January 4 In Radio History

In 1923...WEAF in NYC (now WFAN 660 AM) and WNAC in Boston (now WRKO 680 AM) conducted the first non-wired simulcast using a 100-foot antenna connected by a clothesline to the building's roof.


In 1923...Ft Worth radio station WBAP debuted a new country music show called the “barn dance.”

It featured a variety of performers, including an old-time fiddler named Captain M.J. Bonner who played square dance music. WBAP’s barn dance was so popular that a number of other radio stations began copying it. Soon, the barn dance variety show format could be heard across the country.

One of the most successful imitators of WBAP’s barn dance was the Nashville radio station WSM, which launched its Grand Ole Opry in 1925.  Grand Ole Opry went on to become the best-known country music radio show in history.


In 1928...the NBC Radio Network premiered "The Dodge Victory Hour", starring Al Jolson, Will Rogers, and Paul Whiteman and his Orchestra


In 1932..."The Carnation Contented Hour," a showcase for top singers and musicians, debuted on the NBC Red network. Sponsored by the Carnation Milk Company, the series continued until December 30, 1951.

In 1935...Bob Hope made his first appearance on network radio as part of the cast of "The Intimate Revue."







In 1936...the first sales-based pop music chart was published in Billboard. Big band violinist Joe Venuti's "Stop! Look! Listen!" was the first #1 record.


In 1950...Two years after Columbia Records introduced the long-playing record, RCA announced its intention to follow suit


In 1954..A young truck driver named Elvis Presley enters the Memphis Recording Service in Memphis, TN, ostensibly to record a song for his mother's birthday (which was, in reality, many months away). He records "Casual Love Affair" and "I’ll Never Stand in Your Way." It was this recording that would lead MRS head Sam Phillips to call Presley back to record for his Sun Records label.

In 1963...Actor/comedian Dave Foley was born. He played Dave Nelson on ths sitcom "NewsRadio"


In 1970...'Music 'Til Dawn' ended airing on WCBS 880 AM in NYC. "Music 'Til Dawn" was an all night classical music radio program sponsored by American Airlines from 1953 to 1970.

In 1977...Mary Shane was hired by the Chicago White Sox to be the first full-time, female, play-by-play announcer for a major league baseball team.

By mid-season, however, it was apparent that her lack of experience and baseball knowledge was quickly turning it into a failed experiment. She was pulled from the broadcasts before the 1977 season ended and her contract was not renewed.

Shane later worked in Massachusetts, where she became a sportswriter for the Worcester Telegram in 1981. She died of a 1987 heart attack at age 42.


In 1982...The ABC Direction Network with 57 affiliates and the ABC Rock Network with 40 affiliates become the 5th and 6th ABC Radio networks.


In 2010…Baseball broadcaster (Los Angeles Angels) Rory Markas died after a heart attack at 54.

January 3 In Radio History

In 1929...William Paley incorporated the Columbia Broadcast System.The origins of CBS date back to January 27, 1927, with the creation of the "United Independent Broadcasters" network in Chicago by New York talent-agent Arthur Judson. The fledgling network soon needed additional investors though, and the Columbia Phonograph Company, manufacturers of Columbia Records, rescued it in April 1927; as a result, the network was renamed "Columbia Phonographic Broadcasting System." Columbia Phonographic went on the air on September 18, 1927, with a presentation by the Howard Barlow Orchestra from flagship station WOR in Newark, New Jersey, and fifteen affiliates.

Operational costs were steep, particularly the payments to AT&T for use of its land lines, and by the end of 1927, Columbia Phonograph wanted out.  In early 1928, Judson sold the network to brothers Isaac and Leon Levy, owners of the network's Philadelphia affiliate WCAU, and their partner Jerome Louchenheim. None of the three were interested in assuming day-to-day management of the network, so they installed wealthy 26-year-old William S. Paley, son of a Philadelphia cigar family and in-law of the Levys, as president. With the record company out of the picture, Paley quickly streamlined the corporate name to "Columbia Broadcasting System".  He believed in the power of radio advertising since his family's "La Palina" cigars had doubled their sales after young William convinced his elders to advertise on radio.  By September 1928, Paley bought out the Louchenheim share of CBS and became its majority owner with 51% of the business.

