NASDAQ:DLPN Dolphin Entertainment Q3 2023 Earnings Report $1.07 +0.02 (+1.90%) Closing price 05/16/2025 04:00 PM EasternExtended Trading$1.07 0.00 (0.00%) As of 05/16/2025 07:36 PM Eastern Extended trading is trading that happens on electronic markets outside of regular trading hours. This is a fair market value extended hours price provided by Polygon.io. Learn more. Earnings HistoryForecast Dolphin Entertainment EPS ResultsActual EPS-$0.54Consensus EPS N/ABeat/MissN/AOne Year Ago EPSN/ADolphin Entertainment Revenue ResultsActual Revenue$10.19 millionExpected RevenueN/ABeat/MissN/AYoY Revenue GrowthN/ADolphin Entertainment Announcement DetailsQuarterQ3 2023Date11/14/2023TimeN/AConference Call DateTuesday, November 14, 2023Conference Call Time4:30PM ETConference Call ResourcesConference Call AudioConference Call TranscriptPress Release (8-K)Quarterly Report (10-Q)Earnings HistoryCompany ProfilePowered by Dolphin Entertainment Q3 2023 Earnings Call TranscriptProvided by QuartrNovember 14, 2023 ShareLink copied to clipboard.There are 5 speakers on the call. Operator00:00:00Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Dolphin Entertainment Third Quarter 2023 Earnings Call. All lines have been placed on a listen only mode and the floor will be open for questions and comments following the presentation. At this time, it is my pleasure to turn the floor over to your host, James Carbonara, Investor Relations. Sir, the floor is yours. Speaker 100:00:30Thank you, operator. With me on the call are Bill O'Dowd, Chief Executive Officer and Mirtan Negrini, Chief Financial Officer. I'd like to begin the call by reading the Safe Harbor statement. This statement is made pursuant to the Safe Harbor statement for forward looking statements described in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All statements made on this call with the exception of historical facts may be considered forward looking statements within Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Speaker 100:01:05Although the company believes that Expectations and assumptions reflected in these forward looking statements are reasonable. It makes no assurances that such expectations will prove to have been correct. Actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied in the forward looking statements due to various risks and uncertainties. For a discussion of such risks and uncertainties, which could cause actual results to differ from those expressed or implied in the forward looking statements, Please see Risk Factors detailed in the company's annual report on Form 10 ks contained in subsequent filed reports on Form 10 Q as well as in other reports that the company files from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Any forward looking statements included in this earnings Call are made only as of the date of this call. Speaker 100:01:49We do not undertake any obligation to update or supplement any forward looking statement to reflect subsequent knowledge, events or circumstances. Now I'd like to turn the call over to Bill O'Dowd, Chief Executive Officer of Dolphin Entertainment. Bill, please proceed. Speaker 200:02:05Thanks, James, and hi, everyone. Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us today. As always, we'll start with a review of some financial and operating highlights, followed by a full financial review and then open it up for Q and A. So from a financial highlights perspective, revenue for Q3 was $10,200,000 or an increase of 3% year over year. I'm very proud of the team at Dolphin, which achieved this increase in revenue despite Enduring 2 prolonged industry wide strikes and distraction of an internal merger for essentially the entire quarter. Speaker 200:02:37On the bottom line, our Q3 operating loss of $2,100,000 includes approximately $1,200,000 in non cash charges. Thus, the cash operating loss was approximately $900,000 We believe if it were not for the impact of the 2 strikes And the one time costs associated with the internal merger of our influencer marketing subsidiaries, BSocial and Socialite to create the digital department, We would have achieved a cash operating profit in Q3, and that would have been without the benefit of special projects, which we acquired at the start of Q4. Thus, going forward, once the industry resumes normal operations post strikes and with the addition of the revenues and profits of special projects, We expect to have consistent cash operating profits. The effects of the strikes will be felt into Q1 as many movies and TV series have already been Pushed out of 2023 and into the spring summer of next year. But make no mistake, the industry is excited to get back to work and Dolphin has not been sitting idle. Speaker 200:03:40Quite contrary, as we have achieved the following highlights all since our last earnings call in the middle of August. First, as I just mentioned, we created a market leading influencer marketing agency, the digital department, by merging BSocial and Socialite. 2nd, we hosted the grand opening of Midnight Theater, now open 7 days a week and signed our multi year partnership with blue chip marketer Mastercard. And third, we completed our 7 year journey to build an entertainment marketing earned media supergroup with the acquisition of the best in class talent booking and celebrity live event firm, Special Projects. We believe each of these is a catalyst for our company in its own right, and I'll spend a few words on each. Speaker 200:04:27And As an aside, on a personal note, I can unequivocally say that this run post Labor Day has been the busiest period of my entire career, Just one big ticket item after another. Okay. So first, the merger of BSocial and Socialite to create the digital department. I'll be brief on this topic since we alluded to it coming in September at length during our Q2 earnings call. The short term pain of management distractions in both Cash and intangible costs are all behind us now, and we've assembled a beautiful company that is a platform for us in the fastest growing area of marketing that we know. Speaker 200:05:06The launch events we hosted for our talent and brand partners in New York and Los Angeles were nothing short of electric. The New York event was at Midnight Theater, I might add. The incoming calls to work with the digital department are exactly what we hope for and the excitement about its expansion prospects is palpable. There's just tremendous momentum both internally and externally around building what we think will be the flagship influencer marketing in the country out of the entertainment space. Simply put, the digital department will be a strong growth catalyst amongst our core businesses as we add new verticals of expertise. Speaker 200:05:42Right now, we are market leaders in female focused fashion, beauty, wellness and lifestyle products with Instagram as our major platform of choice. We have several well known reality television personalities on our roster of more than 200 exclusive talent. From this base, we plan to expand to include several new verticals such as sports, culinary, teens and young adults, Reaching broader audiences on both TikTok and YouTube to complement Instagram. Just the sports vertical alone could in success, We believe Gro to be as big as our entire business today. Much more to come on this in the quarters ahead. Speaker 200:06:25Next, I'll turn to Midnight Theatre. As a reminder, Dolphin manages all aspects of publicity and marketing for Midnight Theatre and its restaurant, Hidden Leaf, while also facilitating talent and commercial relationships within the entertainment and culinary industries. Dolphin also holds a meaningful ownership stake in the venture. The headline here is our new multiyear partnership with Mastercard. Obviously, this is the bluest of blue chip partners for any performance venue. Speaker 200:06:52Guests will have the opportunity to partake in new immersive experiences, exclusive events, special discounts, all tailored exclusively for Mastercard cardholders. Moreover, the venue will now be known as Mastercard Midnight Theater with the financial industry powerhouse's name prominently featured. We are confident that this long term support from such a prominent player in the financial industry substantially elevates the intrinsic value of this cutting edge destination. For anyone new to Dolphin, Midnight Theatre is located in Manhattan West in New York between 9th and 10th Avenues. The same streets, 31st and between 31st and 33rd, like Penn Station or Madison Square Garden, just one avenue over. Speaker 200:07:34And it's inside Brookfield's $4,500,000,000 complex, the largest in Brookfield's history. We are the only entertainment venue there. We have a theater and a restaurant on the same floor, all under one roof, if you will. We went to 7 days a week, 4 days after we merged The influencer agencies in 11 days before we acquired special projects with a full programming schedule and events throughout the fall. And we've already started booking 2024, which includes internationally renowned magician Joshua Jay, who is bringing Look closer, a new magic show to Midnight Theater in February. Speaker 200:08:10They'll be performing 16 shows, including 2 shows on Valentine's Day. I'm going to highlight this particular show because of the quality of the performer who's looking to call