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Radio Revenue Plunges at Major Broadcast Groups

Revenues at CBS Radio fell 19% in the third quarter of 2009, to $318.9 million.

Beasley, too, saw significant drops in the third quarter, with revenue falling 20% to $24.4 million, while Entercom net revenues fell 14%, to just under $100 million, MediaPost reports. Emmis Radio revenue fell 26.5%. Radio One revenue fell the least, down 12%.

Online radio continues to be the bright spot, with SNL Kagan predicting online radio will grow 12% this year, to $441 million; in 2010, online radio revenue will leap by 20%, to $530 million.

ZenithOptimedia predicts that, while global ad spend will inch upwards 0.5% in 2010, radio will not see growth until 2011.

CBS Outdoor’s revenues also tanked, down 23% to $424.9 million.

In terms of television ad sales, CBS said scatter prices in Q4 were up 25% from prices the network pulled in the upfronts. The network held back more inventory than usual during the upfronts, betting that scatter prices would show an improvement.

Overall, CBS returned to profit in Q3, posting a net income of $208 million and earnings of 25 cents per share and beating analyst expectations of 22 cents per share. Revenue fell less than 1%, to $3.35 billion, also beating forecasts.

CBS’s TV segment was up 8.9%, with growth largely coming from a 36% boost in U.S. syndication sales of shows like Medium and Criminal Minds.

TV ad revenue declined 5.4% for the quarter, but ad revenue for the CBS network alone grew slightly, for the first time in 2009.