Looking at radio's Q1 numbers
Ed Seeger, President and CEO of American Media Services, pointed to first quarter results of many of the country's leading publicly-traded radio companies and said the figures help bolster recent national poll findings that "commercial radio is very much alive and shoring up its business."
Seeger added, "The figures are compelling, and they illustrate that American consumers, as well as advertisers, continue to hold the country's traditional radio companies in very high regard. While mainstream media continue to concentrate on much of the high-tech competition that has entered the marketplace over the last few years, the untold story is how radio is adapting to this new marketplace and developing new ways to attract listeners."
Seeger said such innovations as Clear Channel's "Less is More" campaign, the promotion of HD Radio and commercial radio's concentration on new formats and more local programming are continuing to intrigue the American consumer.
Revenues for seven of the nation's top radio companies increased by 1 percent during the quarter (1.54 billion in 2006, compared with 1.53 billion in 2005), and the aggregated operating profits of those companies exceeded 458 million. The companies cited by Seeger included Beasley, Cox, Cumulus, Radio One and Regent Communications and the radio segments of CBS Corp. and Clear Channel.
Seeger said the figures are particularly compelling when compared with first quarter results of satellite companies XM and Sirius. "This year's first quarter results for commercial radio reflect a 7 percent decrease in operating profits from the same period for 2005," he said. "But the combined first quarter results of satellite companies XM and Sirius reflected an operating loss of 547 million, compared with an operating loss of 295 million reported in first quarter 2005.
Seeger added that recent national surveys also reflected continued strong popularity of commercial radio.
In a survey that AMS released in mid-April, 91 percent of respondents said radio is important in American life, and 78 percent said commercial radio is important in their everyday lives. Nearly three-quarters of respondents (74 percent) said they listen to commercial radio at least once a day. The AMS survey was conducted on April 13-15 by Omnitel, the weekly omnibus survey of national polling firm GfK NOP of Princeton, NJ. The survey included 1,004 American adults, and is considered accurate within plus or minus 3 percentage points.
Seeger also pointed to a survey by Arbitron and Edison Media Research of 1,925 respondents, revealing that 77 percent of Americans expect to continue listening to their radio as much as, or more than, they are today.
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