• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, December 28, 2005

The radio industry turned in another flat month of advertising sales in November 2005, nearing a depressing end to what's been a dour year for the broadcast medium, according to official estimates released Tuesday by the Radio Advertising Bureau. As lackluster as those results were, they actually beat Wall Street projections, but analysts predicted even worse results for radio ad sales in December and a "muted" long-term growth outlook for the medium.

The grand total of local and national spot, network and non-spot radio advertising sales in November recorded no growth over November 2004, according to the RAB's compilation of station revenues. Local sales managed to climb 1 percent from the same month a year ago, but national sales slid 5 percent during the same period.

November did nothing to improve radio's year-to-date results, which face tough comparisons with 2004, which was buoyed by strong political ad spending in many local markets. Through the first 11 months of 2005, total radio ad sales were flat with the same period in 2004.

"We are maintaining our December industry revenue projection of down 3 percent," Merrill Lynch analyst Laraine Mancini wrote in a research note sent to investors Wednesday morning, adding, "Although December appears to be improving sequentially from the trough in October (down 7 percent), radio pacing trends decelerated since October, especially in the national business. Therefore, we remain cautious with our December forecast. We now expect fourth quarter 2005 radio revenue to decline 3.3 percent vs. down 3.7 percent previously. Consequently, our fiscal year 2005 industry estimate increases slightly to down 0.2 percent from down 0.3 percent previously."

Mancini noted that radio's 2005 year-end results continue to be impacted by the effects of the Gulf Coast hurricanes, but also predicted that lackluster spending by automakers in 2006 would continue to be a drag on radio ad spending next year.