This is the big rumor in my inbox this morning from Tom Taylor.<\/p>\n
It sounds 100% logical. Dial Global has been on the edge of going under for several years, in part because they are burdened by the debt they used to acquire Westwood One. They also are headed to court with TRN who has accused them of improper business tactics, acting as their station reps and then pushing stations to drop TRN and switching to Dial Global’s own products.<\/p>\n
Cumulus is the force behind CBS Sports Radio – and has been quietly converting more and more of their music stations to carry CBS Sports – but they have a problem that they don’t have access to any live sports. Sports talk is the filler in between sporting events – it isn’t enough to carry a station by itself.<\/p>\n
Westwood One has contracts with the NCAA for college sports and the NFL for football. The price to acquire Dial Global will be minimal – probably less than $100 million – but the risk to Cumulus is the cost of those NCAA\/NFL contracts which may not be able to be covered by Cumulus’s ability to sell ads. I would not be shocked if this ultimately goes through some sort of restructuring to shed the debt and renegotiate the sports contracts.<\/p>\n
Dial Global also distributes NBC Sports Radio – there are a few too many sports networks – some consolidation is inevitable<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This is the big rumor in my inbox this morning from Tom Taylor. It sounds 100% logical. Dial Global has been on the edge of going under for several years, in part because they are burdened by the debt they … Continue reading