During Louchenheim's brief regime, Columbia paid $410,000 to A.H. Grebe's Atlantic Broadcasting Company for a small Brooklyn station, WABC (no relation to the current WABC), which would become the network's flagship station. WABC was quickly upgraded, and the signal relocated to a stronger frequency, 860 kHz.  The physical plant was relocated also – to Steinway Hall on West 57th Street in Manhattan. It was where much of CBS's programming originated. Other owned-and-operated stations were KNX in Los Angeles, KCBS in San Francisco (originally KQW), WBBM in Chicago, WCAU in Philadelphia, WJSV in Washington, D.C. (later WTOP, which moved to the FM dial in 2005; the AM facility today is WFED, also a secondary CBS affiliate), KMOX in St. Louis, and WCCO in Minneapolis. These remain the core affiliates of the CBS Radio Network today, with WCBS (the original WABC) still the flagship, and all except WTOP and WFED (both Hubbard Broadcasting properties) owned by CBS Radio. By the turn of 1929, the network could boast to sponsors of having 47 affiliates.

Paley moved right away to put his network on a firmer financial footing. In the fall of 1928, he entered into talks with Adolph Zukor of Paramount Pictures who planned to move into radio in response to RCA's forays into motion pictures with the advent of talkies.  The deal came to fruition in September 1929: Paramount got 49 percent of CBS in return for a block of its stock worth $3,800,000 at the time.   The agreement specified that Paramount would buy that same stock back by March 1, 1932 for a flat $5,000,000, provided CBS had earned $2,000,000 during 1931 and 1932. For a brief time there was talk that the network might be renamed "Paramount Radio", but it only lasted a month – the 1929 stock market crash sent all stock value tumbling. It galvanized Paley and his troops, who "had no alternative but to turn the network around and earn the $2,000,000 in two years.... This is the atmosphere in which the CBS of today was born."  The near-bankrupt movie studio sold its CBS shares back to CBS in 1932.   In the first year of Paley's watch, CBS's gross earnings more than tripled, going from $1,400,000 to $4,700,000.

The extraordinary potential of radio news showed itself in 1930, when CBS suddenly found itself with a live telephone connection to a prisoner called "The Deacon" who described, from the inside and in real time, a riot and conflagration at the Ohio Penitentiary; for CBS, it was "a shocking journalistic coup".   Yet as late as 1934, there was still no regularly scheduled newscast on network radio: "Most sponsors did not want network news programming; those that did were inclined to expect veto rights over it."  There had been a longstanding wariness between radio and the newspapers as well; the papers had rightly concluded that the upstart radio business would compete with them on two counts – advertising dollars and news coverage. By 1933, they fought back, many no longer publishing radio schedules for readers' convenience, or allowing "their" news to be read on the air for radio's profit.   Radio, in turn, pushed back when urban department stores, newspapers' largest advertisers and themselves owners of many radio stations, threatened to withhold their ads from print.   A short-lived attempted truce in 1933 even saw the papers proposing that radio be forbidden from running news before 9:30 a.m., and then only after 9:00 p.m. – and that no news story could air until it was twelve hours old.

In the fall of 1934, CBS launched its independent news division, shaped in its first years by Paley's vice-president, former New York Times man Ed Klauber, and news director Paul White. Since there was no blueprint or precedent for real-time news coverage, early efforts of the new division used the shortwave link-up CBS had been using for five years to bring live feeds of European events to its American air.

A key early hire was Edward R. Murrow in 1935; his first corporate title was Director of Talks. He was mentored in microphone technique by Robert Trout, the lone full-timer of the News Division, and quickly found himself in a growing rivalry with boss White.  Murrow was glad to "leave the hothouse atmosphere of the New York office behind" when he was dispatched to London as CBS's European Director in 1937, a time when the growing Hitler menace underscored the need for a robust European Bureau. Halberstam described Murrow in London as "the right man in the right place in the right era".

Edward R. Murrow pictured with CBS' London-based D-Day team. Front row (left to right): Bill Downs, Charles Collingwood, Gene Ryder, Charles Shaw. Back row (from left): Larry LeSueur, Edward R. Murrow, Richard C. Hottelet, Bill Shadel.

Murrow began assembling the staff of broadcast journalists – including William L. Shirer, Charles Collingwood and Eric Sevareid – who would become known as "Murrow's Boys". They were "in [Murrow's] own image, sartorially impeccable, literate, often liberal, and prima donnas all". They covered history in the making, and sometimes made it themselves: on March 12, 1938, Hitler boldly annexed nearby Austria and Murrow and Boys quickly assembled coverage with Shirer in London, Edgar Ansel Mowrer in Paris, Pierre Huss in Berlin, Frank Gervasi in Rome and Trout in New York. The News Round-Up format was born and is still ubiquitous today in broadcast news.




