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Clear Channel Brings New Money to Seacrest
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Ryan Seacrest is
getting tighter with Clear Channel.
His investment
holding company Ryan Seacrest Media has a deal — actually, two separate,
related deals — with Clear Channel and the company’s big investors Thomas H.
Lee Partners and Bain Capital.
“Funds sponsored by
THL and Bain Capital have together committed up to $300 million to working with
RSM to identify, acquire and develop innovative media companies, media content
and other media properties that can be leveraged to support a range of media
enterprises,” they stated.
Separately, Clear
Channel gets a minority stake in Ryan Seacrest Productions, which is
responsible for TV shows like “Keeping Up with the Kardashians” and “Jamie
Oliver’s Food Revolution.” The organizations emphasized that the production
company will remain “creatively autonomous,” still majority-owned by Seacrest.
But it will collaborate with Clear Channel on production and distribution of
television programming and other content.
Seacrest and Clear
Channel already work together through his morning show on KIIS(FM) in Los
Angeles, which is syndicated to 150 affiliates, as well as the show “American
Top 40” and other projects like the iHeartRadio Music Festival.
The top people
involved in the new arrangement include Clear Channel CEO Bob Pittman, Lee
Partners Managing Director Richard Bressler and Bain Managing Director Ian
Loring, along with Seacrest.
Among the goals for
Clear Channel, Pittman said, is to expand in the television arena “in a way
that can maximize our relationships with music and other talent.”
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