Broadcasting Stocks

While the radio industry has been vociferous in its negative reaction to widespread job cuts in the programming and on-air realms at the nation's No. 1 owner of AM and FM stations, Wall Street has sung a different tune. The slicing of employee salary and benefits at a company with $5.75 billion in debt is perhaps a good thing. As such, iHeart stock is at a post-bankruptcy high.

The company missed its earnings per share forecasts by 7.5%. Its radio stations in key markets such as Canada's largest, Toronto, lag those of its competitors. Corus Entertainment has its challenges, and analysts in Canada are now revising their forecasts, Simply Wall Street notes.

U.S. financial markets moved ahead on Friday, as the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 50.05 to 29,347.69. The Nasdaq composite index gained 31.81, ending the day’s trading session at 9,388.94.

It was early November 2017 when investors last saw such a lofty closing price for Townsquare Media stock. On much higher than normal volume, TSQ enjoyed a banner Wednesday on Wall Street, rising 2.9% to finish at more than $10 per share.

The trends were there. Still, it was possible Nexstar Media Group shares wouldn't follow a dip-and-jump pattern consistently seen since 2015, considering the huge advances seen in the last year. There is no need to fear: NXST is doing what it was expected to do by reaching another all-time high on Tuesday.

There's a new "Value Advantage" backing Entercom Communications stock. It's thanks to the acquisition of a big chunk of the radio broadcasting company's publicly traded issues by JP Morgan Chase & Co.

In October 2015, Hispanic consumer-focused multimedia company Entravision's shares topped $8.75 per share. Today, they are worth close to 75% less in value. With shares on a steady downturn, Simply Wall St. asks if insiders are taking advantage of the weak share price by snapping up stock.

The TV broadcasting company formerly known as Gannett on Thursday announced preliminary financial results for Q4 -- as well as the successful completion of its previously announced $1 billion private placement eight-year senior note offering, priced at 4.625%.

As expected, Emmis Communications on Thursday submitted its quarterly earnings report for fiscal Q3 2020 to the Securities and Exchange Commission. There was no other public distribution of the financial results, which show the leaner media company widening its loss from continuing operations.

TEGNA on Tuesday revealed that it had priced its offering of senior notes due 2028, with a face value of $1 billion. Additional details, including the interest rate, are now known -- further fueling a rise in the broadcast TV company's stock.

Emmis says it is in the midst of transitioning to investments with significantly higher growth potential. With that, the performance of the media company's most recent fiscal quarter will be known as of Thursday. There won't be a conference call for analysts, however, who may want to know a little about the new holder of some 1.38 million shares of Emmis stock.

TEGNA Inc. shares were up by nearly 4% in the final hour of trading on Tuesday, as investors largely cheered the broadcast TV company's announcement that it intends to offer $1 billion of senior notes due 2028 in a private offering.

America's favorite tabloid, the New York Post, recently reported that the Justice Department may scrutinize a plan by Liberty Media -- parent of Sirius XM and Pandora -- to gain majority control of iHeartMedia. Investors appear to be energized by the suggestion.

Don't look now, but Entercom Communications shares have retreated to their lowest prices since November 22, erasing a rally that brought ETM to levels last seen before its early August meltdown. Is the current dip nothing to fret about, or a harbinger of a difficult quarter to come?

The start of 2020 wasn't a great one for the nation's publicly traded radio and TV stations. While markets were up overall, dips were seen for such companies as Cumulus Media, iHeartMedia, Nexstar, Scripps and TEGNA.