Re: [IRCA] CBS RADIO FOR SALE?

[Scott Fybush <scott@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On 3/16/2016 2:32 PM, Pete Taylor wrote:
> I got this off Facebook. Hard to believe if it is true.
>
> This is historic and very, very sad. CBS is dumping radio. The radio
> news network and CBS O&O radio stations are for sale.

There is a LOT of misinformation and wild speculation floating around 
out there right now. Most of what I've been reading on FB and elsewhere 
has been way off the mark.

Here's what's happening: the CEO of CBS Corp., Les Moonves, said on an 
investor call yesterday that the company is *exploring* the sale of its 
CBS Radio division.

This division includes the O&O radio stations, 126 of them (IIRC) in 22 
markets.

It does *not* include CBS Radio News, which is staffed by employees of 
the CBS News Division and distributed by Westwood One (which is owned by 
Cumulus.)

For a whole bunch of reasons, most of them having to do with taxes, it 
would make very little sense for CBS to start selling off individual 
radio stations to separate buyers, or even to sell entire clusters to 
buyers.

What's much more likely is that they'll spin the CBS Radio division off 
as a separately-traded public company (as they did with CBS' outdoor ad 
division), or that they might engage in a tax-preferred swap with 
another large company. (One possibility that's being rumored is that CBS 
Radio might go to Liberty Media, which has a controlling interest in 
SiriusXM, in exchange for Liberty's Starz cable networks.)

It's also entirely possible that CBS management will conclude that 
there's no benefit right now to a sale and they'll leave well enough alone.

In any event, what we now know as CBS Radio is connected only in name 
and a handful of big-market stations (WCBS AM-FM, WPHT/WOGL, WBBM AM-FM, 
KNX-KCBS-FM, KCBS/KLLC, KMOX, WCCO) to the "CBS Radio" division of years 
gone by. Most of today's "CBS Radio" traces its heritage back either to 
Westinghouse/Group W or later acquisitions from Infinity and American 
Radio Systems.

I wrote more extensively about what's going on at CBS in a column for my 
subscribers at fybush.com yesterday. I may post it to these lists if 
there's interest and if it can help quell some of the hysteria that 
seems to be surrounding yesterday's news.

s
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