Media Nuggets: Lawsuit Updates and More Terrestrial Radio Misery
Here’s the latest media notebook for your reading pleasure:
1) The Mike Missanelli vs. Joe Krause civil suit is off to a slow start. Mike filed back in August, claiming that he’s owed more than $65,000 in unpaid compensation. Krause, who runs JAKIB Media, says Missanelli did not fulfill his contract obligations.
The latest development is Krause filing a motion for extension on November 6th, which was granted by the Montgomery County Court of Common Pleas. Krause is now being asked to respond to Missanelli’s preliminary objections by December 9th, so it will be about another month, give or take, before this thing moves forward.
The only other meaningful document in the public records is a September 30th “Answer and New Matter” from Krause, which lays out his defense in a more comprehensive manner. I clipped part of that here:
In Missanelli’s suit, it states that he was under contract for three payments amounting to $30,000, $35,000, and $35,000. It alleges he only received $25,000 via a combination of certified check and direct deposit, and that the unpaid balance of $65,000 dates back to March of 2024.
2) Krause is also facing a $400,000 suit from Audacy for what the radio company says are non-payments for programming agreements. That’s still in the preliminary stages and has yet to be resolved.
In addition, Krause is in open litigation with Amsterdam Capital Solutions, a New York financing firm seeking $240,000 for repayment of a cash advance. There’s also a case involving Barclay’s Bank Delaware involving seizure of his bank accounts. There’s quite a bit of legalese in here, but this is basically what you would receive when there’s been a judgment against you:
3) The age discrimination lawsuit between PHLY and former seller Steve Geltman remains active. There was a settlement meeting originally scheduled for this week, but it was cancelled. It looked as though the two sides would end this litigation in the same way the Anthony Gargano and Beasley lawsuit was handled, but that does not appear to be the case now and there is no further documentation or explanation for the cancellation. We’ll see where it goes from here.
4) Speaking of PHLY, All City Network is now on local television. Here in Philadelphia, the press release says “PHLY is available nationally on The Roku Channel and at https://allphly.com/live/, for Xfinity customers on X1 on channel 4073, and in Philadelphia on Samsung TV Plus on channel 2348.”
5) Paul Jaxon was at 93.3 WMMR from 2004 until 2022, when he was let go as part of Beasley budget cuts. He landed with iHeartRadio and was laid off again this month:
Paul Jaxon exits as morning host at Classic Rock “Big 100” WBIG-FM and midday host at “Alt 104.5” WRFF Philadelphia. Jaxon joined WBIG-FM in September 2023 after 18 years in afternoons at WMMR Philadelphia from 2004-2022. He has also hosted mornings at WFNX Boston, KBPI Denver, and KURR Salt Lake City as well as nights at WHJY Providence in his career.
Talk about shitty, losing your job twice in two years. The radio business continues to be brutal.
6) Speaking of which – this kind of flew under the radar, but Beasley Broadcast Group enacted the same reverse stock split that Audacy tried before declaring bankruptcy. Back in late September, Beasley’s board approved “a reverse stock split of its Class A Common Stock and Class B Common Stock (collectively, the “Common Stock”) at a ratio of 1-for-20. Stockholders previously approved the reverse stock split on August 26, 2024 and provided the Board with discretion to determine the final reverse stock split ratio.”
If you remember from the Audacy story, when your stock drops below one dollar per share, you face delisting from the NYSE. Beasley’s stock began the year at about $18.50 and has dropped steadily, falling to $9 dollars in August before rebounding to $13 in October and now back down to $8 or so. The stock is down about $50 per share from this same time five years ago, which was a few months before the COVID-19 pandemic hit.
EDIT: These numbers are actually listed retroactively, and therefore incorrectly. I will dig up the pre-split stock prices and update accordingly
EDIT 2: Okay I found the right numbers. It was 1 for 20 stock split, so basically every 20 shares you previous had turned into 1 share. The price had dipped to 67 cents per share by the time the split was conducted. Now the measure puts them back into compliance.
7) Less important, but perhaps a bit of foreshadowing – The Times of Trenton, South Jersey Times, and Easton Express-Times are among the NJ Advance Media outlets that will stop printing newspapers in February. Jeff Blumenthal at the Philadelphia Business Journal reports that those papers are gonna be 100% digital now.
8) Crossing Broad has a new owner. You may have seen the news about our parent company, XLMedia, selling its North American assets to Sportradar. That process is complete and we’re now Sportradar employees. Hooray!
Does anything change for us? Nope. It’s business as usual and we’re still working hard and cranking content in pursuit of that first Pulitzer Prize. My new email is k.kinkead@sportradar.com, so if you send hate mail to the old address, it will disappear into the aether.