Regent Communications is projecting that Q2 same station revenues will be up 2-4% after the company reported a 2.6% decline for Q1 – still outperforming the radio industry’s 5% drop, noted CEO Bill Stakelin. That brings the count for Regent outperforming the industry to 16 of the last 17 quarters. On a reported basis, revenues were down 3.1% to $20.8 million and station operating income (SOI) was down 4.8% to $6.0 million, while same station SOI declined 6.7%.
“It remains clear, I think, to all of us that economic slowdowns do not impact all markets equally. The financial slowdown that has been talked about by some people is not particularly representative of each of our mid-sized markets. While we operate in markets where signs of a recession certainly are clear, we continue to experience growth inside our radio clusters. In fact, eight out of 12 in the first quarter of this year experienced growth in SOI, over half of them experienced growth in their revenue stream,” Stakelin said in his quarterly call with analysts. He noted particularly strong performance by Regent’s clusters in El Paso, TX, Grand Rapids, MI, Bloomington, IL, Utica, NY and Lafayette, LA.
As for the current quarter, Stakelin said Regent’s revenues were up 3% in April and he’s encouraged by pacings for the remainder of the quarter. CFO Tony Vasconcellos told analysts that two NTR events which were in Q1 last year will be in Q2 this year, but he said even without those, Q2 is running ahead of last year.
