Audacy Denies Report that its Filing for Bankruptcy
On Tuesday night, a couple of random and somewhat-dubious blog posts popped up saying that Philadelphia-based Audacy was going bankrupt, which resulted in the company coming out and issuing a denial:
A blog post published today falsely claimed that Audacy’s CEO confirmed Audacy’s bankruptcy. That statement is categorically untrue. Audacy intends to vigorously pursue all available remedies for false statements meant to cause damage to Audacy and its stakeholders. @GBHNews https://t.co/mn3UBCRIh9
— AudacyCorp (@AudacyCorp) August 31, 2022
I asked a couple of people at WIP and KYW and no one had any clue about a possible bankruptcy filing. It could have been a rumor that got out of control based on the fact that the company just went through another round of layoffs and received a compliance warning from the New York Stock Exchange because the stock price has been holding below one dollar for a good portion of the summer.
The issue with the NYSE thing is that if you don’t get your price back up to a dollar per share, you can be delisted entirely. Audacy executives say they’re working to remedy this, but as of publication, the stock price is sitting at 52 cents and last crested a dollar at the end of June:
Locally, Audacy owns 94 WIP, KYW News Radio, 1210 WPHT, B101, WOGL, and 96.5. WIP is the highest biller in this local cluster and is a ratings juggernaut (handily defeating the Fanatic right now), but the company operates more than 225 stations in nearly 50 markets that are not WIP (or WFAN).