Citadel files for Chapter 11, AP buries the lede

This is actually an old-ish story for those who follow conservative talk radio, but AP has finally shown up a couple of weeks in:

Citadel Broadcasting Corp., the nation’s third-largest radio broadcasting company, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Sunday in an effort to restructure its hefty debt load as it continues to face declining advertising revenue.

Citadel owns and operates 224 radio stations, including KABC-AM in Los Angeles, WLS-AM in Chicago, WABC-AM and WPLJ-FM in New York and KGO-AM in San Francisco. Citadel’s WABC is home to several syndicated hosts, including Don Imus, Rush Limbaugh, Joe Scarborough and Mark Levin.

Interestingly, AP leaves this out of the report:

As Suleman (shown left) has overseen the complete destruction of this once-promising company, any continuing role in Citadel would seem inappropriate, but the Wall Street Journal is reporting that he will likely survive.

Brought down by inept deal-making, programming malpractice and political bias, Citadel has been on a collision course with disaster for several years.

Here at the Radio Equalizer, we’ve been covering its managerial follies during that time and at one point pleaded with its parent holding company to fire Suleman.

Under Suleman’s rule, the company’s left-wing political bias became so unbearable that it convinced Sean Hannity to move his program to another syndicator.

Just last month, Citadel admitted that the loss of [#2 rated] Hannity caused it to lose millions in desperately-needed revenue. More recently, the company booted longtime WABC / syndicated host Curtis Sliwa for reasons that remain a mystery.