I thought it was just ClearChannel Communications taking the name iHeartMedia, an Internet radio streaming company I thought they'd bought? You're saying it was the other way around?
I'll feel terribly for
existing shareholders, and even bondholders, likely to get pennies on the dollar (if
anything) for their investment but, ultimately, freeing this company of all or substantially all of its debt burden whilst maintaining substantially all of its stations because of the significant cost savings of a combined station network is what is needed.
I
still believe terrestrial radio and Internet music streaming, both paid and ad-supported, are the
most viable business models today given the lower price-per-month than satellite radio (who wants to pay $14-20 per month and then have to pay a separate fee for Internet streaming? Come on.)
Separately, I was also incredibly disappointed in a recent CRTC ruling that will prohibit cell phone companies from excluding music & video streaming from data caps - basically, allowing people to stream those for free as they provided a viable and healthy competition to satellite radio!
Another self-interested, pro-CanCon ruling by the Jean-Pierre Blais, who thinks he's on the consumer's side. Bullshit. He's neither on the consumer's, nor the distributor's, side. He's firmly on the side of the Canadian media talent and unions.
I say: dismantle the CRTC and transfer its regulatory oversight to a division of Industry Canada and limit its decisions to the number of TV & radio stations per market, one that's more focused on healthy competition instead of all that other crap.
Cheers,
Doug