Soros pumped $400 million into Audacy in February, a network which reaches 165 million monthly listeners and includes a handful of conservative shows from hosts including Sean Hannity, Dana Loesch, Mark Levin, Glenn Beck and Erick Erickson.
But those popular influencers’ reach is likely to be muted if the billionaire takes over and imposes his agenda, like he’s proven to do with his other media acquisitions.
A source told The Post: “The idea that George Soros is buying hundreds of local radio stations right before a national election and will keep broadcasting Sean Hannity and other conservative talk radio hosts on Audacy is not credible.”
To take control Soros Fund Management will need help from the FCC since the money needed to buy the bankrupt network will come from overseas.
Under existing FCC rules, foreign company ownership of US radio stations is not allowed to exceed 25% — but a filing acquired by The Post shows Soros asking the commission to make an exception.
The alarm is being raised by FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr and Texas Congressman Chip Roy (R-TX) in April.
“The FCC should not create a special Soros shortcut,” Carr said.
“When it comes to a broadcast station acquisition of this size and magnitude – hundreds of radio stations across more than 45 markets – the FCC needs to run its full and normal review process.
“The FCC should not be skipping steps or waiving required agency processes.”
Rep Chip Roy has said the Soros group would usually petition to get its foreign funding sources vetted by the FCC first, but that they are trying to waive that process and put it off “until sometime down the road — indicating that those foreign stakeholders will be given ‘special warrants’ in the meantime.”
In the past two years, Soros Fund Management brokered Univision’s $60 million sale in 2022 of 18 mostly conservative Hispanic radio stations including right-wing powerhouse Radio Mambi.
Soros also invested another chunk of cash into the liberal podcast network Crooked Media, home of “Pod Save America.”
Audacy is the nation’s second-biggest radio network after the iHeart network with 220 stations including New York’s WFAN and 1010 WINS, as well as Los Angeles-based KROQ, according to bankruptcy filings.
Sources say the stake is equal to about 40% of the company’s senior debt and although not a majority, could yield effective control of the media giant when it emerges from bankruptcy.
One insider, noting he is a Republican, thinks the timing of the deal, just months before the 2024 presidential election, is concerning.
He said he felt as if Soros was buying the stake to exert influence on public opinion leading up to the election.
“This is scary,” the source told The Post.
In June 2022, the Soros-backed Latino Media Network bought Mambí — a mainstay of Miami’s hardline anti-Communist Cuban exile community for decades — and 17 other Spanish-language radio stations from TelevisaUnivision in an estimated $60 million deal.
The newly-formed network was run by two former Democratic operatives, Stephanie Valencia and Jess Morales Rocketto, who worked on Barack Obama’s and Hillary Clinton’s political campaigns. Valencia also worked in the Obama White House.
Venezuelan-born former Radio Mambí host Lourdes Ubieta quit the station after she learned of the takeover that summer.
Ironically, Ubieta now hosts a conservative Spanish-language radio show, “En Este Pais con Lourdes Ubieta,” on Radio Libre 790 on the Audacy network in Miami, created after the demise of the old Radio Mambi.
Ubieta told The Post the Latin Media Network essentially neutralized Radio Mambi by shutting down all the political content at the station.
“They kept the name Radio Mambi but they made it all soft shows like sports and entertainment,” Ubieta told The Post.
“Everything was hard-core anti-Communism politics on Radio Mambi before. That’s all gone now.”
Rep Roy said about the FCC’s role:
"I wanted to pose those questions to…understand what's happening with the FCC on this, and raise the awareness publicly of the extent to which Soros' people may be using — either the rules to their advantage, or frankly, the rules are getting abused to fast-track getting in there and grab that debt as a backdoor way to try to acquire a significant amount of ownership over local radio."
