Just as Radio One CEO Alfred Liggins called out McDonald’s for burning his Q1, Entercom CEO David Field said United States Traffic Network was unable to pay its $4 million bill due in Q4 2017, which impacted the quarter. Field said USTN is having “significant financial issues.”
Entercom’s same-station pro-forma revenue in Q4 was off 5% compared to 2016, even after taking into account the $4 million owed by USTN. Excluding both USTN, and political comps from 2016, same-station Q4 2017 revenue was down 2%. The legacy Entercom stations were off 1%, up 2% excluding political. The legacy CBS stations were off 6%, down 3% excluding political.
Field said CBS’s lackluster Q4 performance can be blamed on the protracted closing process of the merger and the company’s lackluster divisional leadership (see next story).
The USTN contract was a legacy CBS Radio contract, however Entercom also did some business with the company. CEO David Field said Entercom is exploring options to address the situation. They may work out a new arrangement with USTN or go with a new vendor. USTN purchases inventory during traffic reports and resells that airtime to advertisers. The $4 million owed to Entercom was guaranteed to them. In 2017, USTN made up 2% of Entercom’s pro-forma same station revenue. (Note: We reached out to USTN President Ivan Shulman to get a comment and to ask him abuot Field’s comments and the status of the business. He told us he was in meetings all day and would speak to us this morning).
In Q4 of 2017 local and national were both down with national a bit stronger. The best performing categories were health and medical, TV/cable, and travel. Entercom’s best performing markets were Austin, Detroit, Houston, Indianapolis, and Las Vegas.
For the full year (2017) Entercom generated $1.521 billion in pro-forma same-station revenue, down 3% from 2016 ($1.574 billion). In 2017, Entercom’s legacy radio stations were flat, up 1% excluding political. CBS’ legacy stations were down 4%, 3% excluding political.
Field says Q1 is pacing down 3%. He added Q2 looks a little better but still pacing down at this time.
