EXCLUSIVE: Over the past few months, Audacy has been transferring some of its assets into a new holding company, Audacy Atlas, LLC. This week saw the FCC approval of its first station license transfer and the filing to move two more stations into this new portfolio.

Among the properties being held by Audacy Atlas, LLC are multiple real estate assets including a few in the process of being sold, the Radio.com domain which is up for auction, and now three station licenses. Based on the pending sales of some of the real estate and the domain, analysts we have spoken to expect that most of the assets being transferred are part of Audacy’s attempts to raise funds for debt payments and to avoid having its stock delisted from the New York Stock Exchange where it has already exceeded the six month cure period to get back over the $1 per share minimum, although they company can push that back until its next stockholders meeting. Audacy stock closed on Friday, February 17 at 27 cents per share.

In January, Audacy filed to move LGBTQ+ Dance “Channel Q 103.1” KQPS Palm Desert CA into the new LLC. That station, which is a standalone operation in the Palm Springs market, had just seen the company eliminate the last of its hosted programming at the end of 2022. That was approved by the FCC this week.

Which is when the company filed to move two more stations into Audacy Atlas in AC “Star 102.5” WTSS Buffalo NY and Country “94.1 The Wolf” WLFP Germantown/Memphis TN.

In addition to Radio.com, FCC and public records searches show that fifteen tower sites have also been moved into the holding company. These include the pending to be sold sites for 610 KILT Houston and 720 KDWN/1140 KXST Las Vegas. Other sites moved into the LLC include the tower land for 550 WGR/1520 WWKB Buffalo, 670 WSCR/780 WBBM Chicago, 830 WCCO Minneapolis (both primary and auxiliary), 850 WEEI Boston, 1080 KFXX Portland, 1080 WTIC Hartford, 92.5 WBEE Rochester, 97.1 KFTK-FM St. Louis, 101.9 WLIF Baltimore, 106.7 KROQ Los Angeles, 107.7 WLKK Buffalo, and 107.9 WLZL Washington DC.

Those tower holdings can be split into two categories with some of them such as WCCO and WGR/WWKB in places where sales for redevelopment may be possible or sites that have additional tenants where the company is either looking to protect them from a bankruptcy process or selling to a tower management company like Vertical Bridge or Crown Castle.

With many of the properties such as the Las Vegas real estate already sold with the stations set to go silent on March 1 and Radio.com’s auction on-going, it doesn’t take much of a stretch to believe that the three station licenses transferred so far will be divested. The Palm Springs station has always been a standalone in both CBS Radio and Audacy’s local portfolio since acquired in 1997. We have been told to expect a local operator to add that station to its holdings. But why one station each in Buffalo and Memphis? It seems that at least one competitor can add one FM to their holdings in each of those markets. Is there a connection?

The fund raising and cost cutting at Audacy will not stop there for now. There are increasing rumors of a separate divestiture of stations coming soon with the belief that Educational Media Foundation will enter at least one market where it has to this point been unable to launch its “K-Love” brand. In addition, we have confirmed that Audacy will shutdown many of its local HD2/HD3 music formats in order to save on licensing fees.

With Audacy’s annual and fourth quarter earnings report set to be released on March 15 some of the questions raised should potentially have answers sooner rather than later.