Radio: Citadel crumbles

Citadel. Farid Suleman, your fortress is crumbling.

Farid’s the guy everyone in radio loves to pick on and there’s raison d'être for it. He was the last guy in the pyramid scheme. The last one to believe his own hype.

Bravado poured forth from the pack already benefiting from the spoils, as they swapped stories of how much money they made when they went from reg to dereg. He watched his contemporaries buy waterfront properties, load up their garages with vintage cars, and take exotic trips around the world.

And when Wall Street needed stroking, all they had to do was thin the herd.

Farid spent years sitting quietly at the edge of the megawatt radio crowd of Mels and Lowrys, and Jeffs, drinking it all in, and wondering when the time would come to make his own move into the major leagues.

He had to be in awe of Clear Channel. Their ploys were so elaborate and well conceived that the FCC and the DOJ couldn’t crack their layers of illegal lease marketing arrangements and transmitter moves.

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For sixteen long years he was COO of Mel's Infinity/CBS Radio.

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But number two wanted to be number one and shake off his "mini-Mel" moniker.

He lusted for his own New York radio stations. His own L.A. His own radio networks. He visualized his own stable of talk show wingnuts.

So he ended up at Citadel and bought ABC Radio.

But it was all for naught.

He was under the impression he bought a healthy radio chain. But in veracity, he bought a country club.

Now, Citadel is in trouble. It’s a penny stock.

Even worse, he knows the sting he’s feeling now is nothing compared to the things to come – specifically, those other declining revenue land mines yet to be stepped on.

The downward spiral has picked up too much speed and now all he can do is watch his company spin uncontrollably around him on its decent.

Usually, when losing altitude, you lighten the load – just like Clear Channel and CBS have to do. In Farid’s case, he’d hoped that by parting out some stations and putting them on the block he’d might be able to pull out of his free fall.

But, sayeth Farid, “We have several deals we’ve started and then financing could not be found for them.”

And let’s not forget Farid’s misguided infatuation for that talentless clown Don Imus.

Even CBS was late in putting him out to pasture. His numbers skewed old and older and dumb and dumber. Farid blindly bought that milked-out cow. Why would anyone hire a has-been hack like Imus whose only claim to fame as of late is that of an easy magnet for Al Sharpton?

Then there’s Paul Harvey. Harvey’s style is ageless and timeless but his mortal coil is not. Farid, the guy’s 89 years old. He’s suffered personal tragedy. His health is failing. How long did you expect to keep him pumping revenue for you? You projected him for – what - $40 million?

Then you say, says “The good news is he’s come back and done more shows so we would expect some of the revenues to start coming back.” Yeah, for how many weeks?

Read the numbers. ABC Radio Networks - 11% revenue decline. You’re lucky. It could’ve been worse.

You think coming up with new shows with Michael Baisden, Doug Banks, and Big Boi will save the radio net’s sorry ass?

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Stop here for a moment. What’s absent from Farid’s vocabulary? Start with content, creativity, on-line, opportunity….need I say more? That's why he will not survive.

“It was another tough quarter for the company and the industry,” you say? An industry you thought you knew so well?

Citadel revenues declined 9% over last year. Network revenues were off 11% and there was an 8% revenue drop at Citadel stations.

You claim that your $20 million in programming and personnel cuts from, as you put it “a whole bunch of positions” and expense cuts from the last quarter are beginning to show promise – and did you really say that you predict it will ramp up to $15 million in revenue by 2010?

You say you’re probing for “even more opportunities” to make cuts since you don’t know when the ad market will turn around?

You always wanted to be Mel. He makes it look so easy – and still does.

He gets his Sirius-XM merger approved and its déjà vu all over again. He’s promises $400 million of cost synergies to shareholders by slashing programming and marketing budgets.

Farid’s asking himself, “Why does it always work for Mel and never for me?”

Meet the radio industry’s Charlie Brown.

Disney saw him coming. They sold him ABC Radio the same week they bought Pixar. They traded in the past for the future.

One could say that Farid bought radio from Disney but ended up with what we used to call a “Mickey Mouse company.”