In 1938...the NBC Red Network first broadcast the "Woman in White", which ran for 10 years.

In 1940...WPG-AM in Atlantic City NJ consolidated with WBIL & WOV as "new" WOV.

WPG had been in operation since 1923 operating on one of the cleared national channels of the first zone on a frequency of 1100 kilocycles.

WPG in Atlantic City share time on 1100, with WBIL in NYC. The cumbersome arrangement ended in 1940 in a complicated series of events when Arde Bulova's Greater New York Broadcasting Corporation bought WPG and absorbed it into WOV, shut down both WOV and WPG on January 3, 1940 because they interferred with WBIL, asked the FCC to cancel WOV's license and move WBIL to 1130 (today is WBBR) , and immediately changed WBIL's calls to WOV, which today is WADO 1280 AM.

WPG was unique in radio. Approximately, fifteen million visitors come to the resort in a year. They are all interested in Atlantic City and it's happenings when in their homes wherever that may be. Atlantic City is an all year round resort.

WPG, due to its location on the Atlantic Seaboard, has overspill service area from Maine to Florida, daytime or night. During the winter months, when radio is at its best, we are especially strong into all of New England. and in several popularity contests for radio stations, we have finished among the first few.

Today, the WPG calls are used for branding by Townsquare Media's WPGG 1450 AM in Atlantic City, NJ.  Since October 22, 2012, the station broadcasts a talk radio format under the branding "WPG Talk Radio 1450".






In 1970...The Beatles (without John who was in Denmark on vacation) recorded "I Me Mine," the last song they recorded together under the band's name until 1995.


In 1973...The Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) sold the New York Yankees to a 17-person syndicate headed by George Steinbrenner for $10 million.



In 1975...Radio announcer (hosted Saturday afternoon broadcasts of the Metropolitan Opera for 43 years) Milton Cross died following a heart attack at 87.


In 1977...Apple Computers was incorporated.


In 1986...Capital Cities acquired ABC-TV for $3.5 billion. In 1991, Disney purchased Capital Cities/ABC Inc. for $19 billion.


In 1987...Aretha Franklin became the first woman to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.


In 1993...Sportscaster Johnny Most, 37-year radio voice of the National Basketball Association's Boston Celtics, died following a heart attack at age 69.




In 1995...Windsor-Detroit radio-TV newsman (CKLW, WWJ, WKBD-TV)/recording artist (narrated Americans, a #1 Billboard single in 1974) Byron MacGregor died from pneumonia-related complications at 46.

Byron MacGregor

Born Gary Lachlan Mack in Calgary, Alberta, by the age of nineteen he became the youngest news director at the AM radio station, CKLW in Windsor, Ontario, which also served Detroit, Michigan as well as Toledo and Cleveland in Ohio and covered twenty eight states and six provinces. This was during its "Big 8/20·20 News" period, and also around the time RKO General was forced to sell the station, due to a change in Canadian ownership rules that prohibited foreign firms from controlling Canadian licensed stations.

In 1973, he read a Toronto newspaper editorial written by Gordon Sinclair of CFRB in Toronto, a commentary about America. MacGregor then read the patriotic commentary on CKLW Radio as part of a public affairs program; and, due to the huge response he was asked to record "The Americans" with "America the Beautiful" performed by The Detroit Symphony Orchestra as the background music. Both MacGregor and Sinclair released recorded versions of the commentary. MacGregor's version of the record (released on Westbound Records) became a bigger hit than Sinclair's in the United States, reaching #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart the week of February 9, 1974.

MacGregor was known for his deep voice and high-energy announcing style at CKLW; and for writing copy in a manner that was compared to that of sensational tabloid newspapers.


He later made the transition to a more traditional anchoring and interviewing style when he moved to WWJ Newsradio 950, the CBS Radio all-news station in Detroit, where he served as both morning and afternoon drive anchor during his thirteen-year occupancy. MacGregor also became the first newsman in Detroit to simultaneously anchor prime-time newscasts on both radio (WWJ) and television (WKBD-TV 50).

By the mid 1980s MacGregor held dual citizenships in Canada and the United States. His wife of nineteen years, Jo-Jo Shutty-MacGregor. She was the first female helicopter news and traffic reporter in North America, and today works for WWJ and WOMC and the Metro News Networks.


