Will Cumulus sell its Mobile stations?

So apparently from an article I read, Cumulus has started selling its stations in Albany due to its bankruptcy woes (https://radioinsight.com/headlines/167373/cumulus-files-reorganization-plan-with-fcc-to-divest-four-stations/). Maybe this doesn’t mean much but will it get worse? Is iHeart going to have to do the same? Question is, Is it going to happen to fhe Mobile/P’Cola market? They dont really seem to care about little markets as much anyways. My presumption says no, but it would be nice if we had like, Entercom or some other radio company running stations in Mobile. Anyone know how bad the situation with Cumulus is?!

Alex_0490 said:

So apparently from an article I read, Cumulus has started selling its stations in Albany due to its bankruptcy woes.

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That's not why they're selling. You should re-read the article. There are four markets where they own five stations, and the FCC only allows one company to own four in those particular markets. So in each of those markets, one of which is Albany GA, they are placing one station into a trust to be sold. It's being done to comply with FCC ownership rules, not their financial situation.

Yea I read but maybe misunderstood it, my apologies... anyways it is a part of the bankruptcy “restructuring” plan so how is it not related?

Alex_0490 said:

Yea I read but maybe misunderstood it, my apologies... anyways it is a part of the bankruptcy “restructuring” plan so how is it not related?

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Because they're not selling the stations for financial reasons. They were grandfathered into owning five stations. The restructuring voids that grandfathering rule, and they now must operate as though they were a new company.

They probably won't make much on the four stations, and I have no reason to believe it will lead to them selling the Mobile cluster. In fact, it's likely the stations will sit in the trust for a while.

Cumulus seems too big in Mobile-Pensacola-Fort Walton to sell.

3 FMs/2 AMs in Mobile, 4 FMs/1 AM in P'cola (with 3 of the Pensacola FMs city grading Mobile), and 4 FMs/ 1 AM in Fort Walton (with 1 FM city grading Pensacola and 2 FMs putting strong signals into Pensacola).
Yep, Cumulus owns 7 100kw stations city grading Pensacola with 11 total Cumulus owned stations on the Pensacola radio dial.

Seems like Cumulus would want to BUY in Biloxi and add a 4th FM to the Mobile cluster (which would require them to sell off 690 or 900).

How much revenue could an Albany, GA FM generate anyway? It's a very spread out market full of poor folks. Albany already has several silent stations.

Good research, Poledo. There are those who have felt they have had too many overlapping signals in these markets for years. Some of the 100kwers carry very well into two markets (if not three.) Cumulus finally took one of their "extra" signals in Nashville out of the "trust" and sold it to Midwestern after over a decade. The station is vastly improved. The FCC let em do the trust thing in Nash for way too long, so why would it be any different along the coast? This might get me in trouble, but I would think the other big player in the bankruptcy game would sell their stations somewhere down the crazy river, I mean beach, before Crums sells their stations. (I have no insider info, btw.) I have to think the just under two dozen stations owned the cloud company are bringing in at least enough revenue to pay for everything except the sale price payments, so in the scheme of things, they would be off the radar of the chopping block department. What did they originally pay for all of those stations? Hmmm.

Which Biloxi stations do they want to buy?

In a related note they had to give up 4 or 5 translator applications in a few viable markets (you can do the research) because of the new structure. They could not transfer the applications. With that said, you will probably see a few market swaps in the future.

So Cumulus might unload the Mobile-Pensacola-Fort Walton-Tallahassee-Albany cluster?

seedless said:

So Cumulus might unload the Mobile-Pensacola-Fort Walton-Tallahassee-Albany cluster?

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I can't speak for FWB or Albany but I am 99.9% certain they are not going to leave Pensacola or Mobile radio markets. They just appointed a new guy to be PD and OM at their Pensacola cluster, and several of the stations appear to still be good moneymakers. Not to mention Cumulus is out of bankruptcy now.

It looks like we're stuck with them for the foreseeable future.

I'm wondering if there's a new engineer in town, too. The Mobile stations are now showing song title/artist info on the RDS and WDLT's HD has FINALLY been fixed so it works again, although the sync is still way off. Someone is definitely doing some work behind the scenes.

tomservo said:

I can't speak for FWB or Albany but I am 99.9% certain they are not going to leave Pensacola or Mobile radio markets. They just appointed a new guy to be PD and OM at their Pensacola cluster, and several of the stations appear to still be good moneymakers. Not to mention Cumulus is out of bankruptcy now.

It looks like we're stuck with them for the foreseeable future.

I'm wondering if there's a new engineer in town, too. The Mobile stations are now showing song title/artist info on the RDS and WDLT's HD has FINALLY been fixed so it works again, although the sync is still way off. Someone is definitely doing some work behind the scenes.

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A OM or PD has no bearing on if a station is kept or sold. I know several OM PDs and GM's hired only to learn that the station(s) were sold. There are no guarantees.

seedless said:

So Cumulus might unload the Mobile-Pensacola-Fort Walton-Tallahassee-Albany cluster?

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Seems unlikely to me. Only way I could see Cumulus unloading those stations would be if it could swap them for a bigger market. I don’t see that happening.

Kent said:

Seems unlikely to me. Only way I could see Cumulus unloading those stations would be if it could swap them for a bigger market. I don’t see that happening.

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I doubt it as well, but who would they sell it to? Will WABD be the only station in both Mobile and Pensacola to have a CHR?

I really doubt Cumulus will be selling this cluster or even any individual stations in it. One of the company's first post-bankruptcy hires is in Pensacola, according to Country Aircheck:

Former Mapleton/Spokane OM Greg Tillotson has joined Cumulus/Pensacola, FL as OM, responsibilities that include oversight of Country WXBM. He'll also handle day-to-day programming for AC WMEZ, Classic Hits WJTQ and News/Talk WCOA-AM. Tillotson succeeds Chuck Whitaker, who has left the company.

That Pensacola cluster has had several GMs and OMs since purchased by Cumulus. WJTQ has been thru a dozen or so format changes. A sale? Doubt it. I think Cumulus paid 25M for WMEZ, 25M for WXBM. They did better with WJTQ 8M . It was a very expensive purchase, but back then WXBM billed well and so did WMEZ. They made some changes that impacted ratings and revenue for both stations. After about half a dozen format changes on WJTQ, this one has remained. WRRX does well with R&B and WCOA should increase share with the new translator.

Has CC made the transition and moved the Pensacola cluster (101.5 107.3) to Mobile?

Outside of Atlanta, what market(s) are most precious to Cumulus?
More specifically, only include the southeastern United States.
???