Business has been wheezing along all year. The Radio Advertising Bureau/Miller Kaplan and Arase reports been an unbroken string of bottom line numbers presented in red ink with minus signs in front of them. Then came November. Local: Down -21%. National: Down -24%. Total spot: Down -22%. The bright spot was off air, but even that category, often capable of posting double digit gains, was up a mere +1%. That small glimmer of success was able to mitigate the awful spot numbers slightly, bringing the total month’s percentage up to a subterranean -20%.
RBR/TVBR observation: What is there to say? That November 2009 comps will be incomparably easy? This dismal performance was itself built on the shaky foundation of a -6% performance in November 2007. Damn. The bottom has to be somewhere. Is this it?