In 2005...Adam Carolla returned to morning drive-time radio with the premiere of "The Adam Carolla Show" on several CBS Radio stations including 97.1 FREE FM in Los Angeles (KLSX-FM), KIFR-FM San Francisco, KSCF-FM San Diego, KZON-FM Phoenix, KUFO-FM Portland and KXTE-FM Las Vegas.

Tampa Radio: Bubba's Back And Beasley's Got Him

Bubba the Love Sponge Clem is expected to be returning to the Tampa airwaves on Monday at a station yet to be determined, he officially confirmed on his website.

All signs, however, point to Clem making his return when WHFS 98.7 FM, formerly known as The Fan.

Headed to studio. Getting ready for Monday
— Bubba Clem (@BTLSRadio) January 2, 2015

Clem, who was dropped by Cox’s WHPT 102.5-FM The Bone in August, had been teasing a return to Tampa on various social media sites. But a posting on his website says his show is on a holiday break but “will return on January 5th, 2015 — which coincides with the Bubba Radio Network’s debut on a new station in the Tampa Bay market.”

WHFS 98.7 FM (50Kw) 60dBu Coverage

At the same time, WHFS — which abruptly dropped its sports format last month — recently launched a redesigned website that touts listeners to tune in on Monday for “a big announcement.”

That announcement will include the revealing of a new format. The station currently is asking listeners to vote on choices ranging from classic country, hip-hop/R&B, Christian rock, and “everything that rocks.”

In December, speculation started that Bubba’s return would be on 98.7. That station was recently purchased by the Beasley Broadcast Group and has registered such Internet domain names as 987Bubba.com and Bubba987.com.

For a time Friday Beasley, aired a simulcast of its station WRBQ 104.7 FM Q105 on 98.7 FM leading some to wonder if maybe the Classic Hits format would move to 98.7, and a new format would be launched on 104.7 FM.  However, that doesn't seem resonable, when you consider the heritage Q105 enjoys in the market.

Bubba intends to hold a press conference about the return at some point on Monday, WFLA-TV8 reported.

“Things are going to get very interesting Monday morning,” the station quoted him as saying.

Meanwhile, Beasley's WHFS 1010 AM has dropped CBS Sports Radio and flipped to Business Talk, with programming from sister Business Talk WSBR 740 AM from Boca Raton, FL.

Demographics Indicate Two Americas Emerging

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The Census Bureau just released a new set of state population estimates. These estimates revealed a definite pattern: there are definitely two different regions within the United States, each with their own pattern of growth. For simplicity’s sake, B-I is calling these “America1” and “America2.” Neither is meant to be pejorative, but Business Insider thinks these labels reflect the role these regions will take in American life going forward.

For clarity’s sake, in this definition, America1 is largely made up of the Northeast, the Midwest, the Mississippi Valley, the Northern Plains and Alaska. America2 is the coastal Southeast from the Mason Dixon line south, as well as Kentucky, Tennessee and Alabama, as well as Texas, much of the West and Hawaii.

According to Census data, America1 has only grown about 1.5% since 2010 (a gain of just over 2 million people), while America2 has grown nearly 5% (a gain of over 8 million people). This is due to two main factors: natural change (births minus deaths), and net migration (international immigration plus domestic migration).

Since the Census, America2’s natural population change has been twice America1’s, giving it some major demographic tailwinds. In addition, America2’s international immigration rate has been about 40% higher than America1’s since 2010. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the domestic migration rate from America1 into America2 has gained the latter region an additional 1.6 million people since 2010. This means, on a net basis, America2 has gained over 4 million people from migration since 2010, while America1 has only gained about 46,000!

Nielsen December Tune-In Growth Smaller For AC

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As 2015 begins, radio programmers across the country are starting to gauge the impact of holiday music on their airwaves, most notably those that flip from Adult Contemporary (AC) to all-Christmas formats.

This December portable people meter (PPM) survey covers a four-week period that ends the week after Thanksgiving, which means the true impact of holiday music in top markets won’t be fully evident until next month. In the meantime, Nielsen has assessed the available data to see what the impact of the annual switch to the “all Christmas” format across AC has been while judging how those changes affected other popular formats, including Country and Hot AC. Elsewhere, Urban Contemporary built on its success in November to reach some new highs in December as the classic hip-hop format continues to expand across the U.S.

