Look for CBS Radio to shed some more stations now that the M&A market looks to be improving. CBS Corporation CEO Les Moonves told the UBS 37th Annual Global Media and Communications Conference in New York that all business units at CBS are improving, including local TV, radio and outdoor, but he’d still like to trim some of the radio portfolio.
Asked about divestiture possibilities as the M&A market improves, Moonves had this to say: “We actually love our asset. Are we a little overloaded in radio? Yeah, we’ve mentioned that before that we’d like to trim down. The good news is that we didn’t have to, we didn’t the money, but now that the marketplace is coming [back], trimming some of the radio may be a better thing for us to do as we go down the road a bit.”
Even so, Moonves later said that radio pacings, while still down year-over-year, are “phenomenally different” than three quarters ago. He noted that the CBS Radio division, headed by CEO Dan Mason, has “promised me a plus sign in first quarter.”
