Same-station revenue for the Christian conservative company was down nearly 5% to $48.3 million. The Christian teaching and talk format was off 6%, the news/talk format was down 2%, music stations declined 4%, and the Salem Radio Network dropped 3.5%. Salem’s digital business was down 12.9% and the company’s publishing business was off over 20%. Concert revenue was down 7%. Overall revenue declined 8.2% to $65.4 million.
One of the reasons broadcast revenue declined was a ratings and revenue decline at KLTY in Dallas, starting in 2015. CEO Ed Atsinger said the company changed managers and the station is starting to see success again, back up into the top 5 with women 25-54.
Political comps were tough for Salem. They were off $1.3 million on political when compared to Q3 2016. There were also fewer books released from the publishing division being this is an off-year for elections. On the digital side, competition from Facebook and more programmatic offerings helped pushed Salem’s digital division down nearly 13%.
For Q4 the company is projecting a decline of between 4% and 6%.
