Dial Global
Dial Global was an American radio syndication and network company headquartered in New York City that, for a brief but consequential period between 2011 and 2013, stood as one of the largest distributors of audio programming in the United States. In its final form the company supplied talk, music, news and sports programming to thousands of local radio stations, operated 24-hour music formats that allowed small and medium-market stations to broadcast around the clock, and served as the national advertising sales representative for hundreds of independently produced programs. Dial Global is best understood not as a company built from scratch, but as a consolidation vehicle: it absorbed, in rapid succession, the remnants of Transtar, Waitt Radio Networks, Jones Radio Networks and, most importantly, the original Westwood One, before itself being acquired by Cumulus Media in 2013 and renamed Westwood One. Its short life under the Dial Global name therefore closed a long chapter of consolidation in American network radio.
Overview
At its peak, Dial Global described itself as America's leading distributor of audio content. Contemporary company descriptions credited it with providing programming and services to more than 8,500 radio stations nationwide, producing more than 200 news, sports, talk, music and entertainment programs, services and digital applications, as well as jingles and imaging, and reaching more than 225 million listeners each week. Those figures reflected the scale the company achieved after its 2011 merger with Westwood One. Dial Global was publicly traded for part of its life, listed on NASDAQ under the symbol DIAL, before financial difficulties led it to seek delisting in late 2012. Its headquarters were in the Candler Building in New York City, with major format operations inherited from its acquisitions in Colorado and Nebraska.
Origins in Excelsior and X Radio Networks
Dial Global was founded in 2006. It began as X Radio Networks, a division of Excelsior Radio Networks, and took the Dial Global name that year from a merger with Dial Communications and Global Media. In its earliest form the company specialized in syndicated weekend music programs of various types, a modest niche within the larger syndication business. A significant early step came in 2007, when Dial Global acquired the former Transtar Radio Networks from the original Westwood One. Transtar had been a pioneer of satellite-delivered 24-hour formats, and the acquisition gave Dial Global an entry into the around-the-clock format business that would later become central to its operations.
The Triton Acquisitions
The company's transformation was driven by Triton Media Group, a subsidiary of Oaktree Capital Management. Triton purchased Excelsior in early 2008 and then moved quickly to consolidate the syndication industry. Within months it had acquired two of Dial Global's three main competitors, Waitt Radio Networks and Jones Radio Networks, folding both into the Dial Global structure. Waitt, based in Omaha, Nebraska, brought localized 24-hour formats and commercial production services, which were operated for a time under the name Dial Global Local before being fully integrated in June 2012. Jones, acquired in June 2008, brought a large portfolio of satellite formats, talk programs and the Jones Media America sales operation, contributing the majority of the affiliate stations then under contract to the combined format business. Triton used the Dial Global name for all of its radio programming operations.
The Westwood One Merger
The decisive transaction came in 2011, when Triton bought the remainder of the original Westwood One and folded it into Dial Global. The older Westwood One, founded in 1976, had at various times been managed by CBS Radio and owned by the Gores Group, and it brought with it the industry's most prestigious sports play-by-play portfolio, including the National Football League's main radio package, NCAA football and basketball including the men's basketball tournament, the College World Series and the Masters. Contemporary reporting on the merger noted that future sports product was expected to move gradually under the Dial Global brand, with broadcasts initially tagged as Westwood One Sports on the Dial Global network. The combination made Dial Global, for a time, larger in syndication reach than its principal rival, Premiere Radio Networks.
Services and Operations
Dial Global's business rested on three pillars. The first was produced programming: talk shows, music programs and entertainment features distributed to affiliates, including, after the Jones acquisition, programs such as the evening country show hosted by Lia and the talk programs associated with Clark Howard, Neal Boortz and Stephanie Miller. The second was its 24-hour format business, marketed through divisions including Dial Global Total and Dial Global Local, which supplied complete satellite-delivered music formats — adult contemporary, country, classic hits, oldies, classic rock and others — that let local stations operate with minimal local staff while inserting their own commercials and newscasts. The third pillar was advertising sales representation: Dial Global represented more than 200 third-party radio programs and networks to national advertisers, in addition to selling its own inventory.
