Audacy stock price

[davideduardo]

Radio is not a growth industry but Wall Street investors demand endless growth so the companies always try to buy their way to more growth once the business inevitably plateaus, and they take on debt beyond their means.

That is not true. If you look at the largest mutual funds, you see a combination of growth and income being the largest, while income alone or growth alone are the second and third place. Many investors want growth that keeps pace with inflation plus income to live on, for example.

The outcome is predictable, everyone will get screwed except, of course, the top executives who will still get their fat bonuses or at least obscene golden parachutes on their way out the door.

Interestingly, the only pure radio stock that has increased in value during the last 5 years is Saga, which was a slow-growth dividend paying stock from a company that expanded prudently only by using earnings to grow.

 

[TheBigA]

Interestingly, the only pure radio stock that has increased in value during the last 5 years is Saga, which was a slow-growth dividend paying stock from a company that expanded prudently only by using earnings to grow.

Entercom used to be that kind of company.

 

[Kelly A]

Interestingly, the only pure radio stock that has increased in value during the last 5 years is Saga, which was a slow-growth dividend paying stock from a company that expanded prudently only by using earnings to grow.

And that's the push-pull with being a publicly traded-anything; slow growth isn't preferred because there isn't opportunity for get-rich-quick. Also, any business that attains a certain size, needs to look at diversification options. Especially if it involves something tech-related.

 

[MarkW]

Interestingly, the only pure radio stock that has increased in value during the last 5 years is Saga, which was a slow-growth dividend paying stock from a company that expanded prudently only by using earnings to grow.

Exactly!

Saga didn't borrow hundreds of millions from lenders to fund large, heavily levered acquisitions. In fact, Saga has been rather inactive with regard to acquisition activity over the past 15 years (perhaps longer). Saga also mines advertising relationships with local and regional businesses more efficaciously than the mega corporations, in some instances. Operationally and fiscally, it is a well run company.

KLH/Hometown Rock and 102.9 The Hog in Milwaukee, WAQY in Springfield, MA and QFM 96 in Columbus, OH are some of the great stations they own.

 

[JeremyAndrews]

Saga isn’t trying to be a multimedia platform with music streaming, podcasting, events with radio somewhere in there. They do radio. They know how to do radio. They know how to get advertisers on radio. Less distraction from their core business model.

 

[TheBigA]

Saga isn’t trying to be a multimedia platform with music streaming, podcasting, events with radio somewhere in there. They do radio. They know how to do radio. They know how to get advertisers on radio. Less distraction from their core business model.

They're also a much smaller group (a little over 100 stations) mostly in small markets. We'll see how they do now with a new CEO.

 

[101tm]

Doesn’t Saga have a different management structure than most other companies? I’ve noticed their local/individual markets are often called things like (for example) “Lowcountry Radio Group.”

ETM was a strong stock 5-6 years ago while the others were faltering indeed. Entercom grew pretty slowly in the 21st century, they generally grew by purchasing more signals in existing markets that were complimentary and buying smaller large-market stations previously owned by CBS in the mid-2000s.

 

[davideduardo]

Doesn’t Saga have a different management structure than most other companies? I’ve noticed their local/individual markets are often called things like (for example) “Lowcountry Radio Group.”

In some cases, if a station purchase is a stock sale, the parent group buys the shares and keeps the corporate name to avoid the fees for name changes.

 

[Kelly A]

Saga isn’t trying to be a multimedia platform with music streaming, podcasting, events with radio somewhere in there.

They do radio. They know how to do radio. They know how to get advertisers on radio. Less distraction from their core business model.

These days having only one core business makes not only the company less attractive to lenders/investors, it makes the company vulnerable to adverse changes in that small universe. Our various conversations on this board where Walmart has replaced the local grocery stores, Home Depot the local hardware stores, and on-line auto sales is eliminating the local car dealers is just one small example. All these businesses were the bread and butter of local radio. You can still be in the media business and be attractive to investors, it can't be just radio only.
As David mentioned in another thread: You can have great ratings in your core demographics, your station is always on in the local salon, the community loves you on a regular basis, but if there are no advertising support around all those listeners, you're fighting an uphill battle which ultimately you'll lose.

 

[TheBigA]

These days having only one core business makes not only the company less attractive to lenders/investors, it makes the company vulnerable to adverse changes in that small universe.

There are different types of investors. There are those looking for the quick profit. But there are a lot of buy and hold folks. I fall into that category. I buy & hold. Fortunately it's worked for me. I sense some of the Saga and Entercom investors were buy & hold people too. Then Entercom bought CBS Radio, changed its name to Audacy, and became a different company. Those longtime investors had a decision to make. I wonder how many of those longtime investors are still there.

 

[JeremyAndrews]

These days having only one core business makes not only the company less attractive to lenders/investors, it makes the company vulnerable to adverse changes in that small universe. Our various conversations on this board where Walmart has replaced the local grocery stores, Home Depot the local hardware stores, and on-line auto sales is eliminating the local car dealers is just one small example. All these businesses were the bread and butter of local radio. You can still be in the media business and be attractive to investors, it can't be just radio only.
As David mentioned in another thread: You can have great ratings in your core demographics, your station is always on in the local salon, the community loves you on a regular basis, but if there are no advertising support around all those listeners, you're fighting an uphill battle which ultimately you'll lose.

