Cumulus to Acquire Country Weekly Magazine

Cumulus has made WNSH 94.7 FM Nash FM in New York its flagship station for building a national, country radio-lifestyle brand. Co-CEO Lew Dickey tells Bloomberg Businessweek that over the past year, Cumulus has re-branded roughly two dozen stations in cities around the country (most recently in Detroit and New Orleans) as NashFM stations.

According to Dickey, Cumulus has also reached an agreement with American Media to reconfigure Country Weekly magazine as Nash magazine. The transition, says Dickey, will be completed at some point during the next couple of quarters and will, at the same time, help jump-start a more robust digital presence for Nash. “The Web will, in essence, follow suit with video and audio from all the things we are doing,” says Dickey.

In the meantime, Dickey expects Nash FM in New York to keep climbing the charts. “We thought there was an under-served need,” says Dickey. “I think a million [listeners] is proving that. We think it will grow to a million-and-a-half over the next 12 to 18 months.”