Midnight Theater home. So Joshua returns to New York 4 years after his critically acclaimed show 6 Impossible Things sold out its entire 18 month off Broadway run. As a magician, Joshua Jay has performed his original work on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, The Late Show with James Corden and even successfully fooled Penn and Teller on Fool Us. I can hear James Carbonara multitasking and pulling up midnighttheater.com to buy Valentine's Day tickets right now. Speaker 200:08:47Let's just say I'm happy for Mira and his lovely wife who doesn't have to plan it this year. Okay. So now we're up to the acquisition of Special Projects. This company is very special to all of us at Dolphin since it represents the culmination of that 7 year journey to build our entertainment marketing supergroup. What began with the speech at LD Micro in December of 2016 and was followed by the acquisition of 42 West on March 30, 2017 and the uplisting to NASDAQ in December of 2017, 1 year after the speech at LD Micro, Has now finished after buying 1 company a year since, with 2 in 2018, I should add. Speaker 200:09:25And it would be hard pressed to think of any company more strategic for our group and Special Projects. So first, some particulars. Special Projects was founded by Nicole Vecchiarelli and Andrea Olivieri, 2 former magazine editors who met working at Conde Nast. They have built the entertainment industry's go to talent booking and celebrity curated live event company, Period. They have offices in both New York and Los Angeles and simply handle a wide variety of signature events from The Wall Street Journal's Innovator Awards held at The Met every year with this year's honorees 2 weeks ago, including Martin Scorsese and Kylie Jenner, among others, to the Motion Picture Academy Museum Gala in Los Angeles coming up in a few weeks And set to honor Meryl Streep, Oprah Winfrey, Sofia Coppola, Michael B. Speaker 200:10:09Jordan along with a few surprises. Too bad they couldn't get any big names, right? Their client list is A plus plus from retainer clients like Apple and Chanel to project based clients like Amazon, the Apollo Theater, Bumble, GQ, Louis Vuitton, Max Mara, Meta, Netflix, Stella McCartney, Versace, Yves Saint Laurent and YouTube. Anyone who has heard our story before today knows that ideating and world class events is a big part of Dolphin's future. First, let's just take a look at our core business. Speaker 200:10:45Just with the business that our PR firms are already doing, We have so many opportunities for cross selling. Every movie or streaming series that 42 Us is promoting is a potential candidate for premier event handled by special projects. Every hotel or restaurant opening that the door is promoting is a potential candidate for a launch event handled by special projects. Every single or album drop that Shorefire is promoting is an opportunity to create a release party handled by special projects. Any consumer product being handled by any one of our PR firms is the potential beneficiary or sponsor of an event handled by Special Projects. Speaker 200:11:27Oh, by the way, this is an immediately accretive acquisition for us. Special Projects is a very well run profitable business with a great margin and we think we can grow them very well in the next 12, 24 months with all the synergies I just mentioned. And when we look at Dolphin Ventures, we talk about receiving ownership stakes in exchange for our services and promoting 3 categories of assets: Content, consumer products and live events. Thus, ideating and executing world class events is a big part of Dolphin's future and adding special projects immediately catapults us into the industry leading position. And needless to say, after hearing that client roster, The reputations and relationships of Andrea and Nicole in our industry are simply unmatched. Speaker 200:12:14So, Andrea, Nicole and Special Projects have finished our supergroup. I've talked about how to sum, this may seem like it's a finish line. For us at Dolphin, we see it as the starting line. We now have our full team assembled. And by the way, 8 acquisitions from only 8 offers. Speaker 200:12:35What's that tell you? We got our first choice of companies in every vertical of entertainment marketing we want to be in. We've assembled our dream team. Now we're excited to show what we can do together. With these accomplishments, we believe Dolphin is in its strongest position in company history with highly diversified revenue sources across 7 operating subsidiaries and expectations of cash operating profits in 2024. Speaker 200:13:03As we look ahead to next year, a landscape of promising opportunities within Dolphin Entertainment and Dolphin Ventures awaits, beginning with the release of and the revenues from the Blue Angels, the first project in our multiyear agreement with IMAX. Also, we believe the aforementioned multiyear partnership with Mastercard and Midnight Theatre validates our investment by indicating the value placed on our venue by the market. Both our IMAX partnership and our Midnight Theatre venue are just getting started. And each of them are ahead of other Dolphin Ventures that we are equally excited about and are working hard to realize in 2024. In short, we believe we've weathered the unique storm of this past summer and early fall. Speaker 200:13:47Looking ahead, after successfully navigating these temporary headwinds and after our successful at the market raise, No discount, no warrants of 2 weeks ago, we find ourselves on stable footing and with the full amount of our targeted cash reserves. We are very confident in our sustainable path forward. We believe that this sends a strong message to a current microcap market, which we expect will reward Positive free cash flow underlining our strategy for creating significant near term shareholder value. With that said, I'll turn it over to Meredith. Speaker 300:14:21Thank you, Bill, and good afternoon, everyone. I will now discuss results for the quarter ended September 30, 2023. Total revenue for the Q3 ended September 30, 2023 increased by 3% to 10.2 3 months ended September 30, 2023 were approximately $12,300,000 compared to approximately $11,000,000 for the 3 months ended September 30, 2022. Operating expenses are composed of direct costs, payroll and benefits, selling, general and administrative expenses, acquisition costs, depreciation and amortization, impairment of intangible assets and legal and professional fees. Direct costs for the quarter ended September 30, 2023 were $185,308 compared to $837,429 for the quarter ended September 30, 2022. Speaker 300:15:22Payroll costs were approximately $8,400,000 in the Q3 of 2023 compared to $7,000,000 in the Q3 of 2022. SG and A expenses were $2,100,000 in Q3 of 2023 compared to $1,700,000 in Q3 of last year. Legal and professional fees were $695,188 in Q3 of 2023 compared to $774,613 in Q3 of 2022. Operating loss for Q3 of 2023 Of $2,100,000 includes non cash items of over $1,200,000 Net loss for Q3 of 2023 of $3,900,000 includes non cash items of approximately $2,400,000 The non cash items included in operating losses consist of non recurring 341,417 dollar impairment of the trade names of BSocial and Socialite upon combining to become the digital department $535,740 of depreciation and amortization and $311,578 of bad debt related to the write off of our investment in Craft House Cocktails. Net loss for Q3 of 2023 also includes the non recurring write off of our investment in Craft House Cocktails of approximately $1,200,000 reported under the caption Equity in losses of unconsolidated affiliates. Speaker 300:16:57This compares to an operating loss and net loss for the quarter ended September 30, 2022 of $1,100,000 and $1,300,000 respectively, which include non cash items from depreciation and amortization of 415,836 Loss per share was $0.27 per share based on 14,000,000 121,275 weighted average shares outstanding for both basic loss per share and fully diluted loss per share for the 3 months ended September 30, 2023. Loss per share was $0.14 per share based on 9,000,000 664,681 weighted average shares outstanding for Basic and 9,790 3,00715 weighted average shares outstanding on a fully diluted loss per share basis for the 3 months ended September 30, 2022. Cash and cash equivalents of $6,400,000 as of September 30, 2023, as compared to $6,100,000 as of December October 31, 2023 underwritten public offering of 1,400,000 shares of its common of our common stock at a price of $1.65 per share. That concludes my financial remarks. I will now ask the operator to open the phone lines for Q and A. Speaker 300:18:28Operator, would you please poll for questions? Operator00:18:31Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, the floor is now open for And we'll take our first question from Allen Klee from Maxim Group. Please go ahead, Allen. Yes. Speaker 400:18:57Hi. Congratulations on All the positive events. I'd like to start with Blue Angels and the IMAX partnership. What's your best guess on when this goes into theaters? And how do you think about When you get paid for that and for Amazon and then when you might consider the second Movie that you do in partnership with them? Speaker 400:19:27Thank you. Speaker 200:19:29Sure. Yes, this is obviously a hot topic With folks that have followed