Urban One CEO Alfred Liggins says his radio division revenue in Q4 will be up double digits and he feels more optimistic heading into a new year than he has in a long time. Urban One’s radio stations are pacing up 20% for Q4, 10% excluding political. Liggins admits a big chunk of Q4 growth has to do with political advertising but says the other factors include strong ratings in Washington and Atlanta and a market resurgence in Houston.
In Q3 Urban One’s radio division was up 1.7%. You have to take into account that the company picked up $800,000 in revenue from WTEM-AM (The Team 980) in DC, which was purchased from Red Zebra back in May. Urban One also sold WPZR-FM (Praise 102.7) in Detroit to EMF and kept more revenue than expected when it retained The Praise format on three translators in that market.
Liggins said he was very pleased with the third-quarter results and the back half of 2018 is very promising. Radio One outperformed Miller Kaplan numbers in eight of the markets it operates in Q3. Strong categories included Government Services, Automotive, Entertainment, and Health Care. Under-performing categories were Telecom, Retail, and Food & Beverage.
Urban One has $7.1 million in political advertising booked so far for the year, the most ever in a non-presidential year. $4.4 million of that is in Q4.
While Liggins said there’s really no way to handicap market growth, he’s looking forward to next year. “If this year is any guide, 2020 is going to be very good. I’m very optimistic.”
