I wonder how eliminating the embedded market rule would impact Entercom's divestitures in the Bay Area if it were to be eliminated.
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Could Cox Radio come to Seattle?
- Thread starter iamarussianpirate
- Start date
I wonder how eliminating the embedded market rule would impact Entercom's divestitures in the Bay Area if it were to be eliminated.
It would only effect whether they keep San José licensed KUFX, which is pretty much a "south of Hayward and San Mateo" facility. I don't see that saving that one or being able to buy something on Long Island is worth the legal costs and waste of time.
No, the IE is not part of the Los Angeles MSA. In fact, there is a piece of San Bernardino county running from Fontana to Rialto that is not part of either market, despite having close to a million in population.
The LA MSA is all of LA and Orange counties. The IE market is made up of specific parts of Riverside and San Bernardino counties.
I consider Bonneville and/or Hubbard the most logical choices for the Entercom/CBS Radio spinoffs in Seattle, mainly because of rumors that Entercom could swap their Seattle spinoffs for stations in Phoenix since Bonneville and Hubbard are under capacity in Seattle, and Entercom is under capacity in Phoenix.
In Boston, I could see Entercom swapping 2 FMs to iHeartMedia, considering recent rumors that iHeartMedia could sell some of their clusters in the Virginia/Carolina region and Entercom could see this as an opportunity to trade their spinoffs with iHeartMedia.
In Pittsburgh, Entercom will own the legendary KDKA in the market and WDSY was owned by Entercom before, so there's no point in trading their Pittsburgh cluster to someone else.
If Entercom wants to acquire stations from Cox, they can do that later. There's no reason for Entercom to swap a small amount of stations to Cox.
I see all of this very differently. I see a few CBS GMs setting up their own radio company, similar to the way a group of former Cox GMs created SummitMedia. Their company would be set up to provide the same tax advantages as a trade. No need to sell or trade to competitors. Keep the stations within the family. The CBS GMs know their stations very well, and would run them better than when they were under the big corporate umbrella. I see this happening in several markets where Entercom has stations to divest.
If Cox wants to sell their Tampa cluster to Entercom, they could do that anytime. CBS also had a Tampa cluster before trading it to Beasley in 2014.
I'm just saying that Cox isn't the best suitor for the CBS Radio spinoffs. The spinoffs could give Entercom more stations in markets where they're not at capacity.
Cox is not expanding in radio, and they are focused on just preserving radio in markets where they have grandfathered newspaper alliances or TV.
Anne Cox Chambers is now 97, although her sister's son and several children are involved in the enterprise.
In fact, Cox Media has funded some very interesting online sites. That seems to be their main area of growth right now.
That seems to be the trend everywhere. Station groups are hyper-focused on building digital assets with an eye on the future. Not horse-trading, or new station acquisitions.
And as I said before, I didn't think Cox would be a good swap partner from Entercom anyways even though they have some good radio properties.
If Cox is focused on owning radio stations in markets where they also own TV stations and/or newspapers, could they divest in markets where they only own radio stations?
They already have...which is what led to the creation of SummitMedia.
Even with the formation of SummitMedia, Cox still owns some radio-only markets in Tampa, Houston, Miami, Long Island, and San Antonio.
All of which are PPM markets; all the ones sold to Summit are in diary markets.
Exactly. Although I was asking if Cox could sell stations in their radio-only markets.
Yes, that was my whole point back in February when I wrote that. I'm not saying Cox would be buying Entercom stations, or adding more radio stations to their portfolio. What I was saying was Entercom needs to shed stations in certain markets, and in some of those same markets, Cox has standalone TV properties with no radio stations. Cox also has some standalone radio markets that Entercom doesn't have a presence in, but would like to.
If I'm Cox, and I don't necessarily want to be in radio, especially in markets where I don't have another property, wouldn't it make sense for me to swap those markets to gain stations in markets where I already have a presence? They can do this tax free and it would instantly strengthen their portfolio because of (say it together boys and girls) SYNERGIES.
If I'm already paying for facilities, personnel, etc. in Seattle at KIRO TV, and I can pick up some radio stations in Seattle in exchange for my standalone radio properties in Tampa, doesn't that make sense? Paying for one building instead of two, utilizing TV personalities for traffic/weather/news on my new radio stations, cross-promoting sister properties, leveraging existing sales people and their relationships, etc.
Also, Entercom just brought over the SVP from Cox Radio Tampa back in July. Not saying this is going to happen, just that it's not out of the realm of possibilities.
BTW Tampa was a market that was involved in the CBS swap with Beasley a couple of years ago.
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