Field said in addition to the soft advertising climate, Entercom has been hurt by nine months of disruption in the Entercom/CBS overlap markets. That’s how long the two sides have been working to close the deal since it was announced. Field said that has an impact on people. “It affects employees who go to work knowing there are going to be significant changes. We’re excited to get that behind us. People are fired up.”
The Denver market was the biggest drag on the company in Q3. The top performing markets were Atlanta, Boston, and Charlotte. The company is pacing up 2% in Q4, excluding political, and Field expects to see a minimum 2% increase in top-line revenue over the next several years.
It’s interesting to note that Field and CFO Richard Schmaeling took live questions from analysts for the first time in years. Other than iHeartMedia and Radio One, not many other radio companies take live questions. One of the reasons for that is that not many analysts have been covering radio since its slide around 2009ish, and if you flipped open the phone you were liable to hear crickets chirping. Field and Schaeling had a healthy number of questions Thursday. It also shows the increased confidence Field has in the future of his company and the radio industry in general, and just maybe some increased interest from Wall Street.
