Entercom CEO David Field is a radio guy, so he might be a little envious of his television brethren right now. Asked in his quarterly conference call about pricing, Field had this to say:
“We’re making progress. We see that overall pricing in radio is up – it’s not up as much as we might like, frankly not up as much as it perhaps should be. Television pricing is up dramatically more. But I think frankly that’s an area of opportunity for us as the recovery continues.”
Elaborating on the Q2 same station growth of 5% that Entercom reported, Field said May was the strongest month of the quarter and April the slowest. Noting the softening of the US economic recovery, he said there was a little slackening of demand “that took a little steam out of June and July.” As a result, July will be up only in the low single digits, but pacings continue to look strong in the months ahead. “August looks solid, September looks great and, while it is very early, so far 4th quarter looks terrific,” Field told analysts.
