What happened at Westwood One?
In announcing new Q4 guidance to Wall Street, Westwood One said “the accelerated growth in advertising sales that occurred within the fourth quarter 2004 did not materialize as anticipated during the fourth quarter 2005.” As a result, the company is now expecting Q4 revenues to be down in the low single digits – – a reversal from its previous guidance of up single digits – – with operating income down in the mid to high single digits. In the company’s conference call with analysts, CFO Andrew Zaref was asked whether the shortfall was for the network business, traffic, or both? “Neither one is necessarily performing up to what we believe it will in the future and what our internal expectations are relative to the hurdles we set for ourself, but on a relative basis, unfortunately you are stuck comping numbers. You did see a particularly explosive fourth quarter last year on the local/regional side and that is just a tough comp and a tough hill to climb,” Zaref said. Local/regional sales
