Radio revenues took a dive in May

If you thought CL King analyst Jim Boyle was being a pessimist when he predicted that May radio revenues would come in down 5-6% (6/16/08 RBR #117), think again. Boyle was an optimist. The RAB released the numbers late yesterday and the tally for May was twice as bad as the Wall Street consensus that revenues would be down 4%. That’s right – a whopping 8% decline for the month.

That 8% is the grand total, including a 12% gain in non spot revenue. If you look only at traditional spot revenue, the decline was double digits – down 10%. Local dropped 9% and National plunged 13%.

The May declines are similar to March, which was also down 8% overall, with Spot down 10%. So far, every month of 2008 has been in negative territory.

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