All this leads me to wonder whether it seems likely that Emmis may throw in the towel in New York, and eventually make WQHT available too, for sale or a lease arrangement.
It seems like Emmis is in rather serious financial straights and is making these moves to keep its financial head above water as a company.
As with the sudden demise of Kiss, which had good ratings, what's going on here is not about how well the stations are doing, its about how much money the corporate office needs to pay the bill collectors next week.
Without pouring through lots of financial data, the hints from the stock market are not positive. Emmis stock trades around a dollar a share, and the stock market values the company (market cap) at about $38-million. That is for a company that owns a couple of dozen radio stations, many in big markets like New York and LA. All this means that the stock market types who have done their homework have little faith in the company and don't see a bright future on the immediate horizon.
Today's sudden death of Kiss was a big surprise, debt and other financial problems may cause more surprises from Emmis in the future and, at this point, even the insiders don't know, for sure, what's next.
