Beasley Broadcast Group Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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August 3, 2023

There are 4 speakers on the call.

Operator

Good morning, and welcome to the Bitly Broadcast Group Second Quarter 2023 Conference Call. Now, I will turn the call over to your host. Please go ahead.

Speaker 1

Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone. Today's conference call and webcast will contain forward looking statements about our future performance and results of operations that involve risks and uncertainties described in the Risk Factors section of our most recent annual report on Form 10 ks as supplemented by our quarterly reports on Form 10 Q. Today's webcast will also contain a discussion of certain non GAAP Financial measures within the meaning of Item 10 of Regulation S K. A reconciliation of these non GAAP measures with their most directly comparable financial measures Calculated and presented in accordance with GAAP can be found in this morning's news announcement and on the company's website.

Speaker 1

I'd also remind listeners that following its completion, a replay of today's call can be accessed for 5 days on the company's website, www.bbgi.com. You can also find a copy of today's press release on the Investors or Press Room sections of our website. At this time, it's my pleasure to turn the conference over to your host, Beasley Broadcast Group's CEO, Caroline Beasley. Please go ahead, Caroline.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Joe. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us to review our for Q2 operating results. Marie Tedesco, our CFO, is with me this morning. I'm pleased to present yet another successful quarter With significant improvements in both SOI and EBITDA and continued double digit growth of digital revenue, Reflecting our proactive initiatives to reduce expenses and permanently reduce headcount in 2022, We delivered a quarter where expenses were down 4.3% year over year, resulting in quarterly SOI growth of 8.5% and EBITDA growth of 16.8%. Overall, revenue decreased 2.1% And while we saw double digit increases in both digital, which was up 14.8% and network, which was up 32 These were offset by softness in both national and local spot advertising.

Speaker 2

As in recent quarters, national remains challenged and for the quarter Was down 11%. There was also softness on the local side with local spot down 3%. And this was a result of a soft local agency market with the local direct market being relatively flat. Looking more closely at the year over year comps, Q2 2022 had 2 events in our Tampa market, which did not return in Q2 2023, as well as company wide political revenue of approximately $513,000 net of agency commission. Excluding those events and political revenue from the previous year, our revenue would have been flat year over year.

Speaker 2

Now moving to the sports betting category. We recorded $3,400,000 in the quarter. That's up 9.7% from the prior year. And sports betting represented 5.4 percent of total revenue for the quarter. Our growth in sports betting came from a surge in spending in Boston, which generated $1,500,000 this quarter versus $170,000 in the prior year's Q2.

Speaker 2

We expect sports betting in Boston to remain strong in both 3rd and 4th quarters as we begin a new Patriots, Celtics and Bruins season. Elsewhere Detroit and Philly recorded combined sports betting revenue of $1,500,000 during the quarter. Now the ongoing success of our digital transformation was again high This represented 19.4 percent of total revenue. That's up from 16.5% in the year ago 2nd quarter And up from 17.3% in Q1 of this year. Our digital revenue comes primarily from the following.

Speaker 2

Number 1, Our owned and operated assets, which can with content creation driving the larger increase, and this has a higher profit margin for us. 3rd party digital is number 2, which is primarily SEM, SEO, Facebook and Google and of course comes with a higher cost. And number 3, web services, which we began selling late last year. Our talented sales team has been able to combine our over the air and digital platform offerings to deliver marketing campaigns and brand solutions that work for our clients. Our continued strong digital revenue growth I've moved up to within a few basis points of reaching the bottom end of our goal of digital accounting for 20% to 30% of total revenue this year.

Speaker 2

Now breaking down the quarter's revenue trends. April was flat, May was down 1.6% and June, which was a bit more challenging decline 4.4% year over year. And as a point to note, same station revenue was down 3%. Same station expenses were down almost 7% and same station SOI increased 14%. With strong results and a somewhat cautious outlook, we remain hyper focused on reducing our leverage by continuing to grow EBITDA and reducing our debt.

