TV Station Revenues Continue To Slide; BIA Now Expects 17% Decline from 2008

CHANTILLY, Va.--(EON: Enhanced Online News)--With television station revenues continuing to slide downward, primarily due to the economy, BIA Advisory Services has revised its earlier projected revenue estimates for 2009 to $16.6 billion, a 17.3 percent decline from 2008 and a return to a level not seen since 1995. The second edition of BIA’s quarterly Investing In Television® Market Report also shows a slowdown of transactions within the industry to $453 million – or 45 stations – for the first half of the year, a slight increase over the same time last year, and an indication that buyers and sellers are waiting for the economy to improve.

“We believe that companies are waiting on the sidelines for an improved economy and for the right opportunities to make strategic acquisitions.”

“Transactions have slowed to an anemic pace and reflect the general lack of financing currently available for stations and broadcast groups and the poor industry attitude,” said Mark R. Fratrik, Ph.D., Vice President, BIA Advisory Services. “We believe that companies are waiting on the sidelines for an improved economy and for the right opportunities to make strategic acquisitions.”

BIA continues to emphasize that local TV stations will see a return to profitability the quicker they see themselves as local information and entertainment companies rather than simply television transmitters. As explored during BIA’s “Winning Media Strategies” conference in May, broadcasters have extraordinary opportunities to parlay their local content with the public through multiple digital platforms. They also have the ability to use their local sales staff to cross-promote events and programs for advertisers that need to reach the community.

“We are very optimistic about the online revenue potentials for television broadcasters, particularly as they step-up their mobile and Internet offerings,” said Michael Boland, mobile local media analyst for BIA’s The Kelsey Group. “We project the industry will see Internet revenues of $556 million in 2009, moving up to $1.1 billion by 2013. This represents 19.7 percent compounded annual growth rate for online television broadcasting advertising alone.”

Ultimately, the future strength of the broadcast industry as a whole may lie in the hands of the new leadership of the Federal Communications Commission, which should revisit the cross-ownership and local ownership rules.

“With local media companies dying on the vine and the television industry, in particular, hamstrung in many large and small markets, it seems like a good time to explore the steps to save local media outlets, including the elimination of media cross-ownership and local ownership rules,” said Tom Buono, CEO of BIA. “The role local media outlets play in their markets is critical, and local content origination is important to all residents of a community. As this media ecosystem has changed and the advertising marketplace contracted, immediate government intervention to allow media companies to survive and prosper is clearly in the public’s best interest.”

BIA posts a monthly update of television station values and transactions on its web site at http://www.bia.com/resources_trends.asp.

Investing in Television now provides comprehensive listings of all digital television stations, including all full power stations and their final position allocations now that the digital conversation has passed. The guide also continues to include the lower power and Class A stations that are operating on analogue signals. BIA also continues to monitor the 381 stations that have secondary multicast program signals, in addition to the 1,600 plus full power stations.

A comprehensive profile of all 210 television markets (plus Puerto Rico) and television market projections through 2013 are available in the first-quarter edition of Investing In Television^® Market Report published by BIA Advisory Services and the 2009 Investing In Television^® Ownership Report. Both publications are part of the Investing Infinancial guide series that includes market trend analysis, demographic and economic overviews, competitive overviews, technical data, ownership data, pending and completed transactions, and Arbitron ratings. Information on these publications is available on the BIA Web site at http://www.bia.com/publications_reference_tv.asp.

BIA also provides the Investing In Television^® Pocket Guide, a convenient, abbreviated portable reference guide to all of the television markets. The compact design of the guides allows readers to rapidly identify key markets and important station details. BIA also publishes investment reference guides and provides data services for the television and newspaper industries. For more information, call 800.331.5086 or email info@bia.com.

BIA also publishes investment reference guides and provides data services for the television and newspaper industries. For more information, call 800.331.5086 or email info@bia.com.

The full press release and a chart with television station revenues from 2003-2008 and BIA’s projections through 2013 is available at http://www.bia.com/pr090701-TVrevenues.asp.

About BIA Advisory Services, LLC

BIA Advisory Services, LLC, a subsidiary of BIA Financial Network, provides research, data, analysis, and financial and strategic consulting to media, telecommunications, technology, directory publishing, and local search companies. BIA Advisory Services includes: The Kelsey Group, experts in traditional and online local media and advertising; BIA Research, providers of competitive and comparative market information and analysis through data services, specialized reporting, engineering studies and mapping; and, BIA Consulting, specialists in business intelligence and corporate growth strategy, and the nation’s leading communications appraisal and valuation firm. Additional information is available at www.bia.com. BIA’s blog is located http://blog.bia.com/bia and the company can be found on Twitter http://twitter.com/BIAfn.