The revenue side for ACME Communications in Q3 is a little hard to follow, since the company had so many balls in the air. Net revenues from continuing operations, excluding a divested station, were up 6% to 8.1 million. That included revenues from "The Daily Buzz," which is now 100% owned by ACME. Excluding the Buzz, revenues from the continuing stations fell 1%. More importantly, though, costs were down, which produced a 19% increase in broadcast cash flow at the stations. But then, when you also include the Buzz, total BCF was down about 60K to 517K.
"After a strong start to the third quarter, non-political television advertising revenues in our markets declined sharply in the final half of the quarter and we were adversely affected. While our efforts to cut operating costs continued, and had some mitigating effect, we were unable to achieve our third quarter revenue forecast. In the current quarter, we continue to see considerable weakness in demand, especially on the national front, where important categories like automotive, retail and movies have significantly reduced their spending in our markets. The decline in our national advertising revenues has been partially offset by the success of our local sales efforts, but overall the climate remains very challenging for our stations. The sale of our Decatur station allowed us to eliminate our modest outstanding debt, and we continue to actively look for opportunities to monetize the value of our remaining stations assets," said CEO Jamie Kellner.
For Q4, ACME expects its station revenues to be down 6-10%.
