Radio Still Making Money

From this morning's Tom Taylor column...

Chicago radio’s top ten billers for 2015 –All-news/Cubs baseball WBBM/WCFS (CBS) remains #1, up from $39,215,000 to $43,827,000., Second is Hubbard’s hot AC “Mix” WTMX, up 3.1% to $31,875,000. Third is Tribune’s talk WGN, down 16.1% to $24,540,000. Fourth is urban AC “V103,” the first of the iHeart-owned stations, and it’s up substantially (+22.2%). WVAZ improved from 2014’s $19,515,000 to $23,857,000. Fifth is iHeart’s top 40 “Kiss 103.5” WKSC, also up double digits (+11.5%), to $22,502,000. The second five begins with CBS’ all-sports “Score” WSCR, off just slightly to $21,886,000. (A reminder here that the Cubs are shifting to the Score from all-news WBBM.) Seventh is CBS-owned rhythmic “B96” WBBM-FM, down 11.7% to $20,034,000. Eighth is Univision’s regional Mexican WOJO, gaining 5.4% to $19,483,000. Ninth is iHeart’s urban WGCI, down 4.7% to $17,324,000. And tenth is CBS Radio’s country “US 99.5” WUSN, perhaps showing the effects of a new format rival and budget cuts. It’s down nearly 20%, to $16,960,000. Just outside the top ten is another strong-performing iHeart station, hot AC/all-Christmas WLIT, up 15.8% to $14,621,0000. Twelfth is CBS radio’s adult alternative WXRT, off 21.3% to $13,318,000. And thirteenth is SBS-owned regional Mexican “La Ley” WLEY-FM, up a whopping 42.2% to $12,224,000. Cumulus had a solid year with the adult alternative station it LMAs from Merlin. WKQX jumped 47.3% to $11.5 million. Though its classic rock sister “Loop” WLUP was off 1.6% to just below $5.5 million. Of the stations Cumulus owns, its talk WLS ranked seventeenth, down 14.7% to about $8.1 million. Classic hits WLS-FM improved 26.1% to just shy of $6.9 million.