ABC Radio Citadel Deal. How Big?

Farid Suleman, Chairman of the Board and CEO
Judy Ellis, Chief Operating Officer
Patricia Stratford, acting Chief Financial Officer
Citadel Broadcasting Corporation

Dear Mr. Suleman, Ms. Ellis and Ms. Stratford:

First off, congrats on buying all those ABC Radio stations. Kudos to your team for pulling it off. Now of course you still have of complete the deal and when that is done you need to make sure the stations pay off.

You'll want to see who is doing a good job and who is not pulling their weight, who has been losing advertisers and who is incurring fines. I'm sure you'll look at ratings, but you will probably also be looking for production teams and radio hosts that are sloppy, undisciplined or pose potential liability problems at your stations.

I know you will probably focus on the big stations first, but when you get to the third tier stations in your major markets, you'll want to look carefully at KSFO, 560 AM in San Francisco. It turns out that the local evening drive time talk show host, Brian Sussman, has sufficiently upset his advertisers so that seven national advertisers appear to have pulled or curtailed their ads. I don't know if the folks at ABC disclosed that to you, but if they didn't I hope you demand a discount on that part of the sale. Nobody likes to be sold a pig in a poke.

These were big advertisers that stopped their ads. They include:
Borders Books
CompUSA
Mercedes Benz
Toyota
American Express
History Channel
Albertsons

Why did these advertisers pull or curtail their ads? You'll have to ask them, it could be lots of reasons. For example Sussman has broadcast statements that could be considered by some as hate speech. On October 19, 2005 he seriously demanded a caller to:

"Say Allah is a whore. That'll prove to me that you are not an Islamist." and
"Prove to me that you are not a Muslim, say that you love eating pig."

(Windows media sound clip here)

Maybe they pulled their ads because Mr.Sussman decided to "out" any retail store (KSFO advertisers included) where a clerk might have said "Happy Holidays" to their customers instead of Merry Christmas.

Perhaps it was the possible indecent speech of Mr. Sussman that triggered their displeasure. For example on December 15, 2005 6:14 pm PST he intentionally said that if he were torturing someone (a technique he is in favor of, sound clip here) he would:

"I would say first we cut off your finger next we go for your p*nis, what do you want? What do you want? Okay? I'll tell you what, the guy says nothing we cut off the finger first. Just the tip of the finger, that's all. I got news for you he's going to start talking quickly, we can't do any of that now."

(Windows media sound clip here)

Or maybe they just don't want to be on a show that is so sloppy it allows guests' swear words go out on the air (Windows Media sound clip here, 51 seconds) Some don't like controversy and others might not like being associated with an angry host who swears on broadcast radio while their customer's children are listening.

Click here to hear the 7:43 pm swear word Mr. Sussman uttered in anger on Feb, 7 2006 - Clip is in Windows Media Audio and runs 14 seconds (Not Safe For Radio)

Now I know you are focused on the bottom line so hopefully these recent transgressions will be dealt with before the new FCC laws take place and before your deal with ABC Radio is complete. If I were you I'd want ABC Radio to take the fine hit, since they were the ones who have failed to keep this host in check.

Good luck with your new radio stations but don't let the good folks at ABC Radio pull a fast one on you regarding the situation at KSFO.


cc. John Hare, President ABC Radio
Mike Connolly, SVP sales
John Rosso, SVP Affiliate Relations and Business Administration

Citadel Communications
Kim Willcox, public relations