As the economy went on life support last year, the adult contemporary radio station WEBE-108 was bolstered by one of the few advertising sectors to remain stable ”“ health care.
In a year during which much of the radio industry staggered under the recession, WEBE-108 had a “very strong” year in the words of station general manager Ann McManus, thanks in part to ad spending by area hospitals. She attributed that in part also to the station”™s ability to reach large numbers of listeners in southwest Connecticut via its 50,000-watt broadcast signal, as opposed to the highly fragmented newspaper market in Fairfield County.
McManus”™ assessment was reinforced by the most recent ratings for the Stamford-Norwalk area by Arbitron Inc., which leapfrogged the station into a first-place tie with New York City giant WCBS-AM, though McManus herself said the Arbitron ratings can be misleading due to the small geographic markets they attempt to capture.
The commercial radio market in Fairfield County is dominated by three companies: Cox Media Group, which owns five stations; Cumulus Media, which has four including WEBE-108; and Danbury-based Berkshire Broadcasting Corp., which has three.
The industry”™s woes were perhaps best illustrated last March, after Credit Suisse decided to pull the plug on the Connecticut School of Broadcasting (CSB).
A few weeks after an accompanying bankruptcy filing, CSB founder Dick Robinson said he had put together a syndicate of investors to purchase the company and reopen a dozen of the 26 campuses that were shut down, including in Stratford and in Farmington where CSB is now based.
“There was nobody anywhere up and down the broadcasting food chain who ended 2009 without being battered by one of the worst years in recent media history,” wrote Scott Fybush, the Rochester, N.Y.-based publisher of Northeast Radio Watch, in a recent posting.
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CBS Radio opened 2009 with layoffs at WTIC in Hartford, Fybush noted, with Clear Channel and Citadel following suit in their own stations in the region.
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Clear Channel subsequently sold its WURH (104.1 FM) station in Hartford to John Fuller for $8 million.
Through the first three quarters of 2009, radio revenue nationally was off 23 percent to $9.7 billion, according to an analysis by North Hollywood, Calif.-based Miller, Kaplan, Arase & Co. published by the Radio Advertising Bureau. RAB said the tide appeared to be turning in the second half of 2009, however. Norwalk-based Diageo North America nearly tripled its radio advertising nationally in the third quarter compared with a year earlier, with Milford-based Subway among the companies also heavily investing in radio spots.
“As the (third) quarter came to a close, it showed promise of an upswing in advertising spend by marketers,” said Jeff Haley, CEO of RAB, in a prepared statement.
As ranked by radio listeners, the Stamford-Norwalk area barely cracks the top 150 markets in the country, according to Arbitron, which moved its headquarters last year from New York City to Columbia, Md.
News and talk radio remains the top format nationally, according to Arbitron, but classic hits has been the fastest growing format the past few years.
Despite the influx of competing technologies like satellite radio and portable music players like iPods, terrestrial radio remains a powerful ad conduit. Arbitron estimates that nine in 10 adults listen to the radio each week.