(NYTIMES) — CBS Corporation announced on Tuesday that it was putting its radio business on the block, as the media company aims to streamline its business to focus on its broadcast network, the premium channel Showtime and digital.
Leslie Moonves, the chief executive of CBS, said that the company was looking at a number of strategic options but provided few other details. Speaking at the company’s investor meeting in New York, he compared the development to CBS’s move two years ago to separate its billboard business in an effort to “unlock shareholder value.”
CBS owns 117 radio stations in 26 markets, which it estimates reach 70 million people in the United States each week. Mr. Moonves has been suggesting for years that he was willing to reduce the company’s holdings in radio. CBS has disposed of a number of stations already, such as through a deal with the Beasley Broadcasting Group in 2014 in which CBS traded 14 of its stations for five of Beasley’s.