The real merger of Cumulus with Citadel isn’t consolidation like radio used to see in the late 90’s.  It’s about a methodical takeover of the radio industry by banking interests who reward losers and punish winners.

This article reveals …

•  A slight opening in the exclusive negotiating window Cumulus is paying Citadel for – it could allow a white knight to save Citadel from Cumulus or it could be a bust.  Here’s how it works.

•  Who could give Cumulus a run for their money at this point.

•  Why the banks are hell bent to create yet another heavily debt ridden radio group.  It defies logic until you read this.

•  The Cumulus end game.  Lew Dickey is out shopping for loans to complete the deal, but here is his plan.

•  What will the merged Cumulus and Citadel look like?  More layoffs?  Lots or a few?  What will happen to Citadel programming?  Management changes.  The corporate setup.   This describes the net result of the Cumulus-Citadel merger.

If you would like to read this story, have access to my entire archive (over 1,200 pieces) and get the next month of my writing included, click “read more” for your choices. 

Lew Dickey may be snapping his suspenders and enjoying making Citadel CEO Farid Suleman and his 14,000 employees squirm as he attempts a hostile takeover.

But in a little Connecticut courthouse, an ex-Cumulus employee who the Dickeys sued when she left them for Cox is prevailing in court so much so that she may be able to get Lew to say “uncle”.

You know that these kinds of stories are not reported in the radio trade press, which is happy to skirt controversy to stay in Dickey’s good graces.  But Cumulus is attempting to be the big dog among radio consolidators with a record of employee dissatisfaction and a punitive management style.

This article will reveal the draconian tactics being used by Cumulus and how one employee appears to be overcoming them:

1.  What a judge did with a Cumulus attempt to hogtie the income and personal possessions of former market manager Kristin Okesson.

2.  How low would Cumulus go to put a stranglehold on an employee’s life after she left their company?  I’ve got two scary examples for you.

3.  How much does this judge think Cumulus can win – if they win -- and the case goes to trial?  Let’s play high low.  Cumulus wants over $1 million from their ex-employee.  She wants to pay zero.  You guess what the judge said was Cumulus’ best-case scenario (yes, it’s higher than zero).

4.  Inside info on the shrewd countersuit that Dickey’s ex-employee filed against Cumulus – a suit so dangerous that one way or the other I think it forces Cumulus to settle the original case.

5.  Can you imagine Lew Dickey being deposed in this case?  Imagine it.  Here’s how Dickey cannot avoid a deposition.

6.  Cumulus has no women in senior management positions, most people know that.  But the very company that is hot in pursuit of Citadel has how many women as market managers?  Whatever your guess, keep in mind that it is three fewer than when Okesson was employed there. 

7.  What will happen in the end?  It’s harder to predict whether Cumulus will be successful in its takeover attempt of rival Citadel than it is to see how this secret and vindictive lawsuit will end.  I’ll tell you my prediction right here.

If you would like to read this story, have access to my entire archive (over 1,100 pieces) and get the next month of my writing included, click “read more” for your choices. 

Everyone seems resigned to the fact that Cumulus is going to succeed in its hostile takeover of Citadel. 

Everyone but Citadel CEO Farid “Fagreed” Suleman and me!  How’s that for strange bedfellows?

I think Entercom still has a chance and even if Citadel accepts the Cumulus offer while I am writing this piece, I still think Entercom (or some other group) is the horse to watch.  

The Cumulus/Citadel merger stinks. 

It has no merit other than to earn fat fees for investment bankers and high interest rates on the debt that will follow.  And let me be clear – it will be destructive to every other radio group except Clear Channel (I’ll explain).

Here’s what this article reveals ...

1.  Could Entercom still buy Citadel even after coming up short last week?  I’ve got some compelling evidence for you to consider.

2.  Why would Entercom want Citadel now?  There are two reasons that I think you will appreciate as I lay out the scenario I see happening.

3.  What is a fair price for Citadel?  Notice you haven’t seen one solid number on how much radio stations are worth.  Just a pig in a poke number.  Here’s why.  There is a new pricing system that is apparently being used to determine the value of the Citadel stations and if I told you it isn’t station comps and it isn’t the recent Bonneville station sales, would you believe what the parties are using as a way of pricing the deal?

4.  The adverse affects if Cumulus is the one that merges with Citadel. 

5.  What happens to current Citadel employees who survived one dictator and now this?

6.  The major changes ahead for Citadel markets where Harvard case study mentality is likely to replace what is still good about some Citadel stations.  I’ll explain.

7.  What happens if Cumulus gets Citadel, will there be more radio mergers even without real station values to price the acquisitions? 

8.  How some good radio companies can have bad things happen to them if Dickey and his Wall Street cronies pull off this improbable hostile takeover.

If you would like to read this story, have access to my entire archive (over 1,100 pieces) and get the next month of my writing included, click “read more” for your choices. 

So Lew Dickey sweetens the pot and offers Farid Suleman what is effectively $37 a share instead of $31 and suddenly everyone assumes that these two toxic companies wind up as one – in debtors heaven.

Not so fast.

You can believe what you read if you want or you can consider what I am about to share with you and then decide.

This article will reveal the untold story of what is going on behind the scenes in this merger:

1.  Farid Suleman’s back room strategy to blow up the latest Lew Dickey attempt to steal his company.  All the latest details.

2.  Why the news of Dickey’s latest offer was leaked to Radio Ink, a friend of Farid Suleman.  Why I think it was done on purpose and I’ll tell you my reasoning.  Plus who I think leaked it.

