Thursday, January 18, 2007

BREAKING NEWS: Entercom Exits Cincinnati, Bonneville Enters

Almost as quickly as it entered the Cincinnati market, Entercom is leaving.

The Philadelphia-based group is initiating a trade with Bonneville, and that company picks up the newly-reformed Entercom cluster in Cincinnati: rock WUBE, country WYGY, hot AC WKRQ and alt-rock WSWD. Bonneville also gets three Entercom stations in San Francisco.

We'll have to go back into our archives to remember which of those stations came from Entercom's initial purchase of the CBS Radio cluster in the Queen City, and which came in that trade from Cumulus. We'd have to track the frequencies, as the calls and formats have moved around so many times it even makes US dizzy.

The move allows Entercom to re-enter the San Francisco market.

Bonneville is the broadcasting arm, of course, of the Salt Lake City-based Mormon Church. It has no other Ohio operations...

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Makes you wonder if any of those old reel to reel beautiful music tapes will find an outlet?

Anonymous said...

Entercom bought WUBE, WKRQ, WAQZ (now WYGY)and WGRR from CBS. They traded WGRR to Cumulus for WSWD, which was WYGY at the time.

Anonymous said...

Bonneville is very CONSEEEEEEERRRRRVATIVE

So I guess we will see what happens

Anonymous said...

Most of those reel to reel beautiful music tapes were recycled in production rooms from coast to coast..God knows I spliced my share..

Anonymous said...

LOL...Bonneville just isn't flamboyant.....but it is a risk taking company...witness what they do in washington...they have a station which caters to federal employees...all fed all the time...
they run a good shop......

there san francisco market manager has been with them forever and i can guarnatee that on his exit from bonneville ( assuming he isn;t transferred( he will be well taken care of.
they do the things a provate radio company can/should do...take risks

the cincy folks would have done well under entercom...they will do well and maybe better under bonneville...

Anonymous said...

This is merely thinking out loud..

1) Primary motive of this deal seem to be Bonneville regaining KIRO, which also fits in with their current initiative towards News/Talk (especially on FM). I would think that KBSG will drop Oldies for a KIRO simulcast as soon as this deal is finalized.

BTW, more info on Bonneville's FM News/Talk goals:

http://www.bonnint.com/docs/FM_news_initiative.pdf

2) Entercom gaining entry into the San Francisco market.

3) By including the Cincinnati cluster this deal was made with no cash changing hands, which helps for tax purposes.

4) Now Cincinnati doesn't seem to fit in the big picture for Bonneville, but it does for a guy mentioned in the entry below this. I won't be shocked to somehow seeing these stations changing hands YET again. Is that the noise we won't be able to ignore?