RadioInsight Exlusive: A lot of speculation has been raised across the industry again in recent weeks about a marriage of Audacy and Cumulus Media.

The rumors began picking up steam following the resignation of Audacy CEO David Field and CFO Rich Schmaeling with no replacement named for Schmaeling. Then Cumulus allowed its poison pill maneuver against Singapore based Renew Group Private Ltd. to expire last week. As we reported last April, Renew Group not only was attempting to increase its stake in Cumulus, but the 5-hour Energy founder Manoj Bhargava’s investment group is also the #2 stakeholder by percentage in post-bankruptcy Audacy.

Cumulus, which had a significant round of layoffs across many of its markets last fall, is about to take a number of stations off-the-air over the next couple of weeks. We have not gotten an exact number yet, but 560 KZAC (formerly KSFO) San Francisco turned off its transmitter today. 94.9 KOLI Wichita Falls TX was set to do so last Friday, but received a reprieve of a few weeks until around March 15. We have also heard of other stations set to go off-the-air around the ides of March, many of which are rimshot FM signals or AMs lacking translators. Cumulus stock dropped to a 52-week-low today at 63 cents per share following a poor year-end earnings report last week.

Audacy is on the verge of a round of significant staff cuts itself with many in the company expecting the layoffs later this week on Thursday, March 6. From what we have heard, the cuts will affect much of the company with corporate levels to get hit hard, but some markets will get hit moreso than others. The one part of the company we’ve been told may get off lighter than the rest are its Sports brands where they believe they have cut as far as they could without affecting local business.

But are these cuts at both companies a precursor to a merger? At this moment that remains more speculation than fact. Speculation, though, that may have a piece of truth behind it.