CBS Selling off 50 Stations

[David Tomm]

It won't affect Boston, but Hartford will surely be sold.  They  
currently have four stations in the Insurance City, and all of them  
are in the Top 5 12+.  They include news/talk WTIC, Mainstream AC  
WRCH, Hot AC WTIC-FM and Rhythmic WZMX.  With the national radio  
market being saturated with unsold stations, most radio groups  
bottoming out on stock price and the lending crunch, I can't CBS  
getting top dollar for these properties, even though they are the  
most successful in the state.

Some group could land a bargain there, if they can get the financing  
together.  I doubt that Citadel will be a player and Clear Channel  
has stations there already.  That cluster may be too much for a  
smaller group like Regent or Nassau to finance in this economy.  This  
would be a great market for Entercom or Greater Media to enter.  Cox  
has stations in New Haven and on Long Island, so adding Hartford  
would seem to make sense for them as well.

Those four signals aren't the only ones on the block right now.   
Alternative WURH, currently owned by Clear Channel, has to be spun  
off as part of the company going private and is currently in a  
trust.  That's a signal I could easily see a Univision or SBS picking  
up and taking Spanish.  It will be interesting to see who buys these  
all stations and if it means a lot of changes in the market going  
forward.

-Dave Tomm
"Mike Thomas"


On Aug 2, 2008, at 10:04 PM, Brian Vita wrote:

> I'm surprised that no one commented on the news story yesterday  
> about CBS'
> decision to sell off 50 of their stations.