Fiktiv USA - Westwood One

Westwood One (formerly known as Dial Global) is an American radio network owned by Cumulus Media. The company syndicates entertainment, news, weather, sports, talk, and traffic programming. The company is the top provider of local traffic reports. Westwood One also offers weather services; originally using Accuweather, Westwood One switched to The Weather Channel in 2009.

The company was founded in 1976. At one time, it was managed by CBS Radio, and was later purchased by the private equity firm, The Gores Group. Due to purchases, mergers and other forms of consolidation in the 1980s and 1990s, at one time or another, it had ownership stakes in or syndication rights to some of the most famous brands in network radio. It was later purchased by the private equity firm The Gores Group before merging with Dial Global in 2011. In December 2013, Dial Global was, in turn, acquired by Cumulus Media. Prior to the sale's completion, Dial Global re-assumed the Westwood One name.

Content syndicated by Westwood One includes talk shows, music programs and 24-hour formats. It is particularly prominent in sports radio, distributing the CBS Sports Radio network and holding various play-by-play rights, including the National Football League's main radio package.

The company was founded by Norman J. Pattiz in 1976. At the time, he was a former advertising sales executive with KCOP-TV, a Los Angeles TV station. He was listening to a local radio station doing a Motown weekend, and decided to syndicate The Sound of Motown to radio. The show was a success. He added several more shows during the 1970s, including Dr. Demento and Mary Turner's Off The Record. In 1981 Norm Pattiz started recording live concerts for broadcast with a Chuck Berry recording in January of that year, the company was a leader in live broadcasts and concert recordings for radio, until May 2011 when Westwood stopped recording live concerts. By 1982, Pattiz was distributing his radio shows via satellite through an arrangement with idb Communications in Culver City. Pattiz took Westwood One public in 1984, and with the money raised by the IPO, he purchased the Mutual Broadcasting System in 1985, and the NBC Radio Network in 1987. Other highlights in the late 1980s include the purchase of three radio stations, the trade paper Radio & Records, and the hiring of Casey Kasem from ABC. Although Pattiz long remained a major shareholder and board chairman, control and management shifted to others in the early 1990s. First, in 1993, it was to radio station group owner Infinity Broadcasting, headed by Mel Karmazin, who also took over direct management of Westwood. With Infinity already owning and managing competing Unistar Radio Networks (formerly known as the RKO Radio Networks and later as United Stations Radio Networks, which merged with Transtar in the late 1980s), the two companies were combined under the Westwood name in 1994 (later spinning off Transtar in 2006). After the sale of his Infinity Broadcasting to Westinghouse, then parent of CBS, Karmazin went on to become COO of CBS and under his control, CBS took over management of Westwood. CBS also had a significant ownership stake in Westwood, which then purchased Metro Networks in 1999 in a three-way merger involving Metro Networks, Copter Acquisition Corp. and Westwood. On August 30, 2010, Pattiz stepped down from the board and was succeeded as chairman by Mark Stone, Senior Managing Director of the Gores Group, which by then was majority owner and controlled Westwood. A Westwood press release said Pattiz signed a new contract as a company consultant. Pattiz has now started "Podcastone" providing a central website for listeners to find their favorite radio personalities.

In October 2007, Westwood and CBS Radio signed a new contractual agreement by which Westwood would hire its own officers and directors, and CBS would benefit from Westwood One programming and trademark licenses. Westwood will also enjoy the benefit of CBS trademarks, under the agreement, which was filed as part of the companies' public disclosures with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. The new agreement took effect on March 3, 2008, the same day that Gores Radio Group invested $12,500,000 as part of a multi-stage investment takeover of Westwood One. The second stage of the Gores investment happened only two weeks later, with an identical investment of $12,500,000, which gave Gores Radio direct ownership of more than 14,000,000 shares of stock in Westwood One. Gores Radio Group companies states it has been investing in media since the late 1980s.

Westwood One stock was formerly traded on the New York Stock Exchange, but was delisted as of November 21, 2008 for failing to maintain market capitalization requirements. As of November 2008, shares of the company trade publicly on the Pink Sheets under the stock symbol WWON.PK. After further stock losses, the Gores Group bought the company outright in March 2009. They relisted the company on NASDAQ later that year under the ticker symbol "DIAL".

Westwood One announced its merger with Triton Media Group-owned Dial Global in August 2011. The merger closed on October 21, 2011. The merged company adopted the Dial Global name.

Dial Global began exhibiting signs of financial distress in late 2012, a possible side effect of its numerous acquisitions. On November 15 of that year, Dial Global announced a disappointing third quarter that it attributed in part to the financial impact of its exposure to the controversy surrounding a certain controversial talk personality, which was widely assumed to be a veiled reference to Rush Limbaugh in the wake of the Rush Limbaugh–Sandra Fluke controversy (although Limbaugh has no direct association with Dial Global). It simultaneously announced that it had filed for delisting from NASDAQ. At the time of the announcement, Dial Global stock was trading at $2.00 a share; by mid-January 2013, DG's stock was trading at .30 a share. In a SEC 8-K filing dated January 15, 2013, DG announced that it had extended a loan waiver agreement with certain lenders.

On August 29, 2013, it was announced by The Wall Street Journal that Cumulus Broadcasting will be purchasing Dial Global. Cumulus will be paying $260 million in cash for this programming syndication service, part of which will be used to pay off Dial’s debt. To fund that sale, Cumulus will make a pair of station deals with Townsquare Media, Oaktree Capital Management's radio station ownership division.

On September 4, 2013, Dial Global announced that - as of that day - the company was renaming itself Westwood One.

Both transactions on the Cumulus-Townsquare deal were closed on November 14, 2013 and the transaction on Cumulus' buyout of Westwood One was also closed a month later on December 12, 2013.

The company's numerous acquisitions prompted rival Talk Radio Network to file an antitrust lawsuit against what was then Dial Global in August 2012. Cumulus settled the lawsuit with TRN on amicable terms in March 2014, which was followed by TRN filing another lawsuit over the issue in April 2016. Cumulus won the lawsuit in late 2017, and TRN ceased operations at the end of that year.