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Scottish Radio Holdings trading statement
LFL revenue growth was much lower in the first half of this year (to September 2005) than last year and down to just 3% for radio but even this is a fairly good performance given that radio advertising rates and audiences have been under pressure in recent months. This is largely a result of SRH’s dependence on local rather than national radio ad revenues. The latter actually weakened broadly in line with what we expect from the industry.
Newspaper advertising did better, up 8% LFL, almost in line with last year but slower subscription revenues growth (unsurprising) and the lower growth in radio have meant that group LFL growth was just 4%. With the effects of acquisitions radio revenues total revenue growth was 11%. This is not much lower than last year’s 14% but it is driven primarily by acquisitions whereas last year’s growth was driven primarily by organic growth/
We will not know until the results are announced in May whether margins have weakened any further, as they did last year, but given generally lower radio advertising rates it remains a distinct possibility.
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