Losing 6% of consolidated net revenue in the Q3 2009 environment is practically reason to shout from the rooftops, and Hispanic specialist Spanish Broadcasting System was even able to point to a black number – a 74% gain in operating income.
The 6% loss represented a drop from $41.3M to $38.6M. $1.9M of that came from the radio side, which was down 5%, while the small TV division suffered an $800K, 17% decrease.
Operating income was up to $13.9M, over $8M in Q3 2008. It was realized despite the challenging advertising environment by reducing the operational costs at its stations.
Chairman/CEO Raúl Alarcón Jr. commented, “Our third quarter operating income improved significantly over the prior year as a result of our disciplined focus on cost management, combined with improving top-line trends at our radio station group. While our results were impacted by the economic recession and industry-wide weak advertising market, we continue to execute our strategy and deliver valuable, market-leading audiences across our multi-media footprint. We remain focused on expanding Mega TV’s national reach, strengthening our content and increasing our online presence among Hispanic audiences.”
“Looking ahead,” he added, “our sales teams are working aggressively to convert our solid audience shares into revenues and we are beginning to see some signs of improvement in the environment in many of our markets. As the economy begins to recover and advertising spending increases, we believe we are well positioned to benefit from the improved operating leverage in our model.”