3.  Evidence of Farid Suleman’s reluctance to sell and why he appears to be playing along with this second Dickey attempt to make him unemployed.

4.  What happens to Fagreed if Dickey wins?

5.  Why Citadel is attractive and why Fagreed Suleman himself may have accidently left the door open for archenemy Lew Dickey to steal his company.  I’ll tell Suleman’s costly miscalculation.

6.  The thing that could actually blow up the Cumulus takeover if it ever happens – something out of the control of Lew Dickey.

7.  Why a Cumulus/Citadel merger is a rotten deal for radio, local cities, employees, shareholders – need I go on.  We know that already perhaps. But it’s a great deal for someone – and that someone is not even Lew Dickey.  In this piece I’ll tell you who comes away the big winner if this marriage gets consummated.

8.  Details on the poison pill Fagreed established after Dickey’s first attempt to takeover Citadel.  It’s unbelievable and it’s brilliant in a sick kind of way.

9.  Can the Cumulus takeover of Citadel get done?  I’ll go on the record here.

10.  Could it get scuttled?  I’ll tell you what I know.

11. What other major radio group is said to be interested in fighting Lew Dickey for Citadel.  Read it here.

If you would like to read this story, have access to my entire archive (over 1,100 pieces) and get the next month of my writing included, click “read more” for your choices. 

So much is happening in the media business right now. 

Pandora and Facebook are getting IPOs.  Both will affect terrestrial radio and the record industry.

Social networking has not only fueled a revolution in the music and media business but helped spread the word for democracy in Tunisia and Egypt.

Electronic products were selling like hotcakes right through that miserable recession we hope we’re done with.  So I thought you’d like to know what I am seeing specifically for the radio industry in the year ahead.

This piece focuses on …

1.  Consolidation – Did the Bonneville sale of 17 stations to Hubbard pave the way for more contraction.  It’s kind of interesting and not what you may think. I’ll get specific.

2.  The Cumulus Citadel takeover – is it possible?  Is it good?  What happens to radio either way?

3.  Local sales – This is the most important prediction I can make because the world of local sales is being pressured by online operators like Groupon and the proliferation of social networking sites.  I’ll tell you how much money Pandora is taking away from radio in its first year accepting local advertising.  You’ll want to sit down first.  I also have a solution that very few companies are using to bolster local sales but the ones that are using it are bolstering local sales.

4.  Morning shows – This year something major is going to happen with regard to local and live radio shows.  One way or the other, things will change.  Here’s the blueprint.

5.  Employment security – Are the layoffs over?  If not, which radio companies still have firing in their future.

6.  Social networking – What radio does not understand about social networking and what they had better learn soon.

7.  Online streaming of terrestrial radio – The missing link, the one thing radio streamers still don’t get.

This article is about the evolving trends that are being observed now that will have a direct affect on the future of radio.

If you would like to read this story, have access to my entire archive (over 1,100 pieces) and get the next month of my writing included, click “read more” for your choices. 

(With my wife Cheryl before our recent Media Solutions Lab)

Enough of Bob Pittman and Lew Dickey – they get too much adoring press.

Let’s go to the field and see what is really happening in radio while talking heads wax eloquent about the future of consolidated radio.

This piece is about …

1.  One of the three major consolidators (that begins with a “c”) that is forcing all employees to sign a one-year – you read that right – non-compete in return for two weeks of severance pay upon exiting the company.  Two weeks pay for 52 weeks more of unemployment in radio.   It’s unbelievable.  Hear it from a company insider.

2.  The prestigious major market news station that followed corporate belt tightening and looped old news during the night while a blizzard slammed their city of licenses.  Also outdated traffic reports. 

3.  Which major group had the gall to screw St. Jude’s Hospital out of a mutually beneficially community-based public service alliance – at the last minute – reportedly leaving the well-known children’s hospital on the hook for tickets and hotel rooms?  Now that’s public disservice.

4.  Want to take your major market station from number two to outside the top 10?  This radio group did it with the help of a big corporate exec and his puppet program director.  Want to know how so you never do it?  Read on.

This article is about how firing people and saving money continually make radio groups look like clowns.

If you would like to read this story, have access to my entire archive (over 1,100 pieces) and get the next month of my writing included, click “read more” for your choices. 

Has the sale of 17 Bonneville stations in four markets actually increased the price of other potential radio station sales?

That seems to be the conventional wisdom.  And to that I say, bull.

This piece clears up the misconceptions about what radio stations are worth on the eve of the biggest station selloff ahead in almost 8 years and in it, you’ll learn …

1.  My guess on how many Clear Channel stations will be put on the market when the company is forced to refinance almost $20 billion in debt and what kind of multiples they can expect to get in the wake of the recent Bonneville sale.  Here’s why they will have to sell stations soon.

2.  What’s up with other owners who really want or need to sell some stations off but have been afraid to do so if all they could get is fire sale prices?

3.  Why the Bonneville sale to Hubbard could have been bigger – and why the other key Bonneville properties were not included in the deal.

4.  The one thing that got Bonneville the big bucks – one thing that made the deal dance.  I’ll name it.

5.  What factor on Bonneville’s side actually drove up the sale of its stations to Hubbard and how other groups could do the same thing – easily.

6.  What types of stations Clear Channel is likely to sell and what type they will keep.

7.  My assessment of what the new multiple for 2011 will be.  You already know I think 8x is bull.  But how overinflated is 8x?  I’ll nail the new range for station sale multiples right here.

This article is about the future of the radio industry – its worth, its value, its viability going forward.

If you would like to read this story, have access to my entire archive (over 1,100 pieces) and get the next month of my writing included, click “read more” for your choices.