Sports and News Programming
Sports became Dial Global's most visible product. Through Westwood One Sports it held the NFL's main national radio package, including Monday Night Football, Sunday Night Football, Thursday Night Football, Thanksgiving games and the full playoff schedule including the Super Bowl, whose radio audience was measured at some 23 million listeners in research cited during the 2012 playoffs. In 2012 the company deepened its relationship with NBC. In March of that year NBC News partnered with Dial Global to create NBC News Radio as a 24-hour radio news network distributing reports to more than 700 stations. Later in 2012, NBC Sports Group and Dial Global partnered to form the NBC Sports Radio network, and Dial Global also provided exclusive radio coverage of the 2012 London Olympic Games and the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics through its agreement with NBC Sports. Its sports portfolio also included NCAA championships across multiple sports and PGA Tour events including the Masters.
Clients and Distribution
Dial Global's clients were, overwhelmingly, local radio stations in markets of every size, which took its programming under affiliation agreements that typically combined cash and commercial barter. Its 24-hour formats were aimed particularly at small and mid-sized markets, where a complete satellite format was far cheaper than employing a full local air staff, though the formats were also used on major-market HD Radio subchannels. On the advertising side, its clients were national brands and agencies buying network radio inventory across its owned programs and the more than 200 third-party programs it represented. By the time of the Cumulus acquisition, the combined Dial Global and Cumulus Media Networks catalogues meant that Cumulus controlled remnants of all four major Golden Age radio networks — the former NBC Radio Network, the Mutual Broadcasting System, most CBS distribution rights and the former ABC Radio Network — along with the libraries of Transtar, RKO, Waitt, Jones, Broadcast Programming Incorporated, Watermark and Drake-Chenault.
Financial Difficulties
The pace of acquisition left Dial Global financially exposed. In late 2012 the company began exhibiting signs of financial distress. On November 15, 2012, it announced disappointing third-quarter results, attributing part of the shortfall to its exposure to controversy surrounding a controversial talk personality, widely assumed in trade coverage to be a veiled reference to the fallout from the Rush Limbaugh–Sandra Fluke controversy, although Limbaugh had no direct association with Dial Global. At the same time the company announced it had filed for delisting from NASDAQ. Its stock, trading at about $2.00 a share at the announcement, fell to about $0.30 a share by mid-January 2013, and in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing dated January 15, 2013, the company announced it had extended a loan waiver agreement with certain lenders. Its scale also attracted legal challenge: rival Talk Radio Network filed an antitrust lawsuit against Dial Global in August 2012, litigation that Cumulus later settled in March 2014 before a further suit in 2016 was resolved in Cumulus's favour in late 2017.
Acquisition by Cumulus and the Westwood One Name
On August 29, 2013, Cumulus Media announced its intent to acquire Dial Global for $260 million in cash, part of which was used to pay off Dial Global's debt, and to merge it into Cumulus Media Networks. Cumulus funded the purchase through station deals with Townsquare Media, selling 53 stations to Townsquare and swapping 15 more for a Fresno, California cluster. On September 4, 2013, ahead of completion, Dial Global announced it would rename itself Westwood One, citing the stronger name recognition of the heritage brand. The sale was completed on December 12, 2013. The merger of Cumulus Media Networks into Westwood One was completed in mid-2015, with Westwood One as the surviving brand, accompanied by layoffs at the Colorado format facilities as Cumulus moved to staff its 24-hour formats with talent from its own major-market stations.
Legacy and Current Status
The Dial Global name survived barely two years as the industry's flagship syndication brand, from the 2011 Westwood One merger to the September 2013 renaming. Yet the company it assembled did not disappear: it continues today as Westwood One, Inc., a subsidiary of Cumulus Media headquartered in New York, syndicating talk, music and sports programming and retaining the NFL's main radio package. Dial Global's historical significance lies in how completely it illustrated the economics of modern network radio — an industry in which independent syndicators such as Transtar, Waitt and Jones could no longer sustain themselves separately, and in which value lay in combining format operations, play-by-play rights and a national sales force under a single roof. The Dial Global episode gathered all of those pieces together; the Westwood One name that replaced it is the brand under which that combined business still operates.
