Political Radio Revenue Reached New Heights In 2020

Forecasters called for record-shattering political ad spending this year and radio participated in the windfall. Based on results from the third quarter and the month of October, Inside Audio Marketing reports most publicly traded radio companies told investors on their quarterly earnings call they expect 2020 to surpass previous in-house records for the category.

At iHeartMedia, political put $40 million on the books in Q3 and another $55 million in October. “This will be by far the biggest political year that we've ever had,” President and COO Rich Bressler said during the company quarterly results call. All told, iHeart execs said they expect political to be up 67% from the presidential election of 2016. The impact can be seen in three battleground states. Total October revenues in Michigan were up 25% year over year, Florida grew 14% and Wisconsin increased 12%. “While there was clearly unevenness in the political spend by geography, our results demonstrate the value of a broad distribution of markets,” CEO Bob Pittman said. 

Entercom hauled in $5 million in election advertising for Q3, up from $1.7 million in the third quarter of last year. The pace picked up considerably in October with $16.5 million forecast for Q4. “For the full year, political revenues are now expected to come in at about $30 million versus $29 million in 2016 and $25 million in 2018,”said CFO Richard Schmaeling. 

At $5.8 million, political was a Q3 high watermark at Cumulus Media. That compares to $1.7 million in Q3 2019 and $3.6 million in Q3 2018. “Political, as you might expect, was clearly very strong, as our footprint overlapped nicely with swing states,” Executive VP/CFO Frank Lopez-Balboa said. “This was a record quarter for political, and we're on track for another record quarter in Q4.” 

“Political revenue has been on fire this year,” Townsquare Media CEO Bill Wilson said. The category played a major role in the company’s Q3 rebound with $4.5 million in revenue, more than triple what it booked in Q3 for the 2016 elections. And based on what's already in the pipeline, Townsquare expects to book $9 million in Q4 and end the year with $16 million in political ad sales, a whopping 75% more than in 2016.

Beasley Media Group reeled in more than twice the amount of election ad revenue than it budgeted for. With $3 million on the books for the three months ended Sept. 30, political was the company’s fourth largest ad category, accounting for nearly one in every 10 ad dollars spent. And it was the only category to show year-over-year growth.

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