• Ad Age, Thursday, March 2, 2006 10:45 AM

Ad Age's Abbey Klaassen, poring over the latest round of earnings reports, reports the obvious: 2005 was not a stellar year for the radio business: "Stations faced a dearth of political advertising in the fourth quarter, creating unfavorable comparisons to the previous fourth quarter, an election year. And while one benefit out of Hurricane Katrina was to demonstrate the resilience of radio and the medium's ability to communicate in the middle of chaos, it hurt the bottom line at several companies that had a major presence in the New Orleans area." Klaassen ticks off a series of winnner and losers. The latter were more prevalent. Entercom and CBS (with the loss of Howard Stern) took big hits. But there is hope on the horizon. Clear Channel, the industry's biggest player, says it expects to show improvement in '06; Citadel too is sending positive signals to the market. The one continuing bright spot: Spanish-language radio. The Spanish-speaking population is growing, and so is their buying power, Ad Age points out.

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