our story because it's a great success story for us, the Blue Angels. We expect to have that in theaters Probably Q2, Alan. We expect to deliver the movie maybe even close to year end here, but probably Q1 early Q1. We recognize the revenue in Q1 then and would expect to receive the cash Almost entirely by the end of Q1 or into Q2, if delivery occurs in January. Speaker 200:20:06As I mentioned, the revenues recognized upon delivery of the film, 90% of it is. So I think then as people knew the story might find an interest, we sold the Film in what's called the second window, meaning after it's in theaters with IMAX, it will go on Amazon Prime. And we expect it to generate more than a 75% return on investment for us just from the sales we've already made. So that doesn't count Any revenue share from the ticket sales in IMAX theaters or any theaters. So it was a home run first project in our slate with Multi year slate with IMAX. Speaker 200:20:53In terms of the second project in that slate, actively being discussed right now, I think I may have mentioned on our last earnings call, we hoped to have an announcement to make before the end of this year, but it may trickle into the Q1 Because it's hard to follow-up a mega hit like that, we're actively looking for one that we can be in production on next year. Speaker 400:21:17Okay, thank you. So here's a question that somebody asked me to ask you, so I ask it now before I forget. We do make a bunch of announcements of your various firms, Their clients winning awards. And the question is, do you get paid more when one of your clients Wins and award. Speaker 200:21:44Yes. And that's one of the reasons why we do it. We frame it as we are Congratulating our subsidiary or congratulating the clients as they deserve to be congratulated when you handle 25 Grammy nominations or 99 Emmy nominations, whatever, but or however many Oscar nominations we'll have. But The benefit of that also is that typically how awards campaigns work is that you get paid a retainer each month while you're running the campaign. And oftentimes, in certain industries, you get Bonus upon receiving a nomination at all. Speaker 200:22:27And by the way, then it extends Your run, right, because if you're nominated, you keep the monthly retainer as soon as the award ceremony. So you might have gone from a 3 month campaign To see if you get a nomination to another 3 months after until the award ceremony, for example, or whatever it might be. You also get a especially in the case of the Oscars, You typically get a nice reward bonus, if your nominee wins in its category. So and Those bonuses are typically from can range from mid to high 5 figures each. In rare cases, you may even get a 6 figure bonus for a win. Speaker 200:23:07So Those are nice to haves in our industry for sure and can add up quite a bit. Speaker 400:23:16That's very informative. Thank you. So you said that you expect to get When the industry resumes normal operations post strike, you expect to be cash flow positive. Is a reasonable time to think about that being best guess today is Q2 2024? Speaker 200:23:43I think so. That seems conservative and nice for us. I mean with the strike ending in the after strike, Which is one that impacted us the most, right? And you say how, well, of course, the two ways that it impacts us the most would be certain Talent don't they're not allowed to promote during a strike. So personal publicity takes If you don't have something other than filmed entertainment to promote, you would go on what's called hiatus, pause your publicity work. Speaker 200:24:14And then secondly, many movies just pushed out of the quarter. Now we've got arguably the biggest movie theaters, Traditional movie in Killers of the Flower Moon, Mark Scorsese's movie with DiCaprio and De Niro and that studio decided to push forward With the release despite not having DiCaprio and De Niro able to promote it. But many movies, the majority of movies Chose to push into next year. So after the Marvels and I think Disney might have one more, yeah, they have Wish coming out in a couple of weeks. Disney, for example, is pausing or has a gap, should say in the release slate of 7 months, I think, till the next movie will hit theaters next summer. Speaker 200:24:54So of course, we don't need the movie to be in theaters. We start promoting beforehand, but I would think that with strikes over now, they'll impact us here obviously in the Q4 and into the Q1. But we'll be resume We'll resume normal operations at some point before the end of Q1, we would hope and Q2 will be a normal quarter for us. I think the cash profit cash operating profit, We are very proud of the fact that we built the team that would have done it anyway, but and with special projects that certainly helps. I think the hesitation you're hearing in my voice is what will Q1 look like. Speaker 200:25:31It's always our weakest quarter, and Q4 is always our strongest quarter. So, it's hard to gauge today because it's a riddle that would only best be answered if we knew how the strikes will linger into Q1. Right now, before the strike settled, there were only 3 theatrical releases on a wide basis the entire month of January. Everybody was pushing out of it because they didn't know if they'd have actors to promote. Now some of those moves are going to come back in, but it's It could be a ramp up period in Q1 that I just don't know the answer to if we could be cash positive in Q1, but we would expect to be by Q2 and going forward. Speaker 400:26:14That's great. Thank you. So for your social influencing businesses that you combined, You've said in the past that's around a quarter of your revenue, but then there's opportunities to grow that very significantly. You said As you add new verticals, how do you think about the timing of building out these new verticals? Speaker 200:26:45That's very near term, Alan. We put just like we acquired Socialite And we announced it on this call last year, right, the Q3 earnings call date November 14, I think it was also last year. And we with the eye towards the merger, right, that we were going to combine New York and LA, to create the we didn't know the name at the time, but the digital department. We handled that merger with the eye towards having the scale and size of a company to build these other verticals. That was a big factor in the merger. Speaker 200:27:25And so we've been Just like we've been working last few months towards a merger before it came about, we've got We feel very strongly about the work we've put in the last few weeks months to have these other verticals in that we'd be announcing in the New Year for the digital department. And we're particularly excited about them all, but Obviously, sports represents such a huge area for us and growth area for Digital Apartment for sure. Speaker 400:28:02Thank you. For Midnight Theater, how Should we think about the impact of the Mastercard partnership? Speaker 200:28:13Well, it's certainly from a financial It buffers the investment, right? I mean, it's a multiyear deal with increases every year. And it is we're very pleased with the outcome. And then on an operational level, you've got a partner that both brings events to the space, Brings awareness their own events, I mean, brings awareness to the space and has a marketing engine behind it. So The theater is off to a strong start after the grand opening. Speaker 200:28:55Q4 is always good too because we'll have the private events Business with the holiday season, and it's but it's nice as you go into the slow business of Q1, So it kind of mirrors some of our companies in that way. When you have a partner like that, that can bring events during the dead of winter, It's just very strong for our business. And as I mentioned on the earnings call, I mean, these types of things may Somewhat get taken for granted because of some of the blue chip clients we have with our entertainment marketing companies. But in a venue like this, in an investment like this, this Far from normal. This is a 150 seat granted state of the art variety theater in a beautiful $4,500,000,000 complex. Speaker 200:29:41But at the end of the day, everyone who just think of your own hometown. If you're from New York, think of all the entertainment venues of that size you've been to, Joe's Pub to You know, 54 Below to wherever you may be thinking of, right? Now I ask you to take 5 seconds And just think of which of those venues have a sponsor. If you can name 1, have the same size with any sponsor and that could be like Joe's oil change, right? And then you think about Mastercard And a deal done with the global CMO of Mastercard, I think it validates Our venue validates its presence in New York City. Speaker 200:30:29And I think it you can imagine that there's excitement about what we'll be doing in the future Speaker 400:30:39Is there a kind of a goal for how many private events You would like to do a month? Speaker 200:30:48Yes. We have a goal in terms of full venue buyouts. In a perfect world, you're doing you could do 1 a week and not disrupt your programming enough, right? And when I say full venue, That means a client is taking over both the theater and the restaurant. Now in terms of just either The lounge buyout or private dining room buyout or even a restaurant buyout, you could do those maybe you