History
The company was founded in 1984 in Phoenix, Arizona by Larry Wilson as Citadel Associates Limited Partnership. In 1990 it was renamed Citadel Associates Montana Limited Partnership for the purpose of owning and operating stations in Montana that were formerly owned by CALP. A year later, Citadel Broadcasting was officially incorporated and in 1992 it acquired all of the radio stations owned by its predecessors. Within a decade, Citadel expanded to 26 states. Within that time period, it absorbed all Bloomington Broadcasting radio holdings and 11 stations from Dick Broadcasting Company and also acquired 3 radio stations from Slone Broadcasting, Inc. and Slone Radio, LLC. In 2001, Larry Wilson sold Citadel to private equity firm Forstmann Little & Company for $2.1 billion. By that time, the company had grown to 205 stations in 42 markets.
Citadel Broadcasting launched an online service called Citadel Interactive in 2005, and a year later launched Right Now Radio. By July 2007, more than 180 of their stations were streaming online.
On February 6, 2006, Forstmann Little and The Walt Disney Company agreed to merge Citadel with Disney's ABC Radio. Shares representing 57% of Citadel were distributed to shareholders of The Walt Disney Company following the company's acquisition of 22 stations from ABC Radio.
After the merger, Citadel's ownership structure was:
- 57%: Shareholders in The Walt Disney Company
- 27%: Forstmann Little
- 16%: Former Citadel shareholders exclusive of Forstmann Little or shareholders in Disney
ABC owned and operated affiliates of Radio Disney and ESPN Radio were not included in the merger agreement, nor were the actual networks.
In order to comply with FCC ownership limitations, Citadel has sold off twelve of its radio stations. Ten of the stations' licenses have been transferred to a newly formed trust company, The Last Bastion Station Trust, LLC. The two-station Cortland, New York, cluster was sold off prior to the merger in a separate transaction; WIII was sold to Saga Communications and WKRT (now WYBY) has been given to the Bible Broadcasting Network for free as a tax deductible donation.
However as of June 19, 2008; Arbitron has expanded Oklahoma City's market definition allowing Citadel to own 5 FM stations in the said area, at which time Citadel Broadcasting applied to re-acquire KKWD from The Last Bastion Station Trust, LLC with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). According to FCC documents, KKWD was re-absorbed into Citadel's station portfolio on July 9, 2009.
On April 2, 2009; the staff of Citadel Broadcasting changed the name of "ABC Radio" to Citadel Media to reflect on its ownership of the major network.
In addition to Citadel Media, Citadel also owned the Arkansas Radio, Tennessee Titans Radio, Buffalo Bills and the Michigan Talk radio networks.
Read more about this topic: Citadel Broadcasting
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