Friday’s trading on Wall Street was full of downward momentum for publicly traded radio and television companies, with Nexstar Media Group and Sinclair Broadcast Group leading the decliners. In contrast, Townsquare Media was up.
However, the biggest news of the day was a 46.2% day-over-day decline for Audacy Corp. stock.
At the Closing Bell, it finished at just $0.0890 on exceptionally heavy volume of 8.75 million.
While Audacy’s immediate after-hours trading saw bargain seekers jumping in to buy shares, bringing AUD to $0.1098 as of 5:09pm Eastern, the regular session on the NYSE saw volume at 10 times the average.
That’s damaging news for Blackrock Inc., Audacy’s biggest institutional investor at nearly 8 million shares, representing 5.67% equity interest in the audio content creation and distribution company.
Trading on Friday was also sour for Cumulus Media, which saw shares drop by 6.4% to $3.98. That said, broadcast television companies were also the victim of steep dips in trading.
The E.W. Scripps Co. saw its shares fall by 6.5% to $8.75, while Sinclair shares were off 10.9% on word that the Texas Rangers and Arizona Diamondbacks may cut ties with Bally Sports regional sports networks owned by Diamond Sports Group, the Sinclair subsidiary. DSG earlier this week filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
Gray Television shares are now at $8.36, after a 6.9% drop; Nexstar stock is now at $159.20, down 3%.
The lone company to see upward momentum on Friday is Townsquare Media.
On higher than normal volume of 71,450 shares, TSQ was up 4.5% to $8.63.
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