Cumulus Media
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| Public | |
| Traded as | NASDAQ: CMLS |
| Industry | Entertainment |
| Founded | 1997 |
| Headquarters | Atlanta, Georgia, US |
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Key people
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Mary G. Berner, CEO; John F. Abbot, EVP, Treasurer & CFO; Richard S. Denning, Senior VP, Secretary & General Counsel |
| Products | Radio |
| Revenue | $1,026,138,000 (2013) |
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Number of employees
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4,058 full time |
| Website | cumulus.com |
Cumulus Media, Inc. (and its subsidiaries, Cumulus Broadcasting LLC, Cumulus Licensing LLC and Broadcast Software International Inc ) is an American broadcasting company and is the second largest owner and operator of AM and FM radio stations in the United States (behind iHeartMedia, Inc., formerly Clear Channel Communications). Cumulus owned 570 stations in 150 markets as of September 16, 2011. The company also owns Westwood One. Cumulus's headquarters are located in Atlanta, Georgia.
Cumulus' original business plan focused exclusively on owning radio stations located in medium-sized media markets, and Cumulus Media only owns terrestrial radio stations in the United States; rival iHeartMedia, Inc. owns radio stations outside the United States and operates a subsidiary, Clear Channel Outdoor.
The company was started in August 1998 by radio consultant Lewis Dickey Jr. and media and technology entrepreneur Richard Weening. The Telecommunications Act of 1996, among other things removed restrictions on the number of radio stations a single owner could control in a market and overall. Dickey, then a nationally known radio programming consultant, was acting as a consultant to a small radio group in which Weening had a personal investment. Dickey and Weening joined forces around Dickey's idea to acquire and operate radio stations in mid-size markets where giant Clear Channel was not focusing. Dickey was the radio expert and Weening was the corporate finance and start-up CEO. Dickey was President of Stratford Research his radio consulting firm and also president of his family company, Midwestern Broadcasting with two stations in Toledo, Ohio which would later be acquired by Cumulus. Weening had successful experience as a start-up CEO in book and magazine publishing, online services and enterprise software systems. He was then CEO of QUAESTUS & Co., Inc., a private equity firm specializing in media and technology start-ups. A student of classics, Weening came up with the name Cumulus which means "accumulation" in Latin and best described Dickey and Weening's plan to acquire stations in 50 or more markets. QUAESTUS provided the seed capital to make the first station acquisitions as a model for the Cumulus strategy.
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