城堡广播公司(Citadel Broadcasting Corporation)——美国第三大广播公司,2009年12月20日申请破产保护
目录 |
城堡广播公司为美国第三大广播公司,成立于1984年,总部设在内华达州的拉斯维加斯。城堡广播公司目前拥有2850名雇员。截至2009年2月19日,该公司拥有FM广播电台165个和AM广播电台58个,电台的50个市场分别被设在美国27个州和哥伦比亚特区,此外,公司还经营的ABC广播网。
The company was founded in 1984 in Phoenix, AZ by Larry Wilson as Citadel Associates Limited Partnership. In 1990 it was renamed Citadel Associates Montana Limited Partnership for the purpose of owning and operating stations in Montana that were formerly owned by CALP. A year later, Citadel Broadcasting was officially incorporated and in 1992 it acquired all of the radio stations owned by its predecessors. Within a decade, Citadel expanded to 26 states. Within that time period, it absorbed all Bloomington Broadcasting radio holdings and 11 stations from Dick Broadcasting Company and also acquired 3 radio stations from Slone Broadcasting, Inc. and Slone Radio, LLC. In 2001, Larry Wilson sold Citadel to Forstmann Little for $2.1 billion. By that time, the company had grown to 205 stations in 42 markets.
Citadel Broadcasting launched an online service called Citadel Interactive in 2005, and a year later launched Right Now Radio. By July 2007, more than 180 of their stations were streaming online.[citation needed]
On February 6, 2006, Forstmann Little and The Walt Disney Company agreed to merge Citadel with Disney's ABC Radio. Shares representing 57% of Citadel were distributed to shareholders of The Walt Disney Company following the company's acquisition of 22 stations from ABC Radio.
After the merger, Citadel's ownership structure was:
ABC owned and operated affiliates of Radio Disney and ESPN Radio were not included in the merger agreement, nor were the actual networks.
In order to comply with FCC ownership limitations, Citadel has sold off twelve of its radio stations. Ten of the stations' licenses have been transferred to a newly formed trust company, The Last Bastion Station Trust, LLC. The two-station Cortland, New York, cluster was sold off prior to the merger in a separate transaction; WIII was sold to Saga Communications and WKRT (now WYBY) has been given to the Bible Broadcasting Network for free as a tax deductible donation.
However as of June 19, 2008; Arbitron has expanded Oklahoma City's market definition allowing Citadel to own 5 FM stations in the said area, at which time Citadel Broadcasting applied to re-acquire KKWD from The Last Bastion Station Trust, LLC with the FCC. According to FCC documents, KKWD was re-absorbed into Citadel's station portfolio on July 9, 2009.
On April 2, 2009; the staff of Citadel Broadcasting changed the name of "ABC Radio" to Citadel Media to reflect on its current ownership of the major network.
In addition to Citadel Media, Citadel also owns the Arkansas Radio, Tennessee Titans Radio, Buffalo Bills and the Michigan Talk radio networks.
北京时间2009年12月20日,美国第三大广播公司城堡广播(Citadel Broadcasting Corp)宣布,由于广播行业继续受到广告收入低迷的严重冲击,该公司已经申请破产保护。
城堡广播根据由60%的优先债权人支持的“预先商定交易”申请了破产保护。该交易将允许城堡广播将21亿美元的担保信贷安排转换为总额7.625亿美元的定期贷款,意味着大约14亿美元的债务得以消除。做为交易的一部分,优先债权人将获得部分新的定期贷款以及重组后的城堡广播90%的普通股。
城堡广播现任CEO法里德•萨尔曼(Farid Suleman)表示,公司业务将照常运营,并且将寻求尽快完成重组以脱离破产保护。根据破产申请文件,城堡广播资产总计14亿美元,债务总计25亿美元。纽约私人投资公司福斯特曼•利特尔公司(Forstmann Little & Co。)持有城堡广播28.7%的股份。