Radio giant Clear Channel said it’s revenues would have come in up 2% were it not for unfavorable foreign exchange rates which caused it to report income on par with Q2 2011, amounting to $1.6B.
Taking the exchange rates out of the occasion, the company says it picked up $36M in comparison to the same period a year ago. Meanwhile, OIBDAN was up 6% to $532M.
Radio gained $21M to $793M, experiencing growth in local, national and digital, and in many key advertising categories including the all-important automotive sector. Political revenue was said to come in at about $9M — and Clear Channel expects that number to increase dramatically as Election Day nears.
“By leveraging industry-leading size, scale and our new multi-platform solutions, we achieved solid growth in the quarter with major national advertisers,” Chief Executive Officer Bob Pittman said. “To further drive this success, we continue to invest strategically in our assets, especially digital at both Media & Entertainment and Outdoor, while offering custom marketing solutions that can only be delivered by Clear Channel. In addition, iHeartRadio, our industry-leading digital radio platform, reached 10 million registered users this past May – a milestone achieved in a record eight months, faster than any other major Internet service.”
Added EVP/CFO Tom Casey, “Even with the economic recovery slowing, we were well positioned to keep driving revenue growth in the quarter at our Media & Entertainment and Outdoor businesses. For the rest of 2012, we will continue to stay focused on controlling our costs, while building our sales infrastructure and strengthening our operations to drive future growth.”
The company offered the following highlights:
* Media and Entertainment (“CCME”) revenues grew $21 million, or 3%, compared to the second quarter of 2011, due primarily to higher revenues from both national and local advertising as well as digital radio services.
* Americas outdoor revenues rose $2 million, or 1%, compared to the same quarter of 2011, driven primarily by revenue growth from bulletins due to the continued deployment of digital displays and increased airport revenues on higher rates.
* International outdoor revenues increased $7 million, or 1%, compared to the second quarter of 2011, excluding the effects of movements in foreign exchange rates. Growth resulted mainly from higher street furniture revenues, particularly in China, Australia and the UK, as well as increased billboard revenues in Switzerland. On a reported basis, revenues declined $30 million, or 6%, due to unfavorable movements in foreign exchange rates.
* Reaching an agreement to have The CW broadcast television network exclusively air September’s iHeartRadio Music Festival, which sold out in under 10 minutes for the second consecutive year; making Yahoo! the festival’s exclusive live Web and mobile destination as part of a recent comprehensive content distribution and cross-promotion agreement; and attracting key major national advertisers as festival sponsors, including Amazon Kindle Fire, DISH, Macy’s, MGM Resorts International, NBC’s “The Voice” and State Farm®;
* Attaining nearly 95 million downloads and upgrades of the iHeartRadio app, and totaling just under 112 million total listening hours in June, up 131% year over year;
* Installing 49 new digital billboards for a total of 963 across 37 U.S. markets;
* Winning one of the largest advertising contracts in Norwegian history to manage all of the advertising across public transportation in the cities of Oslo and Akershus on behalf of Sporveis-Annonsene AS, one of Norway’s public transport companies;
* Renewing one of the largest out-of-home advertising contracts in Sweden with SL, Stockholm’s public transportation company; and
* Announcing Clear Channel Airports’ multi-year advertising contract extension with the Denver International Airport, creating one of the largest digital footprints of any North American airport; as well as, launching Clear Channel Airports’ new enhanced version of its flySMART mobile app to better serve airline passengers
