“We have been raising rates from April on this year. It’s been a focus of ours,” COO Mark Mays told analysts during Tuesday’s conference call with Wall Street. “There’s no question that we started
seeing in demand picking up in the second quarter and we were very attentive to rates across all of our division, particularly in radio and television. Radio rates are rising. Are they all back to
2000 levels? No.” Mays said they are continuing to see recovery across their markets, particularly in large markets that are more likely to be on a national buy. Among the ad categories where more
money is coming from are retail, consumer products, telecom, auto, entertainment and finance. That is putting pressure on locally sold inventories. In New York, Clear Channel says its fourth quarter
rates are up as much as 17%. “We had a lot of momentum going out of third quarter and fourth quarter will be better,” predicted CEO Lowry Mays. With more than 1,200 radio stations, Clear Channel is
the nation’s largest radio group.
