Townsquare Media

Townsquare Media, LLC
Type	Private
Industry	Mass media
Founded	1996
Headquarters	Greenwich, Connecticut
Key people	Steven Price (Chairman/CEO); Stuart Rosenstein (executive vice president/CFO)
Services	Digital media, radio
Owner(s)	Oaktree Capital Management
Website	http://www.townsquaremedia.com/; http://www.townsquaremediagroup.com

Townsquare Media (formerly Regent Communications Inc. until 2010) is an American media company based in Greenwich, Connecticut.

The company began primarily in radio: As of August 13, 2010^[update], after it acquired sister companies Gap Broadcasting and GapWest Broadcasting, it owned 171 radio stations in 36 radio markets, with concentration in the Northeast, Midwest, Southwest, and Mountain states.^[1] It later expanded into digital publishing and marketing, with the acquisition of the MOG Music Network, and a group of former AOL Music blogs.

History[edit]

Regent Communications logo before rebranding.

Regent Communications (former Pink Sheets ticker symbol RGCI) was founded in 1996 by Terry Jacobs and Bill Stakelin.^{[citation needed]} Jacobs later since retired from the company and Stakelin became its CEO.

On October 27, 2008 Regent Broadcasting joined Radiolicious and began streaming on the iPhone and iPod Touch. Regent is the first major radio group to contract for all of its streaming stations to be available through the Radiolicious application.^[3]

Regent filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy on March 1, 2010, with $211.3 million in debt, $166.5 million in assets, and a pre-arranged plan for exiting bankruptcy, with the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware. The filing plan made Oaktree Capital Management the majority owner of Regent after the bankruptcy and gave the old shareholders 12.8 cents per share.^[4] After its privatization, the company was given its new name, Townsquare Media.^[5] Gap Broadcasting Group, another radio group owned by Oaktree, was merged into Townsquare, giving it ownership of 171 radio stations in 36 markets.^[1]^[3]

In December 2010, the company began to expand its digital media operations, overhauling its stations' websites and launching a new country music news website known as Taste of Country.^[6]

Townsquare acquired a number of stations Double O Radio in August 2011.^[7]

On April 30, 2012 Townsquare Media announced a deal to acquire 55 stations in 11 markets from Cumulus Media, in exchange for Townsquare's stations in the markets of Bloomington and Peoria, IL and $126 million in cash.^[8]^[9]

On August 24, 2012, Townsquare reached a deal to acquire the MOG Music Network, an advertising network for music blogs, from MOG, a streaming music service that had reached a deal to be acquired by Beats Electronics.^[10]

In June 2013, Townsquare announced it would acquire a number of websites from AOL, including the music blogs The Boombox, The Boot, and Noisecreep, along with the comic book news site Comics Alliance. The deal came following the abrupt shutdown of the AOL Music division in April 2013.^[11]

On August 29, 2013, it was announced that Cumulus would purchase Dial Global, after the network service was showing signs of financial distress in late 2012. Cumulus will be paying $260 Million in cash for this programming syndication service, part of which will be used to pay off Dial’s debt before it is folded into Cumulus Media Networks. To make that sale happen, Cumulus will once again make a pair of station deals with Townsquare Media: the first deal will send 53 stations in Danbury, CT, Rockford, IL, Cedar Rapids, IA, Quad Cities IA/IL, Waterloo, IA, Portland, ME, Battle Creek, MI, Kalamazoo, MI, Lansing, MI, Faribault, MN, Rochester, MN, and Portsmouth, NH to Townsquare for $238 Million. The second will send 15 more stations in Dubuque, IA and Poughkeepsie, NY stations in exchange for Peak Broadcasting’s Fresno cluster. While not mentioned by the Journal, Peak, which like Dial Global and Townsquare has a large investment held by Oaktree Capital Management will have its Boise cluster folded into Townsquare as well. Townsquare, however, will have to place three of its newly acquired stations in a divestiture trust due to market overlaps.^[12] The acquisition of the Cumulus stations closed on November 14, 2013.