That’s the word from Kagan, which released its 2021 deal numbers this week. The total deal volume for 2021 amounted to $4.72 billion. 92.6% ($4.20 billion) of the total came from two mostly TV deals (there were two radio stations in one of the TV deals).
The radio deal volume was a miniscule four percent of the total. 2021’s $190.2 million represent the lowest radio deal volume on record for Kagan, dating back 40 years to 1982.
The four largest radio station deals were driven by three of America’s top-ten TV station owners. In June, Sinclair Broadcast Group, sold its only radio stations to Lotus Communications for $18.06 million.
The other three deals all happened in December. In two transactions, The Walt Disney Company received a total of $24.25 million for its remaining radio stations. VCY America, is going to pay $9.25 million for KESN-FM in the Dallas-Ft. Worth market and Good Karma Broadcasting, will pay $15.0 million for Disney’s AM stations in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago and for an LMA for WEPN-FM, owned by Emmis.
For the third year in a row, the average cash flow multiple for radio transactions remained stable at 6.6x forward buyers BCF. In Kagan’s estimates, only 25 full power radio stations were sold based on their cash flow, 5 stations more than in 2020.