don't want to do it more frequently than a couple of times a week Restaurant buyout, but I think that 1 to 2 times a week for the larger buyouts in terms of the lounge or the happy hours or the private dining room, we can do that every day. Speaker 200:31:29And sometimes it feels like we do. So, and of course you only do buyouts if The money you're receiving is significantly above what you could just do if you operated it, right? So they're lucrative for us and We like to do as many as we can responsibly. Speaker 400:31:54That's great. Okay. And then on special projects, It sounded like this could be you haven't provided the financial breakout of it in terms of what its Revenues is I don't think I mean you did discuss how much you paid for it. But it sounds like With the synergies, this could be the revenues could be maybe significantly more than But it has been historically. Is that kind of a way to think about it? Speaker 200:32:31Yes. And the profit, I mean, this is a fair I don't want to Give a wrong connotation here. This is a well run, very profitable, high margin business as it is, period. And like I said, it's immediately accretive for us. And we'll announce those financials about 74 days after the acquisition. Speaker 200:32:50We'll file The 8 ks, so it's not me dodging and it's I can't get ahead of our filing, right? But with that said, it's already well run like I mentioned. But I was trying to make the point in my prepared remarks. You can see how seamless this type of company and this particular company is within the group we've already built. In a perfect world, we wanted to buy those PR firms first, which we largely accomplished And then add influencer marketing, I think I called that the peanut butter and jelly of earned media on past calls. Speaker 200:33:31Those are the Twin pillars, if you will, PR and influencer marketing to create awareness and reach. And then the live event company, We always did want to bring in last, because the PR firms and quite frankly the influencer Can refer so much business to them. And so it'd be a shame to have the live event company first and you're waiting to buy the PR first, right? But then in terms of Dolphin Ventures, the live events company, special Projects is highly strategic. We bought 3 PR firms. Speaker 200:34:06We bought 2 influencer marketing agencies and we have 1 live event company and we don't need another Because they're on both coasts, they're already the market leader, they're already the most established brand in talent booking and celebrity live events, which is our wheelhouse of course. And with them we instantly can ideate anything involving celebrities or influencers and with a Curated editorial sensibility and we have immediate credibility with any media partner. I mean they're already Ideating and executing for Wall Street Journal, for Conde Nast, for W Magazine, for Bustle Digital Group, Right. They come from that world. So now all of a sudden you've got PR firms, influencer marketing, publishing to promote an event that we could either ideate or take an ownership stake in, for all of that superpower and you can bring the celebrities there. Speaker 200:35:03So it's all great to give award ceremonies, but if you can't get somebody to show up to receive the award, it's not much of a very sponsorable event, right? They do it at the very highest level. And obviously, these are major brand name type events with major celebrities attending. So And they put all of that together. So last year's Academy Museum gala that had George Clooney and Julia Roberts up there And it had Hailey Bieber and Selena Gomez in the audience sharing the table and the photo that broke the Internet. Speaker 200:35:33That's all them. They bring the celebrities. They do the seating charts. They organize the Panels, they put everybody up there. So, it's they're very well regarded in the industry, and We're blessed to have them and they complete the supergroup. Speaker 400:35:52Thank you. In your business where you Take positions in content or consumer products. Part of the longer term strategy is for some of them, you're basically getting the equity for free and then over time, You can get payouts on that. Do you think it's reasonable to think that maybe some of them might pay out in 2024? Speaker 200:36:23Well, and you're yes, you're referencing when we get we take or receive ownership stakes in products or companies in exchange in partial exchange for our services. We love that model where we get cash. We get some cash every month As a retainer, but we also get equity 5%, 7.5%, 10% of a product or service, in exchange for the Firepower of the supergroup and it works especially well when the marketing is as valuable as the quality of the product itself. So think industries like liquor, beauty, cosmetics, wellness products, getting People aware of the product and maybe even endorsed from an entertainment figure either celebrity or influencers Yes, we love that model and we put up no capital as you said, Alan. Will we have some exits in 2024? Speaker 200:37:26That May happen in the second half of the year depending on where a couple land. But I think what we see now that we have the group Just using a year or so to build a slate of those. We've already got a couple, as you mentioned, and then start rolling exits out as we add new into the slate every year. We'll hopefully roll out a successful exit. And there are some very successful exits we can all think of using either celebrity front of product or influencer front of product in the marketplace. Speaker 200:38:01And we expect to have 1 or 2 of those ourselves in the next few years, we hope. Speaker 400:38:07Okay, fantastic. Well, that's my questions. Thank you so much. Speaker 200:38:12Thank you, Speaker 400:38:18Alan. Speaker 300:38:29There's one in the queue. Operator00:38:35There appear to be no further questions at this time. I'll turn the floor back to Bill O'Dowd for closing remarks. Speaker 200:38:43Okay, great. Well, Thank you very much. And I was getting slipped a note to see if was there one question from Tim Regan or is that Operator00:38:57He had been in the queue, but then he must have removed himself. Speaker 200:39:01Okay. Maybe I answered this other question too long. Thank you very much. You're welcome. Of course, Karen. Speaker 200:39:09Well, thank you, everybody, For listening today, I know this is the entry into the longest stretch of the earnings call seasons where we go from November 14 all the way to March 31, Without having scheduled earnings call or the end of March, whatever our filing date is, we'll try and continue with almost weekly press releases to let you know how each of the subsidiaries are operating. We would hope to have some of the bigger Like a Mastercard sponsorship or something equally exciting, the merger of our companies. Between now and then, of course, we have a couple of those and we'll try and call those out to pay particular attention to, especially if it involves any of the ventures or Receiving ownership stakes in some of those. We have a couple on the cusp. And I thank everyone who's been a part of the journey, especially for those funds who that We're in the room in December of 2016 at LD Micro when the idea of a group was presented before we bought the first one, 42 West, 3 months later. Speaker 200:40:24So thank you for those who've been With us since the beginning and thank you for those who've just heard about us and joined in the last month or so. It's been a fun ride and as I said, We think we're now firmly at the starting line with the full group intact. So we're excited to see what's going to happen next. Thank you guys for the time today, and Operator00:40:48Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude today's Dolphin Entertainment earnings call. We thank you for your participation. You may disconnect at this time and have a great day.Read morePowered by Conference Call Audio Live Call not available Earnings Conference CallDolphin Entertainment Q3 202300:00 / 00:00Speed:1x1.25x1.5x2x Earnings DocumentsPress Release(8-K)Quarterly report(10-Q) Dolphin Entertainment Earnings HeadlinesEarnings call transcript: Dolphin Entertainment Q1 2025 reveals strategic expansionsMay 15 at 11:28 PM | uk.investing.comDOLPHIN ENTERTAINMENT Earnings Results: $DLPN Reports Quarterly EarningsMay 15 at 11:28 PM | nasdaq.comTrump’s betrayal exposed Trump’s Final Reset Inside the shocking plot to re-engineer America’s financial system…and why you need to move your money now.May 18, 2025 | Porter & Company (Ad)Dolphin Entertainment, Inc. (NASDAQ:DLPN) Q1 2025 Earnings Call TranscriptMay 15 at 1:26 PM | msn.comDolphin Entertainment, Inc. (DLPN) Q1 2025 Earnings Call TranscriptMay 13, 2025 | seekingalpha.comEmployee arrested, accused of putting camera pen in bathroom in Dolphin Mall storeMay 12, 2025 | msn.comSee More Dolphin Entertainment Headlines Get Earnings Announcements in your inboxWant to stay updated on the latest earnings announcements and upcoming reports for companies like Dolphin Entertainment? Sign up for Earnings360's daily newsletter to receive timely earnings updates on Dolphin Entertainment and other key companies, straight to your email. Email Address About Dolphin EntertainmentDolphin Entertainment (NASDAQ:DLPN), together with its subsidiaries, operates as an independent