Are Radio CEOs 'In Denial'?

Analyst Jim Boyle:
What are radio leaders doing to change direction? Not much, it seems
to us.

Denial ain't just a river in EGYPT. Well, CL KING & ASSOCIATES
analyst JIM BOYLE didn't write that -- but he did say yesterday in
an update to clients that WALL STREET projections for a 4% decline
in JULY for radio would more likely be reported by the RAB to be a 6
or 7% percent revenue decline. It would be the 15th straight month
of down revenue for radio.

In JULY data BOYLE has seen, the average large market was down 7%,
mid-sized markets were off 5%, but small markets were up 2%.

"Radio has entered and seems stuck in a new, discouraging territory
with the combined challenges of a secular slide and cyclical
recessionary times," wrote BOYLE, continuing that the "gap has
remained very wide" between small and large market radio, with
smaller markets consistently outperforming their larger brethren.
"What are radio leaders doing to change direction? Not much, it
seems to us. The industry's larger groups do not appear ready to
institute revolutionary changes yet in sales, programming,
promotion, or station clusters. There is a notable sense of denial
of how harsh the prospects have been and continue to be for radio."

"The classic CEO reply is [that] radio is not bleeding as badly as
newspapers, continued BOYLE. "We concede there is too little radio
ad demand, but there is also too little rate card integrity and too
little investment in radio's product and people for the long term.
It very much looks to us as all rear-guard counterpunching