FLA Radio: SBS Tells FCC CMG Won't Make A Deal

Spanish Broadcasting System wants the FCC to reject a petition filed by Cox Media Group seeking an additional year to find buyers for stations in Tampa and Orlando, reports Inside Radio.

Cox has said the deal market collapsed during COVID, making it nearly impossible to strike a deal without a “rush fire sale.” But SBS says it has put an offer on the table for CHR WPYO Power 95.3 Orlando and an extension is “unwarranted and should not be granted.” And SBS says the failure to sell the station during the past two years has nothing to do with the pandemic or market conditions, but rather “inaction” by Cox that it argues “stands in contrast to the public interest in eliminating the violation of the local radio ownership limits.”

Cox asked the FCC for a one-year extension of the Dec. 17 deadline to sell WPYO and alternative “97X” WSUN Tampa. The stations were both placed in an Elliot Evers-run trust in 2019 after Cox Media Group was swallowed by private equity funds managed by affiliates of Apollo Global Management as part of a pair of deals totaling $3.6 million, giving the firm 56 radio stations across 11 markets. 

As part of its approval of the deals, the FCC gave Evers two years to sell The FMs.

Inside Radio reports Cox said the economic conditions tied to the pandemic have made selling the FMs difficult. The company said it did receive offers for the stations during the pandemic, but they were at prices “far below” what the marketplace had been at the time the trust was created – and below what the stations will likely be able to sell for as the radio business and the economy recovers overall.

SBS redacted from its filing with the FCC how much it offered for WPYO, but said all three were “viable offers” for the station, and each was “successively more generous” than the one before it. 

“SBS’s serious attempts to purchase WPYO have made it clear that Cox has had no serious intention of selling the station before the trust’s FCC-mandated December 17, 2021 deadline, and for months has been banking on Commission approval to extend the deadline under the guise that the pandemic is precluding viable offers,” the filing said.