CEO Mary Berner said national, spot, and Westwood One were all strong in the first quarter of 2019, which obviously means local revenue continues to be the weak link for Cumulus. Revenue from Cumulus’ radio stations declined $1.7 million or 1% in the quarter while Westwood One revenue increased $5.6 million or 5.9%. The revenue increase at Westwood was driven by core ad sales and podcasting. Berner said the company is pacing flat to down in Q2, which is contrary to how most other public companies reported. Plus she warned that political comps will make things even tougher as the year moves along.
During the Q&A portion of the Cumulus earnings call, Berner told an analyst that P&G spending with the company has been meaningful in the network space and the total number of advertisers on the network increased 18%. She said P&G is an industry leader so “we’re watching that closely.” The obvious hope is P&G drags other big brands back to radio or over to radio if they haven’t been there yet.
Berner also said she’s hopeful the FCC will loosen the ownership rules so Cumulus can continue to optimize its portfolio. She said at the present time it’s hard to do swaps that line up cash flows.
Cumulus has been focused on bringing its debt down, which is where the net proceeds from the sale of WPLJ in New York (to EMF) and KLOS (to Mureolo) in Los Angeles will be going.
