Citadel, SBS Revenues Slipped in 4Q

ArrowDown-on-Radio

Two leading broadcast radio groups announced their fourth-quarter financial results this week, with Citadel and the Spanish Broadcasting Group revealing that both companies saw revenues slip in the last three months of 2010.

However, Citadel ended the year with total annual revenues slightly up. These mixed results were typical for the industry as a whole, which enjoyed modest growth thanks to increases concentrated in a few key areas.

In the fourth quarter, Citadel said revenues slipped from about $193 million to $192 million, for a modest decline of less than 1%. For the full year, Citadel saw total revenues grow 2.2% to $740 million in 2010, while earnings before taxes increased 28% to $251 million.

Citadel was in bankruptcy protection during the first five months of 2010, but is now preparing to expand through a planned merger with Cumulus Media -- finally announced on March 10, 2011 after a series of abortive negotiations.

advertisement

advertisement

Combining Citadel, Cumulus assets will create a network of 572 radio stations, with geographic coverage increasing from 67 media markets to 120. That would make it the second-largest broadcast radio group in the country, after Clear Channel Radio.

Things aren't looking quite so cheery at SBS, where chairman and CEO Raul Alarcón, Jr. conceded: "We experienced volatile advertising conditions in many of our markets during 2010, even as we continued to drive strong audience shares across our multimedia platform."

Total revenues for the fourth quarter slipped 4.7% from $31.7 million in the last three months of 2009 to $30.2 million in the last three months of 2010. This contributed to a full-year decline of 3.3%, from $123.6 million in 2009 to $119.5 million.

In February the Radio Advertising Bureau reported that total radio advertising revenue rose 6% from $16.3 billion in 2009 to $17.3 billion in 2010.

Digital advertising led the way with a 24% increase for the full year to $616 million, while spot edged up 6% to just under $14.2 billion, network increased 3% to $1.1 billion, and off-air grew 3% to just under $1.4 billion.

Next story loading loading..