Oops, They Did It Again!

So Citadel is in the process of buying ABC Radio in a complicated deal only a lawyer or financial wiz like Citadel CEO Farid Suleman could love. The deal has been languishing in lawyers offices for almost a year and now comes the word that ABC is cutting costs in anticipation of the closing. Do these folks not get it? ABC was a once great group of radio stations that Disney lost the will to operate. You don't "uninvest" in your product to grow it. You invest in it. So now the winning formula for running radio stations (I am being sarcastic here) is cut costs. Duh! Where has that gotten radio since 1996 when the Telecommunications Act that started this fire was passed? It will make Wall Street happy and after all isn't Wall Street the new radio? Not. I spend a lot of time with the next generation in my work at USC. Believe it, the next generation is so over radio. And if you're a media mogul don't blame the iPod or the lack of HD radio. Sadly, as man who loves this business I must add that the same people who presided over the demise of their industry while they were expanding it are doing it again -- investing in Wall Street not Main Street. All the financial analysts on Wall Street can't dress this pig up for the next generation and without the next generation radio is, well -- yesterday's news.