entertainment marketing and production company in the United States. The company operates in two segments, Entertainment Publicity, and Marketing and Content Production. The Entertainment Publicity and Marketing segment provides diversified marketing services, including public relations, entertainment and hospitality content marketing, strategic communications, strategic marketing consulting, social media and influencer marketing, digital marketing, creative branding, talent publicity, and entertainment marketing services, as well as produces promotional video content. The Content Production segment produces and distributes feature films and digital content. In addition, it offers strategic marketing and publicity services to individuals and corporates in the entertainment, hospitality, and music industries; and marketing direction, public relations counsel, and media strategy for video game publishers, as well as eSports leagues and other entities in the gaming industry. The company was formerly known as Dolphin Digital Media, Inc. and changed its name to Dolphin Entertainment, Inc. in July 2017. The company was incorporated in 1995 and is headquartered in Coral Gables, Florida.View Dolphin Entertainment ProfileRead more More Earnings Resources from MarketBeat Earnings Tools Today's Earnings Tomorrow's Earnings Next Week's Earnings Upcoming Earnings Calls Earnings Newsletter Earnings Call Transcripts Earnings Beats & Misses Corporate Guidance Earnings Screener Earnings By Country U.S. Earnings Reports Canadian Earnings Reports U.K. Earnings Reports Latest Articles Alibaba's Earnings Just Changed Everything for the StockCisco Stock Eyes New Highs in 2025 on AI, Earnings, UpgradesSymbotic Gets Big Earnings Lift: Is the Stock Investable Again?D-Wave Pushes Back on Short Seller Case With Strong EarningsAppLovin Surges on Earnings: What's Next for This Tech Standout?Can Shopify Stock Make a Comeback After an Earnings Sell-Off?Rocket Lab: Earnings Miss But Neutron Momentum Holds Upcoming Earnings PDD (5/20/2025)Palo Alto Networks (5/20/2025)Synopsys (5/20/2025)Home Depot (5/20/2025)Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (5/21/2025)Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group (5/21/2025)Medtronic (5/21/2025)TJX Companies (5/21/2025)Snowflake (5/21/2025)Lowe's Companies (5/21/2025) Get 30 Days of MarketBeat All Access for Free Sign up for MarketBeat All Access to gain access to MarketBeat's full suite of research tools. 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There are 5 speakers on the call. Operator00:00:00Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Dolphin Entertainment Third Quarter 2023 Earnings Call. All lines have been placed on a listen only mode and the floor will be open for questions and comments following the presentation. At this time, it is my pleasure to turn the floor over to your host, James Carbonara, Investor Relations. Sir, the floor is yours. Speaker 100:00:30Thank you, operator. With me on the call are Bill O'Dowd, Chief Executive Officer and Mirtan Negrini, Chief Financial Officer. I'd like to begin the call by reading the Safe Harbor statement. This statement is made pursuant to the Safe Harbor statement for forward looking statements described in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All statements made on this call with the exception of historical facts may be considered forward looking statements within Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Speaker 100:01:05Although the company believes that Expectations and assumptions reflected in these forward looking statements are reasonable. It makes no assurances that such expectations will prove to have been correct. Actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied in the forward looking statements due to various risks and uncertainties. For a discussion of such risks and uncertainties, which could cause actual results to differ from those expressed or implied in the forward looking statements, Please see Risk Factors detailed in the company's annual report on Form 10 ks contained in subsequent filed reports on Form 10 Q as well as in other reports that the company files from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Any forward looking statements included in this earnings Call are made only as of the date of this call. Speaker 100:01:49We do not undertake any obligation to update or supplement any forward looking statement to reflect subsequent knowledge, events or circumstances. Now I'd like to turn the call over to Bill O'Dowd, Chief Executive Officer of Dolphin Entertainment. Bill, please proceed. Speaker 200:02:05Thanks, James, and hi, everyone. Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us today. As always, we'll start with a review of some financial and operating highlights, followed by a full financial review and then open it up for Q and A. So from a financial highlights perspective, revenue for Q3 was $10,200,000 or an increase of 3% year over year. I'm very proud of the team at Dolphin, which achieved this increase in revenue despite Enduring 2 prolonged industry wide strikes and distraction of an internal merger for essentially the entire quarter. Speaker 200:02:37On the bottom line, our Q3 operating loss of $2,100,000 includes approximately $1,200,000 in non cash charges. Thus, the cash operating loss was approximately $900,000 We believe if it were not for the impact of the 2 strikes And the one time costs associated with the internal merger of our influencer marketing subsidiaries, BSocial and Socialite to create the digital department, We would have achieved a cash operating profit in Q3, and that would have been without the benefit of special projects, which we acquired at the start of Q4. Thus, going forward, once the industry resumes normal operations post strikes and with the addition of the revenues and profits of special projects, We expect to have consistent cash operating profits. The effects of the strikes will be felt into Q1 as many movies and TV series have already been Pushed out of 2023 and into the spring summer of next year. But make no mistake, the industry is excited to get back to work and Dolphin has not been sitting idle. Speaker 200:03:40Quite contrary, as we have achieved the following highlights all since our last earnings call in the middle of August. First, as I just mentioned, we created a market leading influencer marketing agency, the digital department, by merging BSocial and Socialite. 2nd, we hosted the grand opening of Midnight Theater, now open 7 days a week and signed our multi year partnership with blue chip marketer Mastercard. And third, we completed our 7 year journey to build an entertainment marketing earned media supergroup with the acquisition of the best in class talent booking and celebrity live event firm, Special Projects. We believe each of these is a catalyst for our company in its own right, and I'll spend a few words on each. Speaker 200:04:27And As an aside, on a personal note, I can unequivocally say that this run post Labor Day has been the busiest period of my entire career, Just one big ticket item after another. Okay. So first, the merger of BSocial and Socialite to create the digital department. I'll be brief on this topic since we alluded to it coming in September at length during our Q2 earnings call. The short term pain of management distractions in both Cash and intangible costs are all behind us now, and we've assembled a beautiful company that is a platform for us in the fastest growing area of marketing that we know. Speaker 200:05:06The launch events we hosted for our talent and brand partners in New York and Los Angeles were nothing short of electric. The New York event was at Midnight Theater, I might add. The incoming calls to work with the digital department are exactly what we hope for and the excitement about its expansion prospects is palpable. There's just tremendous momentum both internally and externally around building what we think will be the flagship influencer marketing in the country out of the entertainment space. Simply put, the digital department will be a strong growth catalyst amongst our core businesses as we add new verticals of expertise. Speaker 200:05:42Right now, we are market leaders in female focused fashion, beauty, wellness and lifestyle products with Instagram as our major platform of choice. We have several well known reality television personalities on our roster of more than 200 exclusive talent. From this base, we plan to expand to include several new verticals such as sports, culinary, teens and young adults, Reaching broader audiences on both TikTok and YouTube to complement Instagram. Just the sports vertical alone could in success, We believe Gro to be as big as our entire business today. Much more to come on this in the quarters ahead. Speaker 200:06:25Next, I'll turn to Midnight Theatre. As a reminder, Dolphin manages all aspects of publicity and marketing for Midnight Theatre and its restaurant, Hidden Leaf, while also facilitating talent and commercial relationships within the entertainment and culinary industries. Dolphin also holds a meaningful ownership stake in the venture. The headline here is our new multiyear partnership with Mastercard. Obviously, this is the bluest of blue chip partners for any performance venue. Speaker 200:06:52Guests