Can Citadel Broadcasting survive?

[Garrett Wollman]

<<On Sat, 1 Mar 2008 12:07:29 -0500, kvahey@comcast.net said:

> Citadel is in big trouble. Their stock is down to $1.03 this morning
> and yesterday they virtually eliminated the newsroom at WLS Chicago
> and fired John Gambling at WABC. Revenue at WPLJ is reported to be
> down 50% from a year ago.

> I guess in retrospect Disney saw it coming and bailed out.

I don't think that's necessarily the case.  I don't doubt for a moment
that ABC Radio's financial position was made significantly worse by
the separation from the rest of ABC.  There weren't a whole lot of
economies created in the Citadel merger, since Citadel was mostly a
medium-market group and ABC Radio was exclusively a large-market
player -- worse than that, a large-market player with mostly
standalone (1 A/1 F) operations in major markets where all the major
competitors have clusters.

Can Citadel survive?  Probably, in the sense that there could be a
company of that name left in the end, although I don't think the
Citadel-ABC marriage ever made any sense.  I doubt it will survive,
long-term, under the current ownership structure: the parts are more
valuable than the whole.  I wouldn't be at all surprised to see Disney
buying some of the pieces back at fire-sale prices, if Citadel goes
under.

-GAWollman