US Radio Giants leave acquisition stage and start selling off underperforming st

The US newsletter Radio Business Report explores a new trend – shrinking networks. It has noticed what it thinks is the beginning of a significant change on the US radio business.

The article says:

From 1996 to 2000, it seemed that there wasn’t anything that the big radio consolidators didn’t want to own. Infinity was a bit more selective, sticking to the top 100 markets, but Clear Channel was buying for bulk, even acquiring stations in unrated markets. Now the tide has shifted.

Wall Street is pressuring them to get back to leading the radio industry in revenue growth, instead of trailing the average. One way to do that is to get rid of underperforming stations – – and both Clear Channel and Infinity say they’re ready to sell. After talking about divesting for about a year, Viacom is now saying it is serious about getting Infinity out of markets below the top 20.

Infinity CEO Joel Hollander said this week (3/1/05 RBR #42) that he’s hung “for sale” signs on Fresno, Greensboro, Buffalo and other similar markets, although he’s holding onto Charlotte, Las Vegas, West Palm Beach and Orlando – – for now – – because they appear to be valuable currency for potential swaps that would net Infinity some top 20 market properties.

When Clear Channel CFO Randall Mays was asked at the Bear Stearns conference what his company is doing, he said Clear Channel has already been divesting some properties. Indeed, readers of RBR have probably noticed quite a number of Clear Channel station sales in the past year or two – – no big stations, but quite a few small ones. But Mays seemed to signal that the company is now looking to sell off entire underperforming clusters, not just stray stations that aren’t needed.