Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator Instructions) Your first question comes from Victor Miller – Bear Stearns & Co.
Victor Miller – Bear Stearns & Co.
Jeff, you said you’re seeing signs of the bottom, you thought that definitely has been something you’ve been seeing for months and you feel better about it now. But, you’re still seeing pacing down 6% for the next quarter so can you talk about why you are comfortable with that?
Secondly, you talked about Pat, being in line with the markets ex the guarantees, that sounded obviously like the market would have been down otherwise so how do we look at that -6% we’re looking at second quarter for domestic in light of what the impact would be on a pro forma basis including those revenue guarantees? And lastly Pat, could you just go over ex the sale of the New Orleans TV station, what does the balance sheet look like there and what does the leverage look like?
Jeffrey H. Smulyan
Victor, the first question obviously we felt a few months ago that we were at the bottom. The company in the last quarter has continued now to catch its peers and as we’ve said we feel that it will beat its peers this year. More than that, the number of initiatives we’ve taken corporately and as an industry, we think are starting to change the landscape against the back drop of an economy that is clearly off, in an industry which has been pacing down.
We think it’s going to be a while but we also believe some of the steps we’re taking with Interactive, with our Broadcasters’ Traffic Consortium, some of the programming steps we’ve taken especially in New York and the sales initiatives; we think this is turning around. More so with the company than with the industry but, we think the industry is starting to move forward too.
Patrick Walsh
Victor, in terms of the pacing in the fourth quarter, we’re pacing down 6%. We do have certain national revenue guarantees during fiscal 2009 so we anticipate our results will be better than down 6% but I wouldn’t say it will be as profound as the uptick was during the fourth quarter where our domestic radio stations performed in line with markets that were down 5%. But, as you see, we reported net revenues up 3%. I don’t think the impact of the first quarter of any revenue guarantees that we recognize will be that pronounced.
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