will have the opportunity to partake in new immersive experiences, exclusive events, special discounts, all tailored exclusively for Mastercard cardholders. Moreover, the venue will now be known as Mastercard Midnight Theater with the financial industry powerhouse's name prominently featured. We are confident that this long term support from such a prominent player in the financial industry substantially elevates the intrinsic value of this cutting edge destination. For anyone new to Dolphin, Midnight Theatre is located in Manhattan West in New York between 9th and 10th Avenues. The same streets, 31st and between 31st and 33rd, like Penn Station or Madison Square Garden, just one avenue over. Speaker 200:07:34And it's inside Brookfield's $4,500,000,000 complex, the largest in Brookfield's history. We are the only entertainment venue there. We have a theater and a restaurant on the same floor, all under one roof, if you will. We went to 7 days a week, 4 days after we merged The influencer agencies in 11 days before we acquired special projects with a full programming schedule and events throughout the fall. And we've already started booking 2024, which includes internationally renowned magician Joshua Jay, who is bringing Look closer, a new magic show to Midnight Theater in February. Speaker 200:08:10They'll be performing 16 shows, including 2 shows on Valentine's Day. I'm going to highlight this particular show because of the quality of the performer who's looking to call Midnight Theater home. So Joshua returns to New York 4 years after his critically acclaimed show 6 Impossible Things sold out its entire 18 month off Broadway run. As a magician, Joshua Jay has performed his original work on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, The Late Show with James Corden and even successfully fooled Penn and Teller on Fool Us. I can hear James Carbonara multitasking and pulling up midnighttheater.com to buy Valentine's Day tickets right now. Speaker 200:08:47Let's just say I'm happy for Mira and his lovely wife who doesn't have to plan it this year. Okay. So now we're up to the acquisition of Special Projects. This company is very special to all of us at Dolphin since it represents the culmination of that 7 year journey to build our entertainment marketing supergroup. What began with the speech at LD Micro in December of 2016 and was followed by the acquisition of 42 West on March 30, 2017 and the uplisting to NASDAQ in December of 2017, 1 year after the speech at LD Micro, Has now finished after buying 1 company a year since, with 2 in 2018, I should add. Speaker 200:09:25And it would be hard pressed to think of any company more strategic for our group and Special Projects. So first, some particulars. Special Projects was founded by Nicole Vecchiarelli and Andrea Olivieri, 2 former magazine editors who met working at Conde Nast. They have built the entertainment industry's go to talent booking and celebrity curated live event company, Period. They have offices in both New York and Los Angeles and simply handle a wide variety of signature events from The Wall Street Journal's Innovator Awards held at The Met every year with this year's honorees 2 weeks ago, including Martin Scorsese and Kylie Jenner, among others, to the Motion Picture Academy Museum Gala in Los Angeles coming up in a few weeks And set to honor Meryl Streep, Oprah Winfrey, Sofia Coppola, Michael B. Speaker 200:10:09Jordan along with a few surprises. Too bad they couldn't get any big names, right? Their client list is A plus plus from retainer clients like Apple and Chanel to project based clients like Amazon, the Apollo Theater, Bumble, GQ, Louis Vuitton, Max Mara, Meta, Netflix, Stella McCartney, Versace, Yves Saint Laurent and YouTube. Anyone who has heard our story before today knows that ideating and world class events is a big part of Dolphin's future. First, let's just take a look at our core business. Speaker 200:10:45Just with the business that our PR firms are already doing, We have so many opportunities for cross selling. Every movie or streaming series that 42 Us is promoting is a potential candidate for premier event handled by special projects. Every hotel or restaurant opening that the door is promoting is a potential candidate for a launch event handled by special projects. Every single or album drop that Shorefire is promoting is an opportunity to create a release party handled by special projects. Any consumer product being handled by any one of our PR firms is the potential beneficiary or sponsor of an event handled by Special Projects. Speaker 200:11:27Oh, by the way, this is an immediately accretive acquisition for us. Special Projects is a very well run profitable business with a great margin and we think we can grow them very well in the next 12, 24 months with all the synergies I just mentioned. And when we look at Dolphin Ventures, we talk about receiving ownership stakes in exchange for our services and promoting 3 categories of assets: Content, consumer products and live events. Thus, ideating and executing world class events is a big part of Dolphin's future and adding special projects immediately catapults us into the industry leading position. And needless to say, after hearing that client roster, The reputations and relationships of Andrea and Nicole in our industry are simply unmatched. Speaker 200:12:14So, Andrea, Nicole and Special Projects have finished our supergroup. I've talked about how to sum, this may seem like it's a finish line. For us at Dolphin, we see it as the starting line. We now have our full team assembled. And by the way, 8 acquisitions from only 8 offers. Speaker 200:12:35What's that tell you? We got our first choice of companies in every vertical of entertainment marketing we want to be in. We've assembled our dream team. Now we're excited to show what we can do together. With these accomplishments, we believe Dolphin is in its strongest position in company history with highly diversified revenue sources across 7 operating subsidiaries and expectations of cash operating profits in 2024. Speaker 200:13:03As we look ahead to next year, a landscape of promising opportunities within Dolphin Entertainment and Dolphin Ventures awaits, beginning with the release of and the revenues from the Blue Angels, the first project in our multiyear agreement with IMAX. Also, we believe the aforementioned multiyear partnership with Mastercard and Midnight Theatre validates our investment by indicating the value placed on our venue by the market. Both our IMAX partnership and our Midnight Theatre venue are just getting started. And each of them are ahead of other Dolphin Ventures that we are equally excited about and are working hard to realize in 2024. In short, we believe we've weathered the unique storm of this past summer and early fall. Speaker 200:13:47Looking ahead, after successfully navigating these temporary headwinds and after our successful at the market raise, No discount, no warrants of 2 weeks ago, we find ourselves on stable footing and with the full amount of our targeted cash reserves. We are very confident in our sustainable path forward. We believe that this sends a strong message to a current microcap market, which we expect will reward Positive free cash flow underlining our strategy for creating significant near term shareholder value. With that said, I'll turn it over to Meredith. Speaker 300:14:21Thank you, Bill, and good afternoon, everyone. I will now discuss results for the quarter ended September 30, 2023. Total revenue for the Q3 ended September 30, 2023 increased by 3% to 10.2 3 months ended September 30, 2023 were approximately $12,300,000 compared to approximately $11,000,000 for the 3 months ended September 30, 2022. Operating expenses are composed of direct costs, payroll and benefits, selling, general and administrative expenses, acquisition costs, depreciation and amortization, impairment of intangible assets and legal and professional fees. Direct costs for the quarter ended September 30, 2023 were $185,308 compared to $837,429 for the quarter ended September 30, 2022. Speaker 300:15:22Payroll costs were approximately $8,400,000 in the Q3 of 2023 compared to $7,000,000 in the Q3 of 2022. SG and A expenses were $2,100,000 in Q3 of 2023 compared to $1,700,000 in Q3 of last year. Legal and professional fees were $695,188 in Q3 of 2023 compared to $774,613 in Q3 of 2022. Operating loss for Q3 of 2023 Of $2,100,000 includes non cash items of over $1,200,000 Net loss for Q3 of 2023 of $3,900,000 includes non cash items of approximately $2,400,000 The non cash items included in operating losses consist of non recurring 341,417 dollar impairment of the trade names of BSocial and Socialite upon combining to become the digital department $535,740 of depreciation and amortization and $311,578 of bad debt related to the write off of our investment in Craft House Cocktails. Net loss for Q3 of 2023 also includes the non recurring write off of our investment in Craft House Cocktails of approximately $1,200,000 reported under the caption Equity in losses of unconsolidated affiliates. Speaker 300:16:57This compares to an operating loss and net loss for the quarter ended September 30, 2022 of $1,100,000 and $1,300,000 respectively, which include non cash items from depreciation and amortization of 415,836 