Yesterday marked the first quarterly Wall Street conference call for Debut Broadcasting, which just this week announced the purchase of its sixth and seventh radio stations – all in small, unrated markets. CEO Steven Ludwig told investors that despite what they may have heard about the travails of large market operators, the medium and small markets “have been in a different business for some time now.” As the company grows its small market platform, Ludwig said two other stations are currently under letters of intent and he expects to grow the group to 15-20 by the end of this year.
Debut is also in the syndication business as Impact Radio Networks and growth is foreseen there as well. According to its SEC filing, Debut had just under three million in revenues in 2007, a 7.9% increase over the previous year. About two-thirds of that revenue came from Dial Global, which handles national representation of Debut’s syndicated programming. Ludwig said he expects that ratio to change, not because Dial Global will be selling any less – in fact, he expects them to sell more national advertising – but because he expects Debut to sell more advertising in-house, particularly for sponsorships as opposed to spots.
Debut Broadcasting became a public company last June via a merger with an existing public shell.
