5-Year Review Reveals Radio Revenue Winners, Losers

BIA’s Media Ecosystem Review, the financial and valuation trends in the media ecosystem have been quite a rollercoaster ride over the past five years. Let’s break down the winners and losers among publicly traded radio/audio companies during the 2019-2023 period:

Winners:

• Urban One: Grew its total revenue by 8%.
• Townsquare Media: Increased its total revenue by 5%.
• iHeartMedia: Saw a 2% growth in total revenue.
• Salem Media: Also posted a 2% increase in total revenue.

Losers:

• Cumulus Media: Experienced a 24% decline in revenue. However, part of this decline was due to station divestitures; Cumulus shed about 25 radio stations during the four-year period.
• Audacy: Tumbled by 22%.
• Saga Communications: Declined by 8.4%.
• Beasley Media Group: Decreased by 5.5%.

Overall, these eight radio companies averaged a decline of almost 22% in revenue during 2020, which was significantly impacted by COVID-triggered advertising pullbacks. However, they bounced back by 17% in 2021. Looking at the four-year trend from 2019 to 2023, the average decline was 6.2%, according to Inside Audio Marketing.

Interestingly, digital media companies fared well during the pandemic, with their total enterprise value nearly doubling between year-end 2019 and year-end 2023. Alphabet and Meta (formerly Facebook) dominated the digital media sector, making it challenging for other companies to compete against them.

For a broader view of the media sector, total local advertising in the U.S. declined by an estimated 6.9% in 2020, followed by two years of high-single-digit to low-double-digit growth. However, it dipped by 3.9% to $157.4 billion in 2023.