Station Sales Hit Salem’s Q2 Revenue; Same-Station Broadcast Revenue Up 3.9%.

Salem Media Group reports its second-quarter revenue declined 10.7% to $54.1 million. And for the first half, revenue declined 11% to $105.9 million as its repositioning into a multimedia operation continues.

The radio business remains Salem’s largest driver of revenue, and the company says its sales decreased 10.7% in the quarter. But that drop came as the result of station sales, including the $80 million spin-off of its Christian music stations. On a same-station basis, Salem says its broadcast revenue actually climbed 3.9% during the quarter. That was led by a $2.6 million increase in broadcast digital revenue, offset by a $700,000 decline in spot ad dollars and a $400,000 decline in the sale of block programming. And Salem Radio Network revenue from nationally syndicated programs increased $400,000.

Digital media has been a growing piece of Salem’s revenue equation in recent years, but it too has seen some shuffling of assets. As a result, the company says its digital business saw revenue drop 11.6% during Q2 to $10.6 million. It says much of that was related to a decrease in digital subscription revenue from Eagle Financial Publications. That was offset by better sales of its church product website WorshipHouseMedia.com, and the timing of the Easter holiday that fell in April this year.

Salem is quickly becoming more diversified, such as a deal last month to buy investment strategist Jim Fink’s suite of investment advisory products, including Seasonal Stock Alert, Options for Income, Velocity Trader, and Inner Circle. The quarterly filing says Salem will not pay Fink any cash up front but will instead take on subscription liability and pay Fink a percentage of sales through July 2028.

Salem was also a seller in recent weeks as it closed on the sale of its self-publishing platform, Salem Author Services, for $100,000.

“Salem has long maintained a diversified portfolio, and the recent sale of several contemporary Christian music radio stations has made that diversification even more apparent,” CEO David Santrella told Inside Radio earlier this month.

The quarterly filing includes a list of several radio stations that have been sold in the past year. And if Salem moves to sell more, its proceeds may not be as high as in the past.

Salem also tells investors that it performed an interim review of broadcast license values at mid-year. Based on the assessment, the company cut the value of the group by $25.2 million overall, with reductions tied to its licenses in Atlanta, Boston, Cleveland, Colorado Springs, Dallas, Detroit, Los Angeles, Miami, Philadelphia, Phoenix and San Francisco.

Salem says the impairment charges were driven by decreases in revenue growth rates over those used in the year-end valuation forecasts, Salem says in the quarterly filing. It adds that it also believes that those factors are indicative of trends in the industry as a whole, and not unique to the company or its operations.