If there’s one thing that 2024 will known for in the radio industry it is the end of the phrase “This is how we’ve always done it“.
Fueled mostly by financial necessity, but also technological innovations, how ownership groups are operating everything from the top down has changed more this year than in any year since at least the start of consolidation in the mid 1990s. And as we’ve seen from Audacy’s lease out of 880 New York and Beasley’s upcoming deal with Bloomberg for 92.9 Boston, how these operators monetize their signals is rapidly changing.
LMA’s of major market signals are nothing new since the practice was made possible in the early 1990s. The dominos that made Audacy’s decision to lease WCBS to Good Karma began when Emmis signed a twelve year lease with ESPN in 2012 for 98.7 that expires at the end of this week. But eyebrows were raised when Audacy chose a station with nearly $30 million in revenue to hand over.
Once you look deeper, you can see why the move to eliminate one of their two News brands in New York was made. The first domino fell when Audacy reached an agreement with SAG/AFTRA in 2022 to allow cross-utilization of staffers between WCBS and 1010 WINS. Since the 1995 acquisition of CBS by Westinghouse that brought both News brands under common ownership, the stations had maintained completely distinct newsrooms and staffs. That agreement with SAG/AFTRA was noted in the announcement of WINS launching its simulcast on 92.3, with Audacy stating, “a historic new agreement with SAG-AFTRA will allow cross-utilization of anchors and reporters for both stations, which will enhance resource sharing and coordination to provide more cohesive and impactful coverage of the Tri-state area. This first of its kind collaboration will allow both stations to bolster their broadcast and digital news coverage, while maintaining their unique brands and specific areas of focus and expertise.”
Before WINS began its FM simulcast both stations were very close in revenues. For 2021 BIA projected WINS billing $31.6 million and WCBS $30.9 million. After the first full year of the FM simulcast in 2023, WINS rose to $40 million and WCBS dropped to $29.7. While that may look like a net gain in the short term, the underlying ratings story as 2024 has progressed shows the likelihood WCBS was falling fast. WCBS fell to a record low share in both May and June of this year with a 1.5 share in 6+., while WINS was just outside the top 5. Its Cume in July 2024 was at just 679,400 people, with WINS eighth in the market at 1,538,800. The most notable differences were in the younger for News 25-54 demos where in July of 2022, WINS was 17th in the market and WCBS was 18th before the FM addition to July of 2024 where WINS rose to 11th overall and WCBS was down to 24th in the market. The addition of the 92.3 simulcast accomplished Audacy’s goal of making WINS more formidable and reaching younger, more advertiser-friendly listeners.
Beasley’s upcoming move in Boston comes as the company is mired in deep-seeded financial issues. The company has had two large rounds of layoffs in recent months and is currently in the process of syndicating many of its talent to multiple markets to cut costs. Since its flip from Alternative to Classic Rock in 2019, WBOS has existed simply to flank “98.5 The Sports Hub” WBZ-FM against iHeartMedia’s 100.7 WZLX. In that time WBZ-FM has established itself as the regular leader atop the Boston market rankings with its share hovering near a 10 share or higher. Cutting all expenses from 92.9 and just taking the guaranteed monthly payment from Bloomberg will increase profit margins.
Expect to see more LMAs going further as the amount of potential buyers for signals has closed up due to lack of funds. Educational Media Foundation significantly cut its acquisition budget this year, which we’re told they reached by June 1. And many other non-commercial and Christian operators don’t see the return on investment for the amount it will mean to acquire a major market signal. Established audio brands like Good Karma and Bloomberg have the infrastructure to add their programming cheaply and more importantly have established revenue streams that they know what to easily project what a lease payment will lead to in growth for them.
Outside of a few outliers, what we haven’t seen are stations selling naming rights to their stations like Max Media’s “Priority Auto Sports Radio” WVSP Norfolk VA. But that is something we’re going to start seeing more of. Broker/Consultant Scott Fybush jokingly mentioned that Emmis should launch “Spirit Halloween Radio” with the prime FM real estate now being vacated in New York through Halloween, which in theory could then pivot on November 1 for two months of say “Macy’s Christmas Radio“.
The other big thing of this year has been the restructuring of station operations at nearly every large-scale ownership group. Among the moves we’ve seen…
- Complete gutting of local staffs by Alpha Media.
- iHeartMedia, Beasley, and Townsquare (among others) cutting back on the amount of locally originating dayparts on stations with many down to just one per station
- Beasley and iHeartMedia continuing to move to regional oversight of clusters as opposed to one Market Manager per cluster.
- More nationalized music logs and some moving to AI generated music logs (currently in use at more stations than you know across multiple operators).
- More elimination of local programmers and moving to centralized programming as SummitMedia has done at most of its formats and Audacy did at Alternative in 2020.
Beyond Ashley in Portland, and a few small market operations, on-air use of AI voice talent has yet to really take off. But other tools like music log generation, ad script writing, show prep writing, cleaning up segues and others have grown immensely. Further growth in these fields will lead to the ability to centralize even more functions across station operations fairly soon.
We’re seeing more rapid changes in the thought processes behind business decisions than at any time in radio history. Nearly every publicly traded commercial radio operator is in survival mode just trying to ensure they can make their next debt payment leading to each quarterly earnings release being preceded by some form of budget cuts. Banks are not going to finance station acquisitions leading to difficulties in finding buyers. As Hubbard CEO Ginny Hubbard said at Morning Show Boot Camp, “revenue loss exceeds audience erosion. A lot of our listeners aren’t listening in the car. They’re time shifting their listening and we need to as an industry do better at monetizing that listening.” She also addressed the debt issue as rising interest rates has led to a rise in the debt being accrued by operators.
There are still multiple elephants in the room that can lead to even more drastic changes later this year. What will Audacy’s new investors do when they complete the bankruptcy restructuring? Do they have a combination with another group planned? Will someone rip the bandage off and go to fully national programming? And as it has become the norm, will something else come out of left field and shock us all?