Loss per share was $0.27 per share based on 14,000,000 121,275 weighted average shares outstanding for both basic loss per share and fully diluted loss per share for the 3 months ended September 30, 2023. Loss per share was $0.14 per share based on 9,000,000 664,681 weighted average shares outstanding for Basic and 9,790 3,00715 weighted average shares outstanding on a fully diluted loss per share basis for the 3 months ended September 30, 2022. Cash and cash equivalents of $6,400,000 as of September 30, 2023, as compared to $6,100,000 as of December October 31, 2023 underwritten public offering of 1,400,000 shares of its common of our common stock at a price of $1.65 per share. That concludes my financial remarks. I will now ask the operator to open the phone lines for Q and A. Speaker 300:18:28Operator, would you please poll for questions? Operator00:18:31Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, the floor is now open for And we'll take our first question from Allen Klee from Maxim Group. Please go ahead, Allen. Yes. Speaker 400:18:57Hi. Congratulations on All the positive events. I'd like to start with Blue Angels and the IMAX partnership. What's your best guess on when this goes into theaters? And how do you think about When you get paid for that and for Amazon and then when you might consider the second Movie that you do in partnership with them? Speaker 400:19:27Thank you. Speaker 200:19:29Sure. Yes, this is obviously a hot topic With folks that have followed our story because it's a great success story for us, the Blue Angels. We expect to have that in theaters Probably Q2, Alan. We expect to deliver the movie maybe even close to year end here, but probably Q1 early Q1. We recognize the revenue in Q1 then and would expect to receive the cash Almost entirely by the end of Q1 or into Q2, if delivery occurs in January. Speaker 200:20:06As I mentioned, the revenues recognized upon delivery of the film, 90% of it is. So I think then as people knew the story might find an interest, we sold the Film in what's called the second window, meaning after it's in theaters with IMAX, it will go on Amazon Prime. And we expect it to generate more than a 75% return on investment for us just from the sales we've already made. So that doesn't count Any revenue share from the ticket sales in IMAX theaters or any theaters. So it was a home run first project in our slate with Multi year slate with IMAX. Speaker 200:20:53In terms of the second project in that slate, actively being discussed right now, I think I may have mentioned on our last earnings call, we hoped to have an announcement to make before the end of this year, but it may trickle into the Q1 Because it's hard to follow-up a mega hit like that, we're actively looking for one that we can be in production on next year. Speaker 400:21:17Okay, thank you. So here's a question that somebody asked me to ask you, so I ask it now before I forget. We do make a bunch of announcements of your various firms, Their clients winning awards. And the question is, do you get paid more when one of your clients Wins and award. Speaker 200:21:44Yes. And that's one of the reasons why we do it. We frame it as we are Congratulating our subsidiary or congratulating the clients as they deserve to be congratulated when you handle 25 Grammy nominations or 99 Emmy nominations, whatever, but or however many Oscar nominations we'll have. But The benefit of that also is that typically how awards campaigns work is that you get paid a retainer each month while you're running the campaign. And oftentimes, in certain industries, you get Bonus upon receiving a nomination at all. Speaker 200:22:27And by the way, then it extends Your run, right, because if you're nominated, you keep the monthly retainer as soon as the award ceremony. So you might have gone from a 3 month campaign To see if you get a nomination to another 3 months after until the award ceremony, for example, or whatever it might be. You also get a especially in the case of the Oscars, You typically get a nice reward bonus, if your nominee wins in its category. So and Those bonuses are typically from can range from mid to high 5 figures each. In rare cases, you may even get a 6 figure bonus for a win. Speaker 200:23:07So Those are nice to haves in our industry for sure and can add up quite a bit. Speaker 400:23:16That's very informative. Thank you. So you said that you expect to get When the industry resumes normal operations post strike, you expect to be cash flow positive. Is a reasonable time to think about that being best guess today is Q2 2024? Speaker 200:23:43I think so. That seems conservative and nice for us. I mean with the strike ending in the after strike, Which is one that impacted us the most, right? And you say how, well, of course, the two ways that it impacts us the most would be certain Talent don't they're not allowed to promote during a strike. So personal publicity takes If you don't have something other than filmed entertainment to promote, you would go on what's called hiatus, pause your publicity work. Speaker 200:24:14And then secondly, many movies just pushed out of the quarter. Now we've got arguably the biggest movie theaters, Traditional movie in Killers of the Flower Moon, Mark Scorsese's movie with DiCaprio and De Niro and that studio decided to push forward With the release despite not having DiCaprio and De Niro able to promote it. But many movies, the majority of movies Chose to push into next year. So after the Marvels and I think Disney might have one more, yeah, they have Wish coming out in a couple of weeks. Disney, for example, is pausing or has a gap, should say in the release slate of 7 months, I think, till the next movie will hit theaters next summer. Speaker 200:24:54So of course, we don't need the movie to be in theaters. We start promoting beforehand, but I would think that with strikes over now, they'll impact us here obviously in the Q4 and into the Q1. But we'll be resume We'll resume normal operations at some point before the end of Q1, we would hope and Q2 will be a normal quarter for us. I think the cash profit cash operating profit, We are very proud of the fact that we built the team that would have done it anyway, but and with special projects that certainly helps. I think the hesitation you're hearing in my voice is what will Q1 look like. Speaker 200:25:31It's always our weakest quarter, and Q4 is always our strongest quarter. So, it's hard to gauge today because it's a riddle that would only best be answered if we knew how the strikes will linger into Q1. Right now, before the strike settled, there were only 3 theatrical releases on a wide basis the entire month of January. Everybody was pushing out of it because they didn't know if they'd have actors to promote. Now some of those moves are going to come back in, but it's It could be a ramp up period in Q1 that I just don't know the answer to if we could be cash positive in Q1, but we would expect to be by Q2 and going forward. Speaker 400:26:14That's great. Thank you. So for your social influencing businesses that you combined, You've said in the past that's around a quarter of your revenue, but then there's opportunities to grow that very significantly. You said As you add new verticals, how do you think about the timing of building out these new verticals? Speaker 200:26:45That's very near term, Alan. We put just like we acquired Socialite And we announced it on this call last year, right, the Q3 earnings call date November 14, I think it was also last year. And we with the eye towards the merger, right, that we were going to combine New York and LA, to create the we didn't know the name at the time, but the digital department. We handled that merger with the eye towards having the scale and size of a company to build these other verticals. That was a big factor in the merger. Speaker 200:27:25And so we've been Just like we've been working last few months towards a merger before it came about, we've got We feel very strongly about the work we've put in the last few weeks months to have these other verticals in that we'd be announcing in the New Year for the digital department. And we're particularly excited about them all, but Obviously, sports represents such a huge area for us and growth area for Digital Apartment for sure. Speaker 400:28:02Thank you. For Midnight Theater, how Should we think about the impact of the Mastercard partnership? Speaker 200:28:13Well, it's certainly from a financial It buffers the investment, right? I mean, it's a multiyear deal with increases every year. And it is we're very pleased with the outcome. And then on an operational level, you've got a partner that both brings events to the space, Brings awareness their own events, I mean, brings awareness to the space and has a marketing engine behind it. So The theater is off to a strong start after the grand opening. Speaker 200:28:55Q4 is always good too because we'll have the private events Business with the holiday season, and it's but it's nice as you go into the slow business of Q1, So it kind of mirrors some of our companies in that way. When you have a partner like that, that can bring events during the dead of winter, It's just very strong for our business. And as I mentioned on the earnings call, I mean, these types of things may Somewhat get taken for