Left-leaning billionaire George Soros has recruited the Democrat-controlled Federal Communications Commission to help fast track his takeover of the nation’s second-biggest radio network.
Soros, 93, pumped $400m into Audacy in February, a network which reaches 165m monthly listeners and includes a handful of conservative shows from hosts including Sean Hannity, Dana Loesch, Mark Levin, Glenn Beck and Erick Erickson.
But their influence is likely to be muted if the billionaire takes over and imposes his agenda, as has happened with other media acquisitions.
A source with knowledge of the deal 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.”
However, to take control Soros Fund Management needs help from the FCC as the money funneled into buying the bankrupt network comes from abroad.
Under existing FCC rules, foreign company ownership of US radio stations is not allowed to exceed 25% — but a filing acquired by The Post details Soros’ asking the commission to make an exception.
FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr is raising an alarm that was first set off by Texas Congressman Chip Roy (R-Texas) in April.
“The FCC should not create a special Soros shortcut,” Carr told The Post this week.
“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.”
Roy had earlier written 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,” Roy wrote in late April.
The FCC did not respond to The Post’s request for comment.
In the past two years, Soros Fund Management, which also did not respond to a request for comment, has made big moves into American radio.
It brokered Univision’s $60 million sale in 2022 of 18 mostly conservative Hispanic radio stations including right-wing powerhouse Radio Mambi.
That same year, Soros 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 told The Post Soros’s stake is equal to about 40% of the company’s senior debt — a massive chunk which, although not a majority, could yield effective control of the media giant when it emerges from bankruptcy.
The timing of the deal, just months before the 2024 presidential election, has raised eyebrows.
One insider, noting he is a Republican, said he felt it possible Soros was buying the stake to exert influence on public opinion in leading up to the election.
“This is scary,” the source said at the time.
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 cannot comment on her current job but told The Post the Latin Media Network, which did not respond to The Post’s request for comment, 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.”
