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Will Clear Channel's slump affect the HD rollout ?

7

700WLW

Guest
"Clear Channel 4Q Profit Slumps"

"Clear Channel Communications Inc., the nation's largest operator of radio stations, said Friday its fourth-quarter earnings tumbled 54 percent as expenses rose ahead of an $18.7 billion planned buyout by a group of private equity firms... Net income dropped to $211.3 million, or 43 cents per share, in the three months ended Dec. 31, from $461.6 million, or 86 cents per share, a year earlier... Expenses, including higher radio programming costs... Frederick Moran, an analyst with the Stanford Group, said the radio industry overall has had little to no growth over the last six years, and whatever cost-cutting was available to help boost profits has been done."

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/070223/earns_clear_channel.html?.v=14

With expensive HD startup-costs and HD generating little, or no revenue, CC's slump partly due to higher radio programming costs and as a major-player in the HD Alliance, is bound to affect the HD rollout - HD programming will certainly not be a priority.
 
700WLW said:
With expensive HD startup-costs and HD generating little, or no revenue, CC's slump partly due to higher radio programming costs and as a major-player in the HD Alliance, is bound to affect the HD rollout - HD programming will certainly not be a priority.
Click to expand...

Of the 650 or so Clear Channel stations post-spin off, the ones that are big enough to be HD (excluding rimshots and lousy AM signals) all are in HD already.

The ongoing fees are insignificant, and the programming cost is born by many staitons... such as the new Pride format aimed at the GLBT community which will be on many stations in communities with large GLBT populations... one origination, many stations carrying the programming.
 
Exactly. You might as well be asking if FM Stereo costs will affect the bottom line. The conversion to HD is DONE. It's not as if they're going to start it tomorrow. Geez!
 
DavidEduardo said:
700WLW said:
With expensive HD startup-costs and HD generating little, or no revenue, CC's slump partly due to higher radio programming costs and as a major-player in the HD Alliance, is bound to affect the HD rollout - HD programming will certainly not be a priority.
Click to expand...

Of the 650 or so Clear Channel stations post-spin off, the ones that are big enough to be HD (excluding rimshots and lousy AM signals) all are in HD already.

The ongoing fees are insignificant, and the programming cost is born by many staitons... such as the new Pride format aimed at the GLBT community which will be on many stations in communities with large GLBT populations... one origination, many stations carrying the programming.
Click to expand...

"HD isn't just for TV anymore"

"Minnesota Public Radio first launched HD Radio in the Twin Cities market in June 2005 and recently expanded to Collegeville, Fargo-Moorhead and Rochester. It plans to bring HD to all of its Minnesota listeners within the next five years, costing $7.2 million. The conversion is contingent on the membership-driven broadcaster raising the necessary funds through donations and government grants... The company estimates it will cost between $100,000 and $150,000 per station, General Manager John Sowada said... Many radio manufacturers have not gone HD, Laudenbach said, and attention around HR radios has been derailed by satellite radio and other technology. Local retailers said HD Radio has been slow to catch on and some question if the technology will take off."

http://www.sctimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070205/NEWS01/102050060/1009/RSS

"Rethinking AM's Future"

"Only 175 or so AM stations have even licensed AM-HD. For a number of reasons, quite a few have tried it and taken it off the air, or so the anecdotal evidence suggests. Ibiquity no longer reports in its public summaries whether a station is on the air. Making AM-HD work well as a long-term investment is seen as an expensive and risky challenge for most stations and their owners. With the bulk of successful AMs airing news, talk and sports, the improved fidelity advantage of HD and stereo seem only marginally attractive. There is the significant downside of potential new interference to some of their own AM analog listeners as well as listeners of adjacent-channel stations. And of course we still have no nighttime authority for AM-HD."

http://www.rwonline.com/pages/s.0044/t.557.html

These up-front and on-goings fees are not insignificant, especially to smaller stations. With the broadcast industry having little, or no growth over the past six years, and with HD/IBOC being a risky and expensive investment (also, due to the lack of any revenue streams from lack consumer interest), and with HD/IBOC being a flawed system, no wonder not many stations outside of the HD Alliance have signed up.
 
Little or no growth? Not true of any of the stations I've worked for in the last several years. But that's beside the point. If your business isn't growing, THAT IS THE TIME TO INVEST IN THE FUTURE, and to explore new ways to serve your customer (listener). Anyone who pulls back when challenged WILL fail. Radio is screwed up in lots of ways, but it ain't run by stupid people!
 
Mike Walker said:
Little or no growth? Not true of any of the stations I've worked for in the last several years. But that's beside the point. If your business isn't growing, THAT IS THE TIME TO INVEST IN THE FUTURE, and to explore new ways to serve your customer (listener). Anyone who pulls back when challenged WILL fail. Radio is screwed up in lots of ways, but it ain't run by stupid people!
Click to expand...

It is clear that like in most businesses, it is not the engineers that run it, either.

It is unfortunate that not more owners are from an engineering background.

Otherwise, we'd probably have great AM stereo everywhere.

I was tuning around a little tonight, and the muddy AM these days is really, really sad.
 
Mike Walker said:
Little or no growth? Not true of any of the stations I've worked for in the last several years. But that's beside the point. If your business isn't growing, THAT IS THE TIME TO INVEST IN THE FUTURE, and to explore new ways to serve your customer (listener). Anyone who pulls back when challenged WILL fail. Radio is screwed up in lots of ways, but it ain't run by stupid people!
Click to expand...

I agree, radio is screwed up in a lot of ways, and that some that run it are not stupid, just distracted by pleasing Wall Street, ad agencies, and not listeners (which seem to be the lowest priority of the three).
Investing in the future is not synonymous with HD Radio, but the antithesis. High Disaster radio is just a spectral train wreck.
Digital radio is not the same as adjacent channel HD Radio.
Please the listeners, and the rest will follow.

Mike also said:
The conversion to HD is DONE.
Click to expand...

Good. Since there will be no more stations converting to HD, I can now focus my attention to eliminating the existing air polluters.
 
The "conversion to HD is done" by CLEAR CHANNEL. You knew what I meant. Geez!

Maybe Clear Channel going private will result in less trying to impress Wall Street, and more doing what's right. As much as I hate Clear Channel, there are some great (individual) people there. You don't become that big by doing EVERYTHING wrong. Only most things ;)
 
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