Monthly Archives: November 2025

Monday, November 24, 2025

The Trojan Horse Deal to Rope in Station Buyers

  • Jeff Warshaw is rushing to almost give away Alpha stations that are a drag on his Connoisseur merger.
  • The only surviving radio buyer EMF is not interested so Warshaw has concocted a scheme that helps get his expenses down.
  • What he is doing to make it virtually impossible for a potential buyer not to buy his unwanted stations.
  • But it’s blinding the downside risk which should trigger “buyer beware”.
  • This is the future of selling radio stations specifically for small-to-mid-sized markets – imitators will follow.

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Friday, November 21, 2025

iHeart Cooked the Essential AM/FM Car Study

  • iHeart published a misleading new nationwide study showing overwhelming consumer support (96%) for keeping AM/FM radio built into vehicles.
  • Released-timed just as Congress takes up a bill to mandate radio in the dashboard.
  • And, how it could backfire and hurt the industry’s attempt to mandate AM/FM in autos.
  • Risks creating credibility issues with lawmakers who oppose the legislation if they find out about it (which as of this morning, they just did).
  • How they “cooked” the report.

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Wednesday, November 19, 2025

How iHeart Blew the TuneIn Deal

Hi, Jerry here.  Internet radio aggregator TuneIn sold their business for a discounted $175 million and iHeart should have bought it.  They have had an on again off again rival/partner relationship for years while they had to build out iHeartRadio at great expense to remain in the game.

What’s interesting is how iHeart CEO Bob “Talks-a lot” came up lame when it was time to walk the walk and now we know why iHeart missed out on securing this accretive deal.

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Friday, November 14, 2025

Townsquare’s Buried Bad News

Good morning, Jerry back again.  Every radio CEO can make a lousy quarter look good until you take a deeper dive so Townsquare’s persistent use of “digital first” to offset radio’s negative decline gets old until you look at their own recent words showing real concern for the company’s ability to stay afloat. 

Early warnings are all over the place hidden in legal documents about what management really fears for the company’s future – I found 6 eye-opening admissions.

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Tuesday, November 11, 2025

Saga’s Unforced Errors

Hello again, Jerry here.  Saga is beginning to panic – way late move to digital, less focus on radio revenue, selling towers for whatever reason, even running up a bit of debt that is no doubt making founder Ed Christian turn over in his grave.

While their off-the-rack CEO Chris Forgy acts like everything is beautiful, today we are digging into Saga’s hidden stumbles – out of sight, but railing investors who could be jonesing to do a takeover bid.

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Wednesday, November 5, 2025

The iHeart/Netflix Deal Risk/Reward

Hi, Jerry here.  We’re looking at an iHeart freakout yesterday when investors drove the share price up 35% on speculation of a podcasting licensing agreement with Netflix.  If true, the upside may be overstated and downside underestimated.

We’ll dig into that high risk/high reward euphoria. 

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Tuesday, November 4, 2025

GM’s War Against CarPlay & Android Auto

Hey there, Jerry here.  GM is removing CarPlay and Android Auto from the dashboard in its new models in a blatant and dangerous play to get into the paid subscription business using their own ecosystem – kind of a mini-Apple app store.  

Apple and Google are not at all worried, but radio should be if GM succeeds because GM has a plan for radio, too – you won’t fall in love with it. We get into it from all sides including consumer reaction. Will they sit for this and what will radio’s repercussions be?

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Monday, November 3, 2025

Cumulus Troubles Worse Than Thought

Hi there, Jerry here.  Disturbing news from Cumulus as revenue tanks 11.5%, another quarter, another big miss.  Yes, more layoffs, cutbacks, firing market managers prevent paying bonuses but it’s even worse.  We dive into it and the serious repercussions it has on the company and other nervous radio groups.

CEO Berner is planning another Reader’s Digest-type bankruptcy but lenders are in ill-humor and demanding huge concessions.  You can bet Urban One, Beasley and Salem are glued to Cumulus.

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