Citadel Broadcasting, the company that acquired Disney’s radio stations including KSFO 560 and KGO-AM 810, posted a $848 million loss on Friday, which the company is blaming on its new acquisitions. Radio & Records put it this way:

Citadel Broadcasting today (Feb. 29) brought home a very bad report card and the big guy, chairman of the board and CEO Farid Suleman, says things are going to change. And change fast — beginning this week and over the next two weeks. It could get ugly. …

Citadel losses were “primarily attributable to lower revenues in our San Francisco, Calif.; Washington, D.C.; Chicago, Ill.; Atlanta, Ga.; New York, N.Y.; Birmingham, Ala; Dallas, Texas; and Los Angeles, Calif., radio stations.” …

“This was a very difficult and disappointing year. The biggest disappointment was the major market radio stations that we acquired from Disney in 2007,” Suleman said. “On an analyzed performance basis, decline was across the board with every major market decline. National was a complete disaster. The markets were down but we underperformed the markets by a factor of almost two-to-one. …

“Suleman said that Citadel began instituting major restructuring of the company’s major markets this past week and will continue over the next two weeks. The restructuring will “create a very significant savings in costs and position the stations for major growth even in a zero-based growth environment,” he said …