38% of broadcast engineers have been laid off around the country in 2009. TV stations are automating production studio control rooms, consolidating master control rooms to giant server farms, using LNS and one-man-bands to cut ENG crews, all to eliminate even more engineering positions.
At the same time broadcast company stock prices, despite claims of massive loss of advertizing revenue, have had dramatic increases in 2009.
At NewsCorp, the stock price jumped 66.18%
Disney's stock rose 42.13%
CBS stock is up 71%
Of the four major networks only GE, parent of NBC showed a stock price drop in 2009, the share price falling - 6.6%.
Employees at all these companies have endured layoffs, wage freezes, and benefit reductions, while executives recieve big bonuses and the stock price soars.
BD
See the article from Radio/TV Business Report below for details.
What a difference a year makes! The advertising recession dragged radio and television stocks down in 2008, with what turned out to be the bottom of the trough coming in late November of ’08. 2009 did not bring a quick recovery from the recession, but as soon as Wall Street got the scent of a recovery, advertising-dependent stocks surged.
If you look at the graphs below, you will see that stock price recovery beginning in late summer and building to a powerful rally in Q4. The TVBR Television Index closed out its second year of existence by surging to an all-time high on the next to last day of 2009, then slipping back only slight to close the year with a gain of 414.8%.
Television stock performance 2009
Television 12/31/08 12/31/09 2009 2009
Company Close Close Net Chg Pct Chg
Nexstar 0.51 4.05 3.54 694.12%
SBS 0.10 0.78 0.68 680.00%
Television Index 26.04 134.08 108.04 414.84%
Media General 1.75 7.84 6.09 348.00%
LIN Television 1.09 4.46 3.37 309.17%
Gray (common) 0.40 1.50 1.10 275.00%
Belo 1.56 5.44 3.88 248.72%
Scripps 2.21 6.96 4.75 214.93%
Gray, Cl. A 0.58 1.50 0.92 158.62%
Entravision 1.56 3.40 1.84 117.95%
Google 307.65 619.98 312.33 101.52%
Saga* 6.60 12.54 5.94 90.00%
Gannett 8.00 14.85 6.85 85.63%
Meredith 17.12 30.85 13.73 80.20%
CBS Cl. B 8.19 14.05 5.86 71.55%
CBS Cl. A 8.24 14.07 5.83 70.75%
News Corp. 9.58 15.92 6.34 66.18%
Journal 2.45 3.89 1.44 58.78%
McGraw-Hill 23.19 33.51 10.32 44.50%
Disney 22.69 32.25 9.56 42.13%
Sinclair 3.10 4.03 0.93 30.00%
ACME 0.40 0.50 0.10 25.00%
Wash. Post 390.25 439.60 49.35 12.65%
Time Warner** 30.18 29.14 -1.04 -3.45%
General Elec. 16.20 15.13 -1.07 -6.60%
Fisher 20.64 16.25 -4.39 -21.27%
Young 0.03 0.0 -0.02 -66.67%
*adjusted for 1 for 4 reverse split 1/28
**adjusted for 1 for 3 reverse split 3/27
It spent much of 2009 in financial wheeling and dealing to avoid any technical default under its credit agreements which could have landed it in the clutches of vulture capital funds who are bent on seeing it have to file Chapter 11 so they can grab assets on the cheap from their investments in deeply discounted Clear Channel debt.
In the most recent chapter of that drama, a Clear Channel Outdoor subsidiary sold $2.5 billion of new bonds and helped its parent company spruce up its balance sheet. At the same time, Clear Channel Radio reported that December revenues were pacing up from a year ago, so it appears the recovery is real and the vultures will have to go away hungry.
– Jack Messmer
No comments:
Post a Comment