Clear Channel Communications

Clear Channel Communications

Clear Channel Communications, Inc. is an American mass media company headquartered in San Antonio, Texas. Founded in 1972 by Lowry Mays and B. J. "Red" McCombs, the company was taken private by Bain Capital, LLC and Thomas H. Lee Partners in a leveraged buyout in 2008; as a result, the company now operates as a wholly owned subsidiary of CC Media Holdings, Inc..

Clear Channel specializes in radio broadcasting through subsidiary Clear Channel Broadcasting, Inc. and division Clear Channel Media and Entertainment (formerly Clear Channel Radio); and billboard advertising through subsidiary Clear Channel Outdoor Holdings, Inc.. Clear Channel is the largest owner of full-power AM, FM, and shortwave radio stations and twelve radio channels on XM Satellite Radio, and is also the largest pure-play radio station owner and operator. The group was in the television business until it sold all of its TV stations to Newport Television in 2008.

The term "clear channel" comes from AM broadcasting, referring to a channel (frequency) on which only one station transmits. In U.S. and Canadian broadcasting history, "clear channel" (or class I-A) stations had exclusive rights to their frequencies throughout most of the continent at night, when AM stations travel very far due to skywave. WOAI in San Antonio, Clear Channel's flagship station, was such a station.