Cumulus is in Big Trouble

The stock has tanked, the debt is onerous, and there don't seem to be many options to fix it. From today's Tom Taylor column...

Cumulus stock slid another 12% yesterday, down 8 cents to 55 cents. Just eight months ago, “CMLS” was regularly trading over $4.00. Berner’s problem is that turning around some of the important large-market stations probably won’t happen immediately, and even so, revenue trails ratings. She’ll probably have news on the call about the $200 million worth of tower-site sales in L.A. and DC, but Wall Street’s already taking that for granted. Berner may have some news about how she’ll structure senior management, since she’s an outsider to radio (though a seasoned manager of media properties). Right now, she needs to build up confidence – in the company and the stock. Lew Dickey used to tag troubled stations as “Code Red.” Now the stock of the company where he’s still the Vice Chair is at Code Red.

In Chicago Cumulus owns WLS-FM, WLS-AM, The Loop, and WKQX.