Clear Channel Communications [NYSE: CCU] 3Q06 revenue rose to $1.8 billion, up 7 percent from the previous year; the increase would have been 6 percent without a foreign currency bump. Earnings before discontinued operations was $0.38 per share, up 19 percent compared to $0.32 per share the previous year, but actual profit was down nearly 10 percent to $185.9 million, or $0.38 per share compared to a profit last year of $205.5 million, also $0.38 per share. Increased expenses were a drag.
Last week, Clear Channel hired Goldman Sachs to look into strategic alternatives amid rumors of a possible private equity offer; this week CEO Mark Mary took pains to position the company as “one of the best performing companies in the media industry.”
— Radio was up 5 percent on an increase in national ad revenues and an increase of 30 and 15 second spots as a percent of total minutes sold. year over year.
— Online numbers aren’t broken our in the release but we should have some details following the call.
Release | Webcast
On the sale front: WSJ reports that the Mays family could make more than $1.1 billion from a possible sale of the company plus $80 million or more in severance. The family owns 7 percent of the company. At least two consortia are said to be bidding on Clear Channel: one group includes Providence Equity Partners, Blackstone Group and KKR; the other is led by Thomas H. Lee Partners and may include Texas Pacific Group and Bain Capital LLC. A third group including Apollo Management LP and Carlyle Group may get involved.
Update: From the earnings call via SeekingAlpha transcript: Mark Mays, CEO: “The Internet business is a bigger part of our business. It is by far the fastest-growing sector of our business. It is not the only revenue stream that is what we call an additional revenue stream. As we have said before, if you aggregate all those revenue streams that we call new initiatives they’re less than 5%. However, we haven’t quantified exactly what the internet revenue stream is in a public environment, and I don’t think we’re ready to do that right here right now, today. But you should know that it is going to become a faster growing revenue stream, while not significant today, it is fast and will continue to grow. We would hope that over the next few years it becomes a significant portion of the revenue stream.”
John Hogan, CEO, Clear Channel Radio “I think the interesting thing for us is that we view ourselves as a content creation and distribution company and we are not particularly tied to any one platform. We look at the internet as a terrific extension of our ability to connect advertisers with listeners, and as Mark said, we have seen very rapid growth in the internet sector for us over the last year, and I believe that we are in the very early stages of our success on the online piece. As we look into Q4 and 2007 and beyond, we expect that the online portion of our business will continue to grow and be a great complement to our terrestrial business.”
Subscriber content
?
Subscriber content comes from Gigaom Research, bridging the gap between breaking news and long-tail research. Visit any of our reports to learn more and subscribe.
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Comments have been disabled for this post