“The radio consolidation trail is littered with companies that went bankrupt through consolidation just for the sake of consolidation,” Urban One CEO Alfred Liggins III warned during the company’s Q2 2026 earnings call, as the broadcaster preps for an era of scale.
Net revenue fell 6.4% year over year to $85.8 million. Of that, radio revenue was down 3.9% to $35.3 million, or down 6.6% excluding political spending. Urban One’s radio segment carries a $11.1 million political ad budget for 2026, below the roughly $13 million booked during the 2022 midterms, with Liggins citing competitive races in Georgia, Texas, Ohio and Indiana as the deciding factors on how that figure lands. Peter Thompson, Urban One’s CFO, said only about $400,000 in political revenue was booked for the third quarter as of the call.
RBR+TVBR and Radio Ink‘s Adam Jacobson pressed Liggins on what comes after the midterm political cycle fades from the numbers. The CEO’s answer? “You have to be very deliberate about it.”
“We believe that there will be further consolidation in the radio business,” Liggins commented. “There’s a lot of assets for sale. And the key is to be able to acquire something that is delevering, number one, and accretive.”
During the second quarter, Urban One completed the sale of Charlotte stations WMXG and WLNK for $0.7 million and $4.2 million, respectively.
It also closed its $22 million acquisition of Service Broadcasting Group in Dallas, including stations KKDA and KRNB, on July 17, while selling KZMJ to Fusion Dallas LLC for $6 million, a deal that will show a $3.2 million gain in third quarter results. “Dallas was an urban acquisition, but that was a market where neither them or us were making any real money, and I think the way we’re configured now will actually fix that,” he commented.
“You also got to be able to acquire [a station] at a value level that takes into account that even if you own everything, there’s probably still pressure on your top line in a market pressure against the medium in the advertising space,” Liggins added.
“I think we have shown that we are open to expanding outside of our core African-American targeted demographic, particularly as it relates to our radio operation, and in particular as it relates to markets where we already operate and we’re building scale…I think that does give us more arrows in our quiver to help drive local ad solutions for our clients in those local markets, and we’ve seen success in that.”
As for the remainder of the company’s Q2 performance, local ad sales fell 10.1% against a market that was down 7.8%, while national sales fell 1.5% against a market down 4.6%.
Net loss narrowed to $7 million, compared to a net loss of $77.9 million a year earlier, when the company took a $130.1 million impairment charge. This quarter’s impairment, tied entirely to Reach Media, totaled $14.2 million. Urban One spent $23.5 million during the quarter repurchasing its 2031 second-lien notes at an average price of 42 cents on the dollar, bringing year-to-date long-term debt reduction to $60.2 million.
