WON Westwood One, Inc.

- Senior Executives Purchase 1,875,000 shares of Westwood Stock - NEW YORK, Oct. 8 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Westwood One, Inc. (NYSE:WON), today announced that on October 6, 2008, the Company successfully executed the most recent phase of the re-engineering program for its traffic division. This re-engineering allows Westwood One to provide a superior traffic product to the same number of markets more efficiently, in part by leveraging new digital technologies to provide improved traffic reports with enhanced speed and flow information. Once completed, the re-engineering program will result in a total cost savings of $25 to 30 million, which includes $4-5 million of savings in 2008 and an incremental $20-23 million in 2009. Additionally, Westwood One announced Company management has just completed a national investor roadshow. As part of the roadshow, management expressed its view that recent revenue initiatives are beginning to gain traction and should have a positive impact on 2009 results as significantly improved clearance levels by CBS Radio stations are credited in ratings books. A copy of the roadshow presentation is available on the Company's website, http://www.westwoodone.com/. Westwood One is also in discussions with its lending banks and noteholders regarding the Company's need to refinance its bank loan which is scheduled to expire on February 28, 2009 and $50 million in principal amount of senior secured notes which mature in November 2009. As a result of a $110 million in debt pay down in 2008, $35 million currently remains outstanding on the bank term loan. "While Company management understands the next few months are challenging, we continue to believe in the Company's long-term potential as outlined in the investor roadshow presentation," said Westwood One's President and CEO Tom Beusse. "We are very focused on our revenue improvement initiatives and debt refinancing requirements and are preparing to hit the ground running in 2009." The Company also reported that during the week ended October 3, 2008, its Chief Executive Officer, Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operating Officer purchased an aggregate of 1,875,000 shares of Company stock. About Westwood One Westwood One (NYSE:WON) is a platform-agnostic content company providing over 150 news, sports, music, talk, entertainment programs, features and live events to numerous media partners. Through its subsidiaries, Metro Networks/Shadow Broadcast Services, Westwood One provides local content to the radio and TV industries and to the Web. This content includes news, sports, weather, traffic, video news services and other information. SmartRoute Systems manages traffic information centers for state and local departments of transportation, and markets traffic and travel content to wireless, Internet, in-vehicle navigation systems and voice portal customers. Westwood One serves more than 5,000 radio stations. For more information please visit http://www.westwoodone.com/. Certain statements in this release constitute "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. The words or phrases "guidance," "expect," "anticipate," "estimates" and "forecast" and similar words or expressions are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. In addition any statements that refer to expectations or other characterizations of future events or circumstances are forward-looking statements. Various risks that could cause future results to differ from those expressed by the forward-looking statements included in this release include, but are not limited to: continued declines in revenue; our ability to raise additional capital or refinance our senior credit agreement; our ability to execute our growth strategy; trends in audience and inventory delivered by our affiliated radio stations, and competition in the media industry; changes in economic conditions in the U.S. and in other countries in which the Company currently does business (both generally and relative to the broadcasting and media industry); advertiser spending patterns; changes in the level of competition for advertising dollars; and fluctuations in programming costs. Other key risks are described in the Company's reports filed with the SEC, including the Company's annual report on Form 10-K/A for the year ending December 31, 2007. Except as otherwise stated in this news announcement, Westwood One, Inc. does not undertake any obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements because of new information, future events or otherwise. DATASOURCE: Westwood One, Inc. CONTACT: Roderick Sherwood of Westwood One, Inc., +1-212-373-5311 Web Site: http://www.westwoodone.com/

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