Steel City Media Files Chapter 11

• Steel City Media, which owns two radio stations in Pittsburgh and four in Kansas City becomes the latest broadcast company — after Cumulus Media and iHeartMedia — to file voluntary petitions for reorganization under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code.

Kansas City-based MGTF Radio Company, LLC operates Top 40 KMXV (Mix 93.3), AC KCKC (KC102.1), and Country siblings KBEQ (Q104) and KFKF (Country 94.1), while Steel City’s Pittsburgh-based subsidiary WPNT, Inc. operates Hot AC WLTJ (Q92.9) and Adult Hits WRRK (BOB FM 96.9). You may recall that in 2014, Steel City’s MGTF Radio bought the Kansas City cluster from Wilks for $105.5 million.

The Company says it will continue to operate its business while it seeks to reorganize under Chapter 11. The petitions were filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Missouri in St. Louis on March 20. Following a review by its board of directors of the available alternatives, the Company determined that Chapter 11 reorganization is in the best long-term interests of the Company, its creditors and its stakeholders.

In a statement, Steel City VP Michael Frischling said, “The Company remains very profitable and expects to be able to generate sufficient cash from operations to meet the expenses of running our business during the Chapter 11 proceedings.” He added, “Despite having paid down our senior lender by more than $20 million, or more than 35%, since 2014, softness in our markets has resulted in non-compliance with certain technical covenants. We believe that Chapter 11 is the appropriate venue to seek to resolve these issues. We look forward to emerging from Chapter 11 as an independently owned strong player in our markets and with a reset capital structure in place for the long term.”