granted because of some of the blue chip clients we have with our entertainment marketing companies. But in a venue like this, in an investment like this, this Far from normal. This is a 150 seat granted state of the art variety theater in a beautiful $4,500,000,000 complex. Speaker 200:29:41But at the end of the day, everyone who just think of your own hometown. If you're from New York, think of all the entertainment venues of that size you've been to, Joe's Pub to You know, 54 Below to wherever you may be thinking of, right? Now I ask you to take 5 seconds And just think of which of those venues have a sponsor. If you can name 1, have the same size with any sponsor and that could be like Joe's oil change, right? And then you think about Mastercard And a deal done with the global CMO of Mastercard, I think it validates Our venue validates its presence in New York City. Speaker 200:30:29And I think it you can imagine that there's excitement about what we'll be doing in the future Speaker 400:30:39Is there a kind of a goal for how many private events You would like to do a month? Speaker 200:30:48Yes. We have a goal in terms of full venue buyouts. In a perfect world, you're doing you could do 1 a week and not disrupt your programming enough, right? And when I say full venue, That means a client is taking over both the theater and the restaurant. Now in terms of just either The lounge buyout or private dining room buyout or even a restaurant buyout, you could do those maybe you don't want to do it more frequently than a couple of times a week Restaurant buyout, but I think that 1 to 2 times a week for the larger buyouts in terms of the lounge or the happy hours or the private dining room, we can do that every day. Speaker 200:31:29And sometimes it feels like we do. So, and of course you only do buyouts if The money you're receiving is significantly above what you could just do if you operated it, right? So they're lucrative for us and We like to do as many as we can responsibly. Speaker 400:31:54That's great. Okay. And then on special projects, It sounded like this could be you haven't provided the financial breakout of it in terms of what its Revenues is I don't think I mean you did discuss how much you paid for it. But it sounds like With the synergies, this could be the revenues could be maybe significantly more than But it has been historically. Is that kind of a way to think about it? Speaker 200:32:31Yes. And the profit, I mean, this is a fair I don't want to Give a wrong connotation here. This is a well run, very profitable, high margin business as it is, period. And like I said, it's immediately accretive for us. And we'll announce those financials about 74 days after the acquisition. Speaker 200:32:50We'll file The 8 ks, so it's not me dodging and it's I can't get ahead of our filing, right? But with that said, it's already well run like I mentioned. But I was trying to make the point in my prepared remarks. You can see how seamless this type of company and this particular company is within the group we've already built. In a perfect world, we wanted to buy those PR firms first, which we largely accomplished And then add influencer marketing, I think I called that the peanut butter and jelly of earned media on past calls. Speaker 200:33:31Those are the Twin pillars, if you will, PR and influencer marketing to create awareness and reach. And then the live event company, We always did want to bring in last, because the PR firms and quite frankly the influencer Can refer so much business to them. And so it'd be a shame to have the live event company first and you're waiting to buy the PR first, right? But then in terms of Dolphin Ventures, the live events company, special Projects is highly strategic. We bought 3 PR firms. Speaker 200:34:06We bought 2 influencer marketing agencies and we have 1 live event company and we don't need another Because they're on both coasts, they're already the market leader, they're already the most established brand in talent booking and celebrity live events, which is our wheelhouse of course. And with them we instantly can ideate anything involving celebrities or influencers and with a Curated editorial sensibility and we have immediate credibility with any media partner. I mean they're already Ideating and executing for Wall Street Journal, for Conde Nast, for W Magazine, for Bustle Digital Group, Right. They come from that world. So now all of a sudden you've got PR firms, influencer marketing, publishing to promote an event that we could either ideate or take an ownership stake in, for all of that superpower and you can bring the celebrities there. Speaker 200:35:03So it's all great to give award ceremonies, but if you can't get somebody to show up to receive the award, it's not much of a very sponsorable event, right? They do it at the very highest level. And obviously, these are major brand name type events with major celebrities attending. So And they put all of that together. So last year's Academy Museum gala that had George Clooney and Julia Roberts up there And it had Hailey Bieber and Selena Gomez in the audience sharing the table and the photo that broke the Internet. Speaker 200:35:33That's all them. They bring the celebrities. They do the seating charts. They organize the Panels, they put everybody up there. So, it's they're very well regarded in the industry, and We're blessed to have them and they complete the supergroup. Speaker 400:35:52Thank you. In your business where you Take positions in content or consumer products. Part of the longer term strategy is for some of them, you're basically getting the equity for free and then over time, You can get payouts on that. Do you think it's reasonable to think that maybe some of them might pay out in 2024? Speaker 200:36:23Well, and you're yes, you're referencing when we get we take or receive ownership stakes in products or companies in exchange in partial exchange for our services. We love that model where we get cash. We get some cash every month As a retainer, but we also get equity 5%, 7.5%, 10% of a product or service, in exchange for the Firepower of the supergroup and it works especially well when the marketing is as valuable as the quality of the product itself. So think industries like liquor, beauty, cosmetics, wellness products, getting People aware of the product and maybe even endorsed from an entertainment figure either celebrity or influencers Yes, we love that model and we put up no capital as you said, Alan. Will we have some exits in 2024? Speaker 200:37:26That May happen in the second half of the year depending on where a couple land. But I think what we see now that we have the group Just using a year or so to build a slate of those. We've already got a couple, as you mentioned, and then start rolling exits out as we add new into the slate every year. We'll hopefully roll out a successful exit. And there are some very successful exits we can all think of using either celebrity front of product or influencer front of product in the marketplace. Speaker 200:38:01And we expect to have 1 or 2 of those ourselves in the next few years, we hope. Speaker 400:38:07Okay, fantastic. Well, that's my questions. Thank you so much. Speaker 200:38:12Thank you, Speaker 400:38:18Alan. Speaker 300:38:29There's one in the queue. Operator00:38:35There appear to be no further questions at this time. I'll turn the floor back to Bill O'Dowd for closing remarks. Speaker 200:38:43Okay, great. Well, Thank you very much. And I was getting slipped a note to see if was there one question from Tim Regan or is that Operator00:38:57He had been in the queue, but then he must have removed himself. Speaker 200:39:01Okay. Maybe I answered this other question too long. Thank you very much. You're welcome. Of course, Karen. Speaker 200:39:09Well, thank you, everybody, For listening today, I know this is the entry into the longest stretch of the earnings call seasons where we go from November 14 all the way to March 31, Without having scheduled earnings call or the end of March, whatever our filing date is, we'll try and continue with almost weekly press releases to let you know how each of the subsidiaries are operating. We would hope to have some of the bigger Like a Mastercard sponsorship or something equally exciting, the merger of our companies. Between now and then, of course, we have a couple of those and we'll try and call those out to pay particular attention to, especially if it involves any of the ventures or Receiving ownership stakes in some of those. We have a couple on the cusp. And I thank everyone who's been a part of the journey, especially for those funds who that We're in the room in December of 2016 at LD Micro when the idea of a group was presented before we bought the first one, 42 West, 3 months later. Speaker 200:40:24So thank you for those who've been With us since the beginning and thank you for those who've just heard about us and joined in the last month or so. It's been a fun ride and as I said, We think we're now firmly at the starting line with the full group intact. So we're excited to see what's going to happen next. Thank you guys for the time today, and Operator00:40:48Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude today's Dolphin Entertainment earnings call. 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