Cumulus Media To Buy Dial Global

Cumulus Media announced plans this morning (Aug. 30) to purchase Dial Global Inc. using funds from the sale of some of its small market stations to Townsquare Media. The acquisition of Dial Global will add a variety of sports, news, talk, music and programming services content and enable Cumulus to provide a wider variety of options to its 10,000 stations, including NFL, NCAA, NASCAR, Olympics, AP Radio News, NBC News, and other programming.

The company’s planned transactions include the acquisition of Dial Global for $260 million in cash (consisting of approximately $45 million attributable to equity and the retirement of $215 million of debt), the sale of 53 stations in 12 small and mid-size markets to Townsquare Media for $238 million in cash (inclusive of the acquisition of net working capital), and a swap with Townsquare Media of 15 stations in two small and mid-level markets in exchange for five stations in Fresno, Calif. The planned acquisition will save the company about $40 million in operating costs, plus will have additional revenue potential from the creation of new content vehicles for broadcast radio advertisers.

“These transactions give us the necessary scale to provide the marketing and enterprise solutions our advertising and affiliate partners require,” said Lew Dickey, CEO of Cumulus. “Our goal is to be the leading producer of premium audio content distributed through multiple platforms while continuing to build our broadcast platform in the top 100 U.S. markets.”

The transactions are expected to close simultaneously following regulatory approval in the fourth quarter of 2013.