But the lead story, as it is every year when the holidays roll around, is the aforementioned performance of AC stations around the annual Christmas music flip. In 2014, the December AC results mirrored those of last year, according to Nielsen. In fact, AC shares for audiences aged 6 and older were identical (8.5%) year-over-year, and the 18-34 shares this year (7.2%) were just one-tenth of a percent lower than they were last year. The 2014 results for audiences aged 25-54 (8.2%) were also identical to those we saw last year.

What’s interesting, according to Nielsen, is that the growth in AC tune-in from November to December has been getting smaller with each passing year when the format flips to holiday music. In 2011, the format grew by more than 2 points, increasing from 7.8% to 10.0%. This year, the increase was 1.5 shares, going from 7.0% to 8.5%.

Nielsen Notes December's Top Formats

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Nielsen reports December share for Country stations fall on the other side of the holiday music story, as they typically see their audiences shrink as a result of Christmas music.

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December marks the fifth consecutive month of declining shares (among listeners 6+) for Country, which posted a 7.7% this month, down from 7.9% in November. For context, the format stood at 7.8% last December. That means this year’s results to date are in line with what we saw in 2013. When the holiday book releases next month Nielsen expects to have the full picture on where Country will begin 2015 as it looks to reverse the trend of declining shares.

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Below are some additional headlines from Nielsen’s December PPM data across 45 markets using the full-week (Monday-Sunday 6 a.m.-midnight) daypart audience shares.

• Urban Contemporary remained in the news, as more classic hip-hop stations came online. Thanks in no small part to that growing trend, Urban Contemporary picked up in December right where it left off last month, breaking November’s record results for listeners 6+ (3.4%) and 25-54 (3.8%) while tying the number for 18-34 year-olds (6.3%). 2014 was the most successful year for Urban Contemporary in PPM history, with the format finishing the year ranked sixth among all formats in the 18-34 demographic.
• And not to be outdone in the record-breaking department, Hot AC also finished the year on a strong note by matching August’s record results. The format posted a 6.5%  among audiences 6+, a 7.4%  with listeners aged 18-34, and a 7%  in the 25-54 demographic. All three of those results match the all-time best numbers set earlier in the year, and give Hot AC its best year under PPM measurement, as well. It finishes the year ranked fifth overall and fourth among listeners 25-54.

Boston Radio: WRKO Numbers Slide Without Howie Carr

Howie Carr

Entercom's Talk WRKO 680 AM saw its December PPM numbers decline with the departure of longtime-Boston Talker Howie Carr.

According to The Boston Herald, the station went from a 3.5 and 3.2 rating with all listeners (6+ Share) in October and November to a 2.2 in December, the first full month without Carr. In afternoon drive, with adults 25-54, WRKO went from a 2.4 and 2.3 in October/November to a 1.2 in Dec-ember.

Carr, a Boston Herald columnist, bolted WRKO back in November to start his own syndicated afternoon-drive radio show. He picked up four new affiliates since his launch, bringing the number of stations in his network to 19.  His show now airs in the Boston metro on WMEZ 1510 AM and some 19 other New England radio affiliates.

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“It’s pretty amazing what he’s been able to pull off,” said Michael Harrison, publisher of Talkers magazine. “Regional networks in talk radio are difficult to put together, so Howie Carr has achieved something pretty extraordinary. A lot of people in the 
radio industry are looking at what Howie is doing in New England and saying, ‘Hmmm ... .’”

CNN Money: Three Media Predictions for 2015

There were glaring mistakes at big publications and mergers of major companies, according to CNN Money.

However, the shake-ups in 2014 could be the beginning of large shifts for the industry in 2015.

Top10 Media stories in 2014:



Here are CNN's three media predictions for the New Year:

1. 2015 will be the biggest box office year... ever

2. Stand alone HBO GO will be the tipping point for cord cutters

3. Streaming music is the future, whether Taylor Swift likes it or not: Much was made about the spat between Taylor Swift and Spotify after the pop star pulled her music from the service in November. While other artists have avoided streaming in the past, Swift was one of the first major artists to spurn streaming music in such a big way.

As we head into 2015, she may not be the last to do so.

However, with the Billboard 200 now counting streams, YouTube creating its own music service, and only one album achieving platinum status in 2014, the music industry is clearly moving towards a streaming future.

Artists like Swift may not like that, but as media showed us in 2014 it can't stop, won't stop moving forward.

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'1989' Was 2014's Top Selling Album, Vinyl Is Bright Spot

It came down to the wire, but in the final week of 2014, Taylor Swift's 1989 finishes as the year's top selling album. After only nine weeks on sale, Swift's set stole othe title away from Walt Disney Records' Frozen soundtrack in the very last tracking frame of the year,  according to The Hollywood Reporter.

