Clear Channel Cuts Won?t Affect Local Stations Much

Tony Beringer, the local market manager for publicly traded Clear Channel Communications Inc., said the corporation’s new initiative to limit advertising time on its more than 1,200 stations will probably only reduce commercial loads by 10 percent on the nine stations he manages.

That’s because the San Antonio firm’s four Northwest Arkansas and five Arkansas River Valley stations previously self-imposed ad air-time limits. That’s part of the reason they’ve enjoyed such ratings success, Beringer said.

“The ‘less is more’ initiative is a big deal,” Beringer said. “But it affects larger markets more than those of our size, because they have escalated their spot loads in recent years, and we really haven’t done that here.”

Clear Channel announced this summer that it plans to cut 19 percent of its advertising inventory nationwide by Jan. 1. The exact percentage per station will vary.

Radio stations are wrestling with ways to counter less interruptive competitors, such as satellite radio and compact discs. Laraine Mancini, an analyst with Merrill Lynch, lauded Clear Channel’s move in a recent report saying “there is an oversupply of [advertising] inventory.”

Commercial loads had been climbing for years, the Indianapolis Business Journal recently reported, averaging 15 to 18 minutes an hour on FM stations and 18 to 20 minutes on the AMs. Beringer said unlike major markets that sell more 60-second spots, the local stations’ popular 30-second ads are less affected by the transition.