Clear Channel

Today's radio news (you know, the three or four buttons next to the "tape"
button on your player):

Radio stations are progressively losing advertising revenue to online
and satellite competitors; Clear Channel has lost 60% of its market
value since 2000.

It plans to sell 448 radio stations located outside the Top 100 U.S.
media markets as well as its 42-station television station group. The
sale, which it expects to finish by the end of the second quarter, does
not depend on the larger deal going through.




Clear Channel agrees to $18.7 billion sale

By Megan Davies
Reuters
Thursday, November 16, 2006; 11:15 AM

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Clear Channel Communications Inc. (CCU.N), the No.
1 U.S. radio station operator, said on Thursday it would be acquired by
private equity firms Thomas H. Lee Partners (THL.UL), Bain Capital and
the company's founding Mays family for nearly $19 billion.

Clear Channel, which operates 1,100 radio stations, is selling at a
time when the radio advertising market is weak, and listeners are
migrating to digital music, Internet media and satellite radio, hurting
radio broadcasters.

snip

"The only thing that can be a concern is that Thomas Lee is involved in
a lot of other media properties so closing could take longer than
expected. I can't imagine that they didn't vet this with regulators
though," Bank said.

Thomas H. Lee was part of a consortium that bought Univision
Communications Inc. (UVN.N) in September for more than $12 billion.

snip

Clear Channel, which also owns a majority stake in outdoor advertising
group Clear Channel Outdoor Holdings Inc. (CCO.N), has been evaluating
alternatives for its business. It hired investment bank Goldman Sachs
as an adviser.

The deal does not include a provision for taking Clear Channel Outdoor
private or selling it to another buyer, the company said.

It does, however, plan to sell 448 radio stations located outside the
Top 100 U.S. media markets as well as its 42-station television station
group. The sale, which it expects to finish by the end of the second
quarter, does not depend on the larger deal going through, it said.
Partnership

snip

Clear Channel also owns Premiere Radio Networks, which syndicates the
Rush Limbaugh, Dr. Laura Schlessinger, Jim Rome and Ryan Seacrest radio
programs to over 5,000 stations.

On Thu, 16 Nov 2006 20:36:29 GMT, "William W Western"
wrote:

Radio stations are progressively losing advertising revenue to online
and satellite competitors; Clear Channel has lost 60% of its market
value since 2000.

It plans to sell 448 radio stations located outside the Top 100 U.S.
media markets as well as its 42-station television station group. The
sale, which it expects to finish by the end of the second quarter, does
not depend on the larger deal going through.snip

This is a blessing in disguise if there ever was one. Since the
gobbling up of medium and small market broadcast outlets by corporate
goon squads like Infinity (now CBS) and the soon-to-be-merged Clear
Channel, the quality and diversity of programming has suffered
greatly. The recent "rebranding" of Infinity properties back to the
CBS Radio name portended some changes in philosophy for certain, none
of which exhibited the quality of CBS radio outlets during the great
Paley years. Clear Channel was the only competitor of note on a
nationwide basis, and the end result was the same for
both...homogenized pablum-like programming, lack of local relevance, a
"canned" sound owing to the dictum that all stations be automated
using "canned" programming, and on and on.

What the selloff means is that local and regional broadcasters will
again take control in all but the largest markets, which is exactly
the way it was before the two goon squads came in and bought
everything they could get their hands on. I see this as a positive,
not a negative, as there will be independent outlets for news and
local content once more. Already, Clear Channel dumped one of my
local AM/FM twins, and the increase in better programming and local
news content increased markedly.

Where the corporations always screw up in medium and small markets is
advertising targeting and sales. Like the railroads these days, they
seem to feel that, if advertisers want to advertise with them, they
will come to their door and make and order. CBS and Infinity do NOT
want to have sales people on their local staff to "drum up" ad
business, much like the railroads, starting in the '70s, got rid of
all their "drummers" that got carload-at-a-time business. The results
were the same...local inrelevance and dependance on huge, nationwide
accounts. This model might work well for huge radio markets like Los
Angeles and New York, but does not work for anywhere smaller. Local
advertisers have to be sought out, not the other way around. A
locally managed and staffed broadcast company can do that...a huge
conglomerate bent on relentlessly cost cutting and bottom line focus
can not.

In a broad historical sense, radio has been losing market share,
especially on the MW band, since the advent of playable musical media
in the '60s...the 8 track and later, cassette, and now, the CD and
mp3. Once 8 track and cassette sales and players to play them started
to become the norm, many large ad houses started not to buy huge
blocks of air time from stations everywhere, causing a slow
depreciation of "card prices." MW was hit with a double whammy, with
the introduction of factory and aftermarket FM receivers for cars
circa 1964 Once MW stations were hit with, not only better sounding
musical program material from 8 tracks and cassettes, but also from
MPX FM stereo, ad card prices for them plummeted until the only media
content was wacko talk shows. That's how the whole right wing wacko
radio movement got started, and it was mainly because broadcast time
on the MW band was dirt cheap, as was the advertising time.

While HD-R provides some hope for MW, I don't think it'll ever recover
as a musical medium with commercial ad support. FM will become more
localized and have more programming lattitude. The forebear of this
is what CBS is now trying with its "Jack" format..."we play what we
want," a departure from highly homogenized, one-size-fits-all
programming. What started that was a guy who has owned an FM license
since the '50s and, as a hobby, spends his days spinning records and
tapes that he wants to play at any given time. Although the station
is basically a non-profit operation, CBS execs got upbraided when they
found out this "home spun" format bested them in the small market
Arbitrons.

Still, such localized and 'free form' programming goes against the
conventional wisdom of US corporate management, which demands tight
centralized control and cheapness of operation. One thing's for
sure...radio on both bands will be a lot different from here on out.
One bad thing for the right wing loonies is that Clear Channel owns
and distributes some of their heroes' programs, such as Rush Limbaugh
and "Doctor" Laura Schlesinger. Once small and medium market outlets
are cast off, these shows, which have been steadily dropping in
ratings, could wind up losing even more exposure.