Speaker 2

We took advantage of our bonds trading below par and reduced our debt by $3,000,000 at the end of second quarter. We're going to continue to monitor the market conditions to determine when we should repurchase our bonds going forward. With that, I'm going to hand it over to Marie, who has additional comments on the quarter.

Speaker 3

Thanks, Caroline, and good morning, everyone. I will review our 2nd quarter results and provide an update of our balance sheet. 2nd quarter net revenue increased 2.1 percent or $1,300,000 to $63,500,000 which includes $700,000 from our e14. Excluding a political revenue decrease of $490,000 and 2 nonrecurring events of $840,000 Our revenue would have been flat year over year. We generated positive revenue growth in 5 of our markets, Including double digit growth in Wilmington and mid to high single digit growth in Boston, Charlotte, Las Vegas and Fort Myers.

Speaker 3

Digital revenue for the quarter grew 14.8 percent to $12,300,000 and now represents 19.4% of total revenue for the quarter as we continue to grow this revenue stream and diversify our revenue sources. Moving to our revenue categories for Q2. Consumer services remained our largest revenue category at 31% of our total revenue. This category declined 0.5% year over year during the quarter, with the largest increase coming from legal and the largest Our 2nd largest category was retail, which fell 8.3% year over year and accounted for 17% of total revenues. Entertainment number 3 represents around 14% of 2Q total revenues and decreased 1% year over year.

Speaker 3

The entertainment category includes sports betting, which generated $3,400,000 for the quarter. Auto, our 4th largest category, saw revenues up 7% year over year and the category accounted for 9.1% of Total revenue. We saw increases in auto in more than half of our markets, including double digit growth in Boston And an almost 10% growth in Philadelphia. We have seen improvements in this revenue category and expect that will continue to improve throughout the year as there have been reports on inventory levels of millions of vehicles. In 6th spot was Telecom, down 7.5%, representing 4.4% of total revenue.

Speaker 3

Corporate G and A expenses for the quarter decreased 3.6 percent or $162,000 compared to the same quarter a year ago to $4,400,000 The year over year decrease in corporate G and A is related to a decrease in wage expense. Non cash self based compensation decreased 52% or 197,000 to 181,000 In the quarter, we had an income tax benefit for the quarter of 822,000 2nd quarter 2023 operating income decreased $54,000 to a negative 4,500,000 More or less in line with the year ago, the negative operating income was driven by a noncash Impairment loss of $10,000,000 in 2Q 'twenty three and a noncash impairment loss in for 2Q 2022 of $8,600,000 So excluding these noncash impairment losses, We were positive on an operating basis in both periods. 2nd quarter interest expense decreased 100,000 Year over year to $6,700,000 and our outstanding debt at the end of 2Q was $287,000,000 reflecting a $3,000,000 bond repurchase at a discount of approximately 34%. We also made another interest payment of approximately $12,300,000 on August 1. 2nd quarter 2023 EBITDA was up 16.8 percent or $1,100,000 from the previous year quarter to 7,700,000 LTM adjusted net leverage, including add backs such as certain taxes, non cash compensation, losses from a digital agency build up, Pro form a for our 2022 agency acquisition and pro form a 2022 risk decreased to 6.64 times.

Speaker 3

We ended Q2 2023 with cash on hand of $35,500,000 as we are generating cash from operations and continuing to build up our cash. We expect to generate positive free cash flow for the full year of 2023. Our current cash balance will allow us the flexibility to continue to opportunistically reduce our debt, Our leverage and interest expense, which we are hyper focused on as this increases free cash flow and derisks our equity. Our capital expenditures for the quarter was $847,000 which was mostly related to replacement and upgrades of transmitters. That compares to 2Q 2022 CapEx spend of $5,100,000 which was related to our Boston build out.

Speaker 3

Year to date CapEx spend is $2,000,000 and that compares to year to date 2022 of $6,500,000 again reflecting the Boston build out. We expect our CapEx spending for 