“Soros Shortcut” for Audacy not sitting with Republican FCC Commissioner
June 19, 2024The Radio + Television Business Report reports today Senior Republican FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr, has pledged regulatory approval for Audacy Inc’s emergence from Chapter 11 bankruptcy will not involve a “Soros Shortcut”. The company’s restructuring plan was approved by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in the Southern District of Texas this past February.
Making a bid to acquire $400 million in debt from Audacy was Soros Fund Management making George Soros, known for his progressive ideology, the largest shareholder of Audacy, Inc. after bankruptcy. The group requested a waiver to defer addressing the issue. That raised concerns among Republicans on Capitol Hill about possible foreign influence on American media.
In April, US Representative Chip Roy (R-Texas) had told FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, a Democrat, not to “fast track” approval of the deal. Meanwhile, in speaking to the New York Post, Carr agreed saying the FCC needs to run its normal review process and not waive normal practices particularly when the acquisition involves hundreds of stations in many markets.
Locally, Audacy owns KDKA-AM/FM; WBZZ, and WDSY.
Aside from Chairwomen Rosenworcel and Commissioner Carr, the FCC has one other Republican Commissioner and two Democratic Commissioners.
Soros is Pure Evil! If he gets those radio stations that will be the nail in the coffin!
He’s probably going to shut down radio entirely when he’s done with this year’s election. They don’t want non-Internet media to continue. Harder to censor than social media…
“He” who?
It’s hard to imagine that George Soros (ooh, scary George Soros! run for your lives, it’s George Soros!) would be any worse for radio than Randy Michaels, Mel Karmazin, the fine folks at Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst, Sumner Redstone, Mark Mays, Lowry Mays, the various members of the Forever Media family, my old friend S-ma B-rach (Jr. or Sr.), the Educational Media Foundation, etc., etc., etc., all of whom have turned commercial radio into 12,000 channels “and nothin’ on.”
Do we really think Soros can be worse that 2,000 talk-radio stations all carrying the exact same lineup? Identical CHR stations in every city? 520 (count ’em) K-Love stations?
But as a wise man in Pittsburgh radio used to say, “What do I know? I bought an Edsel.”
Maybe you should start making those PBRTV hats out of tinfoil just in case we need to block the scary George Soros mind-control rays. We’ll all be murdered in our beds!
Yep!
George Soros certainly is a bogeyman, apparently putting millions of dollars behind leftist DAs, candidates and causes through his Open Society Project.. The concern is when you get such a partisan activist with lots of money owning a big chunk of a radio company, will that provide a platform for his politics and push out more moderate or conservative hosts.
Now it could be said that if Audacy is doing so poorly, it won’t have much reach, so even if their politics are changed, the effect would be small, but it could be the start of a foothold by Open Society in broadcast media.
I will direct readers back to what Mr./Ms. Seagoon said. How could it be any worse than what all the others have done to the business over the years? The nearly irreparable damage has been done by these other individuals and companies – most of whom lean conservative. I’m not convinced Mr. Boogeyman will change programming dramatically immediately.