Ad Disclosure
94 WIP Owner Files for Bankruptcy
Published:
Audacy, the radio and podcast giant, said Sunday it filed plans for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection to reduce its debt.
The restructuring agreement will allow Audacy to slash its total debt load by 80% to about $350 million from around $1.9 billion, the company said.
“Over the past few years, we have strategically transformed Audacy into a leading, scaled multi-platform audio content and entertainment company,” David Field, CEO of Audacy, said in a statement.
However, Field added, “the perfect storm” over the past four years of macroeconomic challenges “facing the traditional advertising market” led to a sharp reduction in radio ad spending.
“These market factors have severely impacted our financial condition and necessitated our balance sheet restructuring,” Field said.
It was only a matter of time. Audacy has been struggling for some time now, and was booted off the New York Stock Exchange in 2023.
The quotes from David Field are hilarious:
“To be clear, this is a positive step forward for Audacy and our stakeholders, including our employees, advertisers, partners, vendors and listeners. Our goal has been to emerge as an even stronger company than before, and this agreement will fully accomplish that.” – David Field https://t.co/lZrLHNSPmY
— Dave Cullinane (@davecullinane) January 7, 2024
This dude is delusional. He basically ran his family’s business into the ground. The CBS Radio merger ended up being a disaster. We’ll have to see what happens now with employees at 94 WIP, 1210 WPHT, KYW NewsRadio, B101, WOGL, and 96.5.
BTW, Jon Marks knew. From 10 days ago:
“Kevin, you reported (on this) last year when I was more or less going day-to-day, month-to-month because we didn’t have a contract agreement… I want everybody watching right now to understand this, that the company that owns WIP, Audacy, is 1.9 billion dollars in debt. Now how do you get out of debt? Well you have to pay off your debt. So next year they owe four or five hundred million in debt service. They’re losing money on a quarterly basis. So when your business loses money, how do you pay off half a billion dollars of debt coming up? You lay people off, you cut costs, and even then it’s not doing anything. They’re going to have to declare for bankruptcy. It’s a matter of when, not if they do it. After Angelo was gone, they said ‘hey we’re not paying people Angelo money anymore, we’re not paying people Howard money, we’re not paying people Anthony Gargano money.’ (It was) ‘this is what we’re willing to offer you.”
Kevin has been writing about Philadelphia sports since 2009. He spent seven years in the CBS 3 sports department and started with the Union during the team's 2010 inaugural season. He went to the academic powerhouses of Boyertown High School and West Virginia University. email - k.kinkead@sportradar.com