Pandora Considering Divesting Terrestrial Radio Station

Pandora is considering divesting the South Dakota radio station that was the center of a years-long fight with the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers and the inspiration for the FCC to re-examine its foreign broadcasting rules, it said in an ex parte filing posted online Wednesday in docket 14-109. The FCC approved the deal to buy KXMZ(FM) Box Elder less than a year ago. The deal required special dispensation from the FCC since Pandora couldn't prove it wasn't more than 25 percent foreign-owned under FCC rules that treated shareholders whose identities are concealed through SEC-allowed aliases as foreigners. That difficulty is the basis of a proposal to update the foreign ownership rules to make them more flexible. “Pandora currently is reevaluating its broadcast strategy,” the ex parte filing said. Pandora wants the FCC to give it permission to delay making changes to its organizational documents that were a condition of the FCC's granting the KXMZ transaction, the filing said. Pandora was required to give its board specific powers to make it harder for foreign interests to gain control of the company. Since the company is considering divesting KXMZ, it doesn't want to make the organizational changes at its upcoming 2016 shareholder meeting, the filing said. Pandora wants a year to consider the idea, at the end of which it will either sell KXMZ or change the organizational documents, the filing said.