Posted by Bud on October 30, 2009 at 21:13:06:
In Reply to: Big Chicago Clear Channel meeting posted by bottom feeder on October 30, 2009 at 21:12:02:
: Anyone have any idea what went down at the Swissotel during Wednesday's Clear Channel meeting?
:
From Radio-Info's Tom Taylor in yesterday's newsletter:
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It's company meeting time for Clear Channel GMs and programmers.
They're in Chicago. Though one T-R-I reader notes that he thinks some ops managers from some smaller markets weren't invited. Is that a cost-saving measure? Last year some local-market executives weren't invited to meetings and there was a suspicion that the company was planning to spin off those markets. I have no idea whether that's going on this time. There are certainly markets that Bain Capital and Thomas H. Lee Partners would part with, at the right price. Another thing to watch is the former Clear Channel stations that have been living life in the Aloha Station Trust. One dealmaker says "You know, they won't stay there forever." Some can and will be repatriated to Clear Channel, as their cities of license change and they're officially considered by BIA and Arbitron to be in different markets. The joker in the deck is the FCC. We don't know what regulatory ideas new Chairman Julius Genachowski brought with him, but he's got to balance the double-digit revenue pain of the industry versus the anti-consolidation mindset of the Obama Administration.