Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
Your first question comes from Victor Miller with Bear Stearns.
Victor Miller - Bear Stearns
Good afternoon. Thanks for taking the question. Evan, maybe you could help us, and Ed, 100% growth in non-broadcast, 15% in national. You did give some hints on what was going on with local with your Teaching and Talk, but maybe talk about how much local must have been down to make the math what it was for the quarter? And then, Evan, maybe you can remind us what is your local/national mix up to now in terms of revenue?
And, Ed, maybe you can give a little bit more insight on,-- seems to be persistence right now that you're in a period of the company's growth where expenses are outstripping the growth of revenue pretty consistently. I am wondering when you think that might actually revert back to what we were used to maybe in the three-year stretch between '03 and '05 may be? Thanks.
Evan Masyr
In terms for the numbers, local spot revenue total for the quarter ended December 31, 2005 was $22.18 million. For the quarter ended December 31, 2006, was $22.9 million, so basically flat in total. If you drill within that by format, we had mid-single digit growth in local spot revenues on our Contemporary Christian Music stations. We had double-digit growth in local spot revenues on our News Talk stations.
The weak piece was the Christian Teaching and Talk stations. Local spot in those stations was down 10% in the quarter. Two primary reasons for that, the first is we suffered from the sales staff and sales leadership turnover in a few markets but most notably New York which was obviously a very important market for us. We think that we've mainly filled those holes and remedied those gaps. The other area of softness was the mortgage category which was down quite a lot from a year ago reflecting the changing market for homes and mortgages. I think that's the specifics of the numbers, Victor.
Edward Atsinger, III
Victor, to answer your question about the local national mix, overall we're about 80% local.
Victor Miller - Bear Stearns
Okay.
Edward Atsinger, III
With regard to your question about the expenses sort of out of sync with what they've been in the past, we have simply recognized we have to bite the bullet and spend more marketing on our particularly News Talk stations. We've worked for a year or two trying to really get the product right, and it is important now that we feel good about the product that we begin to put some marketing muscle behind them. I think what we hope will happen is that we can continue to sustain the marketing budget, but that the revenues will grow so that the relationship between expenses and revenue will return to something approaching the historical ratio that we've had in the past.
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