It was a modest 0.3% increase in same-station revenue for the Christian broadcaster in Q4 of 2016, while all broadcast revenue increased $1.3%. Salem CEO Ed Atsinger said, “We had a successful quarter with overall revenue increasing 2.2%.” Here are all the details.
Political revenue for Salem was just under $1 million in Q4, much less than expected. The company took in $1.9 million in 2012, the last Presidential election. Network revenue
increased 12.2% thanks to Salem’s national hosts, according to CEO Ed Atsinger. The Salem network consists of Hugh Hewitt, Larry Elder, Dennis Prager, Michael Medved, Mike Gallagher, and Erik Metaxas. Block programming, which makes up 43% of Salem’s broadcast revenue, was up 2.7%.
Digital media revenue increased 6.9% to $12.7 million from $11.9 million with townhall.com revenue increasing 33% thanks to the Presidential political race. Salem’s digital properties took in $400,000 in political revenue in Q4 and Atsinger says, unlike other political years, Salem’s digital properties have not seen much of a drop-off following the election.
Salem owns and operates 115 radio stations, with 73 stations in the nation’s top 25 markets – and 25 in the top 10. Salem also owns the Salem Radio Network, which syndicates talk, news, and music programming to approximately 2700 affiliates, the Salem Web Network, and Salem Publishing.
