Are Shoes Starting to Drop?

One of the first reports outside of OMW, about the CC/Cumulus swap involving stations here in Northeast Ohio and in Michigan, has now appeared.

“Main St. Tattler”, the E-Mail newsletter of the folks behind the Conclave Learning Conference, is reporting that not only is rock WRQK/106.9 Canton headed for Clear Channel, but that CC also gets country powerhouse WQXK/105.1 “K105” and standards WSOM/600 for its Youngstown cluster. The other half of the deal is as has been reported here and at Michiguide, with Clear Channel’s Ann Arbor MI and Battle Creek MI clusters going to Cumulus.

(The newsletter has not yet been linked to the Main St. Tattler site yet, but should be on this page in the next few days.)

OMW has heard the rumors about “K105” being a part of this transaction. But we’re not at all sure the report is accurate, as we have received no definite word of the involvement of the other two Youngstown-based stations in the deal from any of our numerous sources in either Ohio or Michigan.

Furthermore, any additional stations in the Clear Channel Youngstown cluster would certainly force the company to divest an equivalent amount of existing holdings. There’s no way they could fit K105 and WSOM the way the cluster exists now. In fact, CC was forced to sell stations fairly recently…flipping stations like 95.1/Grove City PA, and 1200/1280/92.1 in the New Castle PA area, to other operators.

We have a hard time seeing what stations Clear Channel Youngstown would be happy with divesting. K105 would certainly be a “prize” for South Avenue, but the cluster’s existing FM stations all seem like stations they’d want to hang onto.

Anyway, we’re just letting you know…