Clear Channel buyout in trouble

[Eugene]

Source: Reuters

Clear Channel buyout in trouble
Tue Mar 25, 2008 6:07pm EDT

By Megan Davies

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The $20 billion leveraged buyout of
U.S. radio operator Clear Channel Communications Inc
(CCU.N) was in jeopardy on Tuesday, with banks
increasingly reluctant to provide financing, a source
familiar with the situation said.

The banks appear unwilling to account for any losses on the
loans they agreed to make for the deal, the source said.
But the final resolution is unclear, with the private equity
buyers still wanting to do a deal, the source added.

If the Clear Channel deal falls apart, it would be the latest
in a series of leveraged buyouts that have failed since the
credit crisis began last year.

Clear Channel struck a deal last year to be bought by private
equity firms Thomas H. Lee Partners and Bain Capital Partners
LLC for $39.20 a share.

-snip-

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/ousiv/idUSWEN465420080325

[Prisoner_Number_Six]

1. It's a dream of mine to watch cc crash and burn.

That abomination has done more to destroy the freedom of the airwaves and to stifle musical creativity and independence than ANY other group of people (except the riaa. Fuck the riaa.)

It should be dismantled and the corpse burned in the village square.

[Indenturedebtor]

2. Hah

I couldn't agree more.

I almost went to work for them 4 months ago. Then I found out how they get down. No thanks.

[B3Nut]

11. As long as our CC-owned Air America station stays on the air

the rest of Clear Channel can drown in a bathtub for all I care. The Mic 92.1 is the only good radio station CC owns in the Madison market...the rest are bilge, especially Z-104....GACK! A continuous vomiting forth of antimusical talentless dreck....the aural detritus of a pointless and vapid popular culture...

[durablend]

3. What a shame!

NOT!

:sarcasm:

[jdadd]

4. I was always under the impression

that to laugh at anothers misfortune, would bring bad karma....

But in this case, I'll take my chances. :rofl:

[CK_John]

5. Mitt Romney is no longer the candidate and no longer needs to buy Clear Channel. n/t

[BobTheSubgenius]

6. Is schadenfreude acceptable?

Hell yeah it is.

[krispos42]

7. Can we buy some of the stations and make them left talk radio?

That is a dream of mine. Somebody like Alec Baldwin or Susan Sarandon just saying "fuck it", whipping out a checkbook and buying an FM station in Columbus or Dallas or Jackson or something. Then they start blasting 50,000 watts of Thom Hartmann and Sam Sedar and Rhandi Rhodes and Stephanie Miller to the dittoheads.

C'mon, Leo DiCaprio, you got the moolah! Pony up! Make it a wind-turbine-powered station if you want, but do it!

[bulloney]

9. It's my understanding that you have to buy a set of CC stations from a given market.

You're not allowed to cherry pick one or two from the market or cluster.

When it's all said and done, I hope this dismantles the right wing domination of the radio waves by fragmenting the stations currently owned by CC.

I contend the only reason Limpballs et al claim the numbers of listeners is because CC oversaturates and overlaps markets with their RW talk show lineup. It's my understanding that if you want to air one of their talk shows on one of your stations, you have to pick a cluster. That's why so many stations in my area have the same Beck-Limbaugh-Hannity-Savage lineup that runs pretty much the entire day.

[LiberalFighter]

10. Maybe Bain Capital might sell off in bits and pieces after they buy

[Voltaire99]

8. How's that $20 billion washout working for you, rightwing f*cknuts?

I love the smell of underfinanced rightwing radio empires in the morning.

Smells like. . .victory.