CFO Sam Bush tells the Saga Communications conference call that excluding the big blast of political dollars in the fourth quarter of 2008, Saga’s overall revenues would have been flat for the same period of 2009. As it was, radio revenue dropped from about $29.8 million to $27.4 million. Station operating expenses are down $2.2 million, to $20.3 million. And compared to the late-2008 impairment charge on the market value of station licenses of $115 million, this time the writedown was $16.2 million. Always proud of its balance sheet, Saga reports a total of $116 million in debt and trailing EBITDA leverage ratio of 4.3 times. Saga CEO Christian is “extremely grately 2009 is over” and salutes his people for their work. That includes the emergency at the Manchester, NH cluster last weekend, when 50,000 gallons of water poured into the rehabbed mill complex that Saga calls home. Ed Christian notes that the investment in emergency generators and other equipment meant that top-rated AC WZID (95.7) stayed on the air, while 250,000 residents were without power due to the near-hurricane winds.