Audacy and iHeart are living in a “Radio is history. Podcasting is the future. Radio is done. Focus on digital” mindset.

Saga and their advertisers are not. They’ve been just doing what they always did. The advertisers are happy, listeners are happy. A lot of Saga stations don’t even stream, although fewer and fewer don’t now with more and more people using it. Whatever they have been doing seems to have been working just fine. The local cluster here just put local people on in the evenings, replacing syndication.

And yes, Entercom was generally doing pretty well or at least OK. Then they bought CBS and decided they were iHeart. Firing people. Renaming the company after their streaming platform. Syndicating generic programming everywhere. Now it’s backfiring on them. Go check the reviews in the app stores. Nobody likes it.

 

[TheBigA]

Saga and their advertisers are not. They’ve been just doing what they always did.

It's easier to do in smaller markets.

 

[davideduardo]

There are different types of investors. There are those looking for the quick profit. But there are a lot of buy and hold folks.

But those are, today, a small minority. Most individual investors by funds; only those with several million in an account can have a private investment advisor who / that buys individual stocks and bonds. The vast majority of shares are held by funds the public can buy or by state, city, university and union retirement funds.

I fall into that category. I buy & hold. Fortunately it's worked for me. I sense some of the Saga and Entercom investors were buy & hold people too. Then Entercom bought CBS Radio, changed its name to Audacy, and became a different company. Those longtime investors had a decision to make. I wonder how many of those longtime investors are still there.

Most individual investors buy one or a number of services, starting with ones like Morningstar, and when they see negative changes, they are gone.

 

[Kelly A]

Audacy and iHeart are living in a “Radio is history. Podcasting is the future. Radio is done. Focus on digital” mindset.

Uh, iHeart is huge into Podcasting. It's a major division of the company.

Saga and their advertisers are not. They’ve been just doing what they always did. The advertisers are happy, listeners are happy. A lot of Saga stations don’t even stream, although fewer and fewer don’t now with more and more people using it. Whatever they have been doing seems to have been working just fine. The local cluster here just put local people on in the evenings, replacing syndication.

That's great for now. Now is not a long-term strategy. One only needs to look at the state of AM radio these days.

 

[davideduardo]

Audacy and iHeart are living in a “Radio is history. Podcasting is the future. Radio is done. Focus on digital” mindset.

But, for the moment... and until rights payments change... podcasts are spoken word, not music based. The cost of licensing music for podcasts is nearly prohibitive, so that is why there are few if any significant music podcasts.

 

[CassChopper96]

Hubbard and Besealy has handled consolidation pretty well. I believe Hubbard gets a decent amount of the market revenue in seattle and cincinatti.

 

[JeremyAndrews]

Uh, iHeart is huge into Podcasting. It's a major division of the company.

That's great for now. Now is not a long-term strategy. One only needs to look at the state of AM radio these days.

Unlike Audacy, iHeart has had their platform for almost 15 years. They’ve had time to figure out how to ease podcasting in.

Audacy literally took CBS Radio’s junk app (First called CBS Radio, then Radio.com) and rebranded it again. It was never a good app or platform. In the CBS days it would always crash. Entercom improved the crashing initially, but they did not improve their platform. They’re trying in every way possible to copy iHeart.

They put so much effort into the brand and adding podcasting, but they don’t think about the content from their radio stations or about making it user friendly. Biggest complaints I hear are it’s not working or it gets stuck in a commercial loop and doesn’t return to the show. It angers people.

iHeart is also not the most stable company to look up to.

 

[TheBigA]

Unlike Audacy, iHeart has had their platform for almost 15 years. They’ve had time to figure out how to ease podcasting in.

Your post seems to confuse podcasting with streaming. Those are two different things. iHeart & Audacy do both.

But your reference to the Audacy app and the platform crashing has to do with streaming.

With regards to podcasting, Audacy has been buying outside platforms such as Moonbeam & Podcorn:

Audacy Buys Podcast Discovery App And Technology Firm Moonbeam.

Moonbeam, the year-old technology company created by tech entrepreneur Paul English, has been acquired by Audacy. Terms of the deal have not yet been made public, but English says the

www.insideradio.com

The view may be that spending money on outside companies isn't the right approach. iHeart hasn't gone this way. They built their own internal system, branded it as iHeart, and manage it more like a radio network.

 

[JeremyAndrews]

I was referencing both. They have been buying podcast platforms instead of improving their existing service. They should be focusing on that. They already saw what buying CBS did for them.

 

[TheBigA]

I was referencing both. They have been buying podcast platforms instead of improving their existing service. They should be focusing on that. They already saw what buying CBS did for them.

Maybe I'm missing something here, but the money for podcasting isn't in the platform. If you go to the Audacy podcasting platform, you mainly see podcasts from other companies. Would you listen to Joe Rogan or This American Life on Audacy? Why would you? You can listen to those shows anywhere. What Audacy isn't doing is developing popular content. You look at the Top 10 most popular podcasts, and you don't see Audacy at all. You instead see iHeart, NPR, and The New York Times.