Broadcasting Stocks

It's been a challenging year for radio industry pure-play Saga Communications. But, after a late October 2019 dip of its stock to nearly $17 a share, this audio-focused company appears to be in recovery mode. How it performed in the final three months of 2020 will be made known on the second Friday in March.

The revenue decline remains in the double digits. But, the results point to a good, if not great, quarter-by-quarter recovery from the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic's economic carnage on broadcast radio in Canada. That's the story Montréal-based Cogeco is sharing with respect to its just-released fiscal Q1 2021 results.

Beasley Broadcast Group shares finished Thursday's trading at $1.97, rising 4.8% as the media company in eSports and radio programming disclosed an early look at its Q4 2020 results that are decidedly positive.

It's a big deal for attracting institutional investors, and Townsquare Media had previously announced that its CEO, Bill Wilson, would be presenting. Now, two of its audio media industry peers have revealed they, too, will be presenting at NobleCon17.

Townsquare Media's CEO will present at Noble Capital Markets' 17th annual investor conference on January 19. The presentation will begin 30 minutes after the closing bell on Wall Street chimes.

The biggest licensee of radio stations in the U.S. has completed an exchange of warrants into shares of its Class A or Class B common stock. Here's what this means for iHeartMedia.

From July 13 to November 5, 2020, Townsquare Media shares were largely stagnant, stuck at a COVID-fueled price that was less than half of its February 2020 value. Then came the election of Joe Biden as U.S. President. Since then, TSQ has been on a hot streak.

It bears a 1-year target estimate of $7. And, it hasn't been priced that low since mid-November. Cumulus Media stock has proven resilient in these COVID-19 pandemic times, and with Thursday morning trading on Wall Street, ahead of a PM dip, CMLS is again approaching its highest closing price since early March 2020.

With chaos on Capitol Hill putting a dark cloud on what appears to be a shift of the U.S. Senate to Democratic control with wins in Georgia by Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, U.S. financial markets were divergent — the Dow Industrials climbed, while Nasdaq was down.

Of course, the nation's largest owner of broadcast TV stations and WGN America, which just lured Ashleigh Banfield to host a 10pm prime-time news and interview show come March 2021, will also be releasing its Q4 2020 results. Here's when, and what to expect.

In morning trading on the Nasdaq GlobalSelect market, Nexstar Media Group shares were trading above the $110 mark. Should NXST finish at that price, it will conclude a healthy recovery effort for the broadcast media company's stock that began in mid-April, just days after Nexstar shares fell to their lowest levels since October 2016.

On March 30, with COVID-19 pandemic concerns cratering media industry stocks and questions galore arising over the company's RSN deal with FOX, Sinclair Broadcast Group shares dipped to $12.25, a price last seen roughly eight years ago. Nine months later, SBGI has rebounded so strongly that it is just pennies away from its year-to-date high.

Snapchat's purpose on smartphones may still be questioned by some, despite Radio's use of its social media platform to connect with listeners. Yet, there's no question that Snapchat's parent has had one of the hottest stocks on the NYSE since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. With Tuesday's close, it is more than $42 per share above its March 11 level.

With a handful of exceptions, including Cumulus Media, radio and TV stocks were largely on the rise as the final trading week of 2020 kicked off on Monday. Among the gainers: Sinclair Broadcast Group, and Dish, which just resolved its retransmission consent impasse with Nexstar Media Group.

U.S. broadcast media companies saw widely disparate activity on Wall Street Monday, with companies such as Townsquare Media seeing a healthy jump from Friday, while TEGNA and Urban One were also up. Every other company on the RBR+TVBR Wall Street Report ticker was down.