1989 -- released through Big Machine Records -- sold 3.66 million copies in 2014, according to Nielsen Music, while the Frozen album shifted 3.53 million. (Nielsen's 2014 tracking year ran from Dec. 30, 2013 through Dec. 28, 2014.)

Overall album sales continued to erode, as their volume fell by 11 percent in 2014, compared to 2013. In total, there were 257 million albums sold in the past year, versus 289.4 million in 2013.

Digital album sales also fell, for only the second time, by 9 percent (106.5 million compared to 117.6 million in the year previous). Digital album sales declined for the first time in 2013, when they were off by 1 percent.

In total, just 13 albums have sold more than a million downloads, led by Adele's21, with 3.1 million digital copies. Frozen is the fourth-biggest digital album of all time, with a total of 1.43 million downloads, while 1989 is the No. 5 seller with 1.41 million.

Vinyl album sales were a bright spot in an otherwise generally bleak sales picture, as the configuration grew by 52 percent in 2014 to 9.2 million copies (up from 6.1 million in 2013). For the seventh straight year, more vinyl albums were sold than in any other year since Nielsen started tracking music sales in 1991.

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WSJ reports streaming usage grew considerably to 164 billion songs—a 54% increase from 106 billion in 2013, the company said. That growth was strong, but the music industry may need even stronger growth in the future if streaming is to make up for continued sales declines. Using the industry’s standard conversions, counting 1,500 song streams or 10 individual song downloads as an album sale, overall music consumption didn’t change significantly from 2013 to 2014.

NJ Radio: N/T WOND-AM Increases Local News Content

For more than 30 years, people in South Jersey have received their 6 p.m. news from television’s WMGM TV40 and it has been simulcast on WOND 1400 AM licensed to Pleasantvile, NJ.

However, as of Jan. 1, that's no longer the case as WMGM TV40 has ceased broadcasting the news, according to Pinky Kravitz at PressofAtlanticCity.com.

Seizing an opportunity,  News Talk WOND 1400-AM radio will continue to provide a 6 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. weekday news program. The station will also add ABC News at the bottom of each hour to complement its top-of-the-hour newscast, meaning listeners will never be more than 30 minutes away from news.

Dave Coskey, president of WOND’s parent company, Longport Media, said, “it is more important than ever for WOND to strengthen its news product and be a leader in the region and fill any voids.”

WOND 1400 AM (1Kw) Coverage, courtesy of  Radio-Locator

In addition, WOND will be adding new programming to its weekday lineup. Included among the new shows will be Off The Press, hosted by Scott Cronick of The Press of Atlantic City. It will be broadcast from 3 p.m. to 4 p.m. It will feature Cronick and a series of reporters and editors from the region’s only daily newspaper, The Press of Atlantic City, highlighting different features each day, ranging from news and sports to features and entertainment.

Coskey said, “other stations talk about being ‘live and local,’ but at WOND we live it. Our news is produced right here, so we are able to react quickly to local breaking news. And our weather forecasts do not come from out-of-town forecasting services. Our meteorologists are located right here at Broadcast Plaza, in Linwood. That allows us to change and update quickly and provide our listeners with the most accurate and up-to-date information.”

Univision Credit Rating Upgraded, Easing Path To IPO

Univision Communications is preparing for a public offering of its shares, which would enable owners of the Spanish-language media giant to begin their long-planned exit.

According to the L-A Times, Moody's Investors Service this week issued an upgrade in the rating outlook for Univision — helping clear the way for a public offering that is expected to occur next year, according to people close to the company who asked not to be identified discussing sensitive matters.

The New York company's ownership group — which includes Los Angeles billionaire Haim Saban, several private equity firms and the Mexican entertainment juggernaut Grupo Televisa — has not finalized plans for an IPO.

However, several of the owners have concluded that a public offering of stock representing less than 50% of the company would be the best route to recoup some of their investment, according to a person familiar with the discussions.

The owners have been weighing a public offering in mid- to late 2015 in an effort to capitalize on the strength of the stock market and Univision's improved balance sheet. They want to sell the stock in advance of the 2016 presidential election cycle, which is expected to produce a bounty of campaign cash for Univision as politicians turn to Spanish-language media in an effort to woo Latino voters.

The media giant, which owns the fifth-largest TV network in the U.S., has long been considered a jewel on Wall Street because of the growing influence of Latinos in the U.S.

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