News Format Stations | Project for Excellence in Journalism (PEJ)

March 13, 2006

Figures for the top radio companies show an almost across-the-board decline in revenue generated by news-format stations.13 According to data from BIA Financial Network, in 2004, the latest data available, total revenue for stations identifying news as their primary format dropped for four of the top five largest owners. To be sure, news stations still contributed significantly to their companies’ total station revenue.

Revenues for Infinity (now CBS Radio) news stations dropped more than $70 million, or 15%. Over all, 19%, or $420 million, of Infinity’s station revenue of $2.2 billion was generated by stations that list news as their primary program format, down from 22% a year earlier.

Entercom’s 2004 news-station revenues dropped $2.1 million, or 3%, from the year before. Revenues from those stations made up 14%, or $69 million, of the company’s total station revenue of $486 million, close to the previous year’s 15%.

Citadel’s news stations accounted for 7% of the company’s total station revenue. The amount, $28 million, was $2.1 million less than in 2003.

Revenues for Cumulus’s news stations dropped 16%, or nearly $5 million, from 2003 totals. Those revenues, $20 million, were just 6% total station revenue of $324 million, down slightly from the previous year’s 8%.

Only Clear Channel saw revenue growth from its news stations in 2004. The stations earned $367 million in revenues, 10% of the company’s total station revenue and a 3%, or $12 million, climb from 2003. (Incidentally, Clear Channel has seen revenue growth in news during all nine years for which the Project has data.)

Revenues of Top Companies, 2004

News stations vs. other stations

Design Your Own Chart

Source: BIAfn Media Access Pro, unpublished data

* Top companies by number of stations whose holdings include news format stations.

How did Clear Channel buck the trend?

The answer is hard to pin down, but Clear Channel does have more news stations in bigger markets. Of its 1,190 stations, 136 list with BIAFn as having a news format. Ten of those are in the top 25 markets by population, and 50 are in the top 100. Cumulus, the second largest owner in numbers of stations, owns 33 news-format stations (out of some 300) but only one is in a top 25 market, and only two are in the top 100.