Before I start this commentary, I will announce that as of a few minutes ago, The Radio Crytic has officially been shut down, marking a significant evolution in my WordPress journey. That site had existed in some for or another for nearly 14 years, but now all my energy is going into this site.
Now, it’s on to this week’s commentary, where we will look at the deal Cumulus made with EMF in 2019. At the time, Cumulus stated that it would either try to scale its clusters or get out of markets where it couldn’t do so. In this post, we’ll look at how that has actually panned out market by market.
New York
New York was the most successful execution of this strategy, as Cumulus eventually pulled out of the market. In the same deal, 94.7 WNSH went to then Entercom, with WABC eventually sold to Red Apple Media, and 103.9 WNBM, after lingering for many years, eventually going to VCY America. I don’t know what, if any, plans they have for the Westchester County licensed WFAS, but Cumulus converted that to all digital and seems to want its talk programming cleared in market #1, which would technically count with it on a signal hardly anyone listens to.
Washington DC
This is one of the many markets in this deal that doesn’t make sense, though could something be brewing? In recent weeks, there have been rumblings of a Cumulus Audacy combination. When WRQX was sold in the deal that is the subject of this post, Cumulus retained 630 WMAL which has since changed calls, and then simulcaster 105.9 WMAL-FM. A combination with Audacy would only require one station to be spun off, and that station would likely be Audacy’s 99.1 WDCH, which is leased to Bloomberg anyway. While no rumors have come out publicly yet, there also seems to be some industry rumblings about a possible deal between Cumulus and Hubbard. DC is the only market that would make sense for some kind of deal to take place, as Hubbard owns all news WTOP across three FM signals, federal news 1500 WFED, and 1050 WBQH, which is leased to United Media Group. Of all stations involved there, only one would need to be spun off, and WBQH is the most obvious choice here.
Atlanta, San Francisco, Savanna, and Syracuse
The remaining four stations in this deal feel like stations Cumulus simply threw in because they didn’t know what to do with them. Cumulus, and before that Citadel, didn’t seem to know what they wanted out of 106.7 WYAY Atlanta as it had been through a number of formats including Classic Hits, all news, and finally news/talk before it was sold. In San Francisco, 97.7 KFFG had been simulcasting 104.5 KFOG for many years, but Cumulus has a sizeable cluster there. In Syracuse, 105.9 had been struggling for a number of year, but had found some stability with the classic rock format it had been running before it was sold. Savanna is the only market I really don’t have any comment on as I’m not familiar with that market.
Other markets
Cumulus sold 95.5 KLOS/Los Angeles shortly after this deal was announced, but retains 790 KABC. From what I understand, they have been trying to unload that for a while. In Chicago, Cumulus has stated they are not leaving, but what can the company get? They already didn’t buy 97.9 WLUP when they had the opportunity to, which would have given them a stronger cluster. That leaves them with only two FMs and one AM. In Houston, why Cumulus retains only KRBE continues to baffle me. I would think that iHeart would want that station, as Houston is the largest market they do not own a CHR in, and with selling two to CBS in 2009, would have room to add. Audacy, successor to CBS, would also have room to add it should that combination come to fruition. In Detroit, Cumulus only had 93.1 WDRQ, 96.3 WDVD, and 760 WWJ. With WDRQ being sold last year, they are down to two stations. Both Beasley and Audacy have room to grow here, could we see a combination there? I somehow doubt a full combination of Cumulus and Audacy will happen, as Cumulus has rejected multiple attempts at a hostile takeover, but they have some assets in the above markets they would probably like to be rid of. Could we see a multi-market swap? I think so.
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