While reporting that 2010 radio station revenues were up 4.1% to $629.1 million, Citadel Broadcasting CEO Farid Suleman gave Wall Street analysts details showing a wide disparity by market size. And you may find the high and low surprising.
Suleman said the smallest markets had the biggest revenue gain in 2010, rising 5.8%. Next were the top 10 markets, up 5%. The big drag was in the middle markets, which were up only 1.4% for the year.
“Overall in 2010, clearly national was up a lot more than local – overall about 10%, versus local which was generally flat,” Suleman said.
For the year, EBITDA growth was close to 25% in the top 10 markets, about 6% for the middle markets and about 24% for the smaller markets, the CEO told analysts.
Which were the best markets in Q4? Suleman said Los Angeles, Detroit and, to a lesser extent, Atlanta, were the leaders. “In the bigger markets, New York did not perform as well. There was a lot of competition, particularly with [W] ’PLJ [-FM],” he said.
