News & Events

BIA Sees No Promise for TV Station Revenue Unless Industry Transforms Itself; Six Years of Income Around $20 Billion Will Dip Into Teens In 2009 and Beyond

-21.2 Percent Drop Between 2007-09 Shows Effect of Economy and Shifting Trends  

CHANTILLY, VA. May 4, 2009 – Revenue in the television industry will take a dramatic fall below the $20 billion mark starting this year. After six years with industry revenue hovering between $20-22 billion, 2009 is expected to end at an even $17 billion in revenues, a -21.2 percent drop in two years from 2007’s $21.5 billion, according to BIA Advisory Services’ first edition of its quarterly Investing In Television® Market Report.

BIA’s data found that several markets in 2008 showed surprising positive revenue streams due to fierce Presidential and Congressional campaigns in battleground states. This enabled only a -6.6 percent revenue decline by the end of the year.

"Since 2003 TV revenues have held steady but are now beginning a dramatic downward shift. This corroborates our calls for transformation as the only path to expansion for the industry," said Mark R. Fratrik, Ph.D., Vice President, BIA Advisory Services. “This will come from cross-platform growth and real energies put into finding local advertising revenues available through mobile and online advertising.”

The chart below shows television station revenues from 2004-2008 and BIA’s projections for 2009 and 2010.

. 

Analysts at BIA forecast a slight positive revenue increase in 2010 of .6 percent, attributed to an election year and a recovering economy. Preliminary forecasting expects a dip into the negatives again in 2011 before a solid return to positive revenue streams in 2012. That year is when BIA research for the NAB FASTROAD project estimates that an additional $1.1 billion in ad revenues alone could come to local television stations from providing mobile video programming to cellular, mobile, and portable handsets as a way of capitalizing on time-shifts in viewing patterns and the public’s increased desire to download programming. This topic will be front and center at “Winning Media Strategies,” BIA’s new conference focusing on traditional media’s financial struggles and how it must transform within the changing media ecosystem. Television operators need to understand the changes underway, the impact on advertisers, what innovative companies are doing, and who they can partner with in order to become viable media companies in the coming years. Details about the program can be found at www.bia.com/WMS.

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

For more information, call 800.331.5086 or email info@bia.com.