard all own stations in both markets, while Bonneville and Hubbard are under capacity in both markets. So I can see Entercom trade two of their Seattle FMs to either Bonneville or Hubbard, for one of their Phoenix clusters. Bonneville seems to be a more logical choice out of the two swap partners, because they owns 2 FMs and 1 AM in Phoenix, while Hubbard owns 3 FMs and 2 AMs and it wouldn't require Entercom to spinoff additional stations.
 
CTListener said:
Why would EMF ever do that? A spot in the portion of the FM band that contains the market's most listened-to music formats is pure gold for EMF. Why would it want to swap that for a frequency amid NPR affiliates and college stations?
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EMF has done it before. It's in the process of swapping a station at 106.3 for a non-comm band station in Fresno. It really doesn't seem to care where on the band its stations are. It's just been buying more commercial band stations lately because more of them are for sale and are willing to sell for prices EMF will pay. The low hanging fruit in the non-comm band has largely already been picked. Contrary to what a lot of people seem to think, most of your NPR member stations are doing very well and aren't likely to go anywhere anytime soon.
 
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