Radio One says that converging business market conditions led Radio One to have a tough fourth quarter in 2011.
Reporting those figures today, Radio One, Inc. President/CEO Al Liggins told Wall Street that a combination of tough political comps, nonrecurring national accounts and certain format changes affected company revenue in the quarter. “Normalizing for political and issue money, our underlying core radio revenue was down approximately 4.2%,” he stated.
Liggins believes the radio group is poised to rebound in 2012, with mid-to-high single-digit revenue growth in both the first and second quarters.
For the company overall, including radio, TV One and Reach Media, net revenue increased to approximately $98.1 million for the quarter, from approximately $71.2 million for the same period in 2010, an increase of 37.8%.
Net revenue for the radio segment for Q4 dropped 9.4% from the same period in 2010. Radio One saw net revenue growth for its radio stations in Cincinnati, Raleigh and St. Louis markets, while its Baltimore, Columbus, Dallas, Houston, Philadelphia and Washington D.C. clusters experienced significant net revenue declines.
For the company overall, operating expenses increased to approximately $71.3 million in Q4 2011 from approximately $50.7 million in Q4 2010, an increase of 40.6%. Approximately $13.6 million of the increase is a result of the TV One consolidation specifically related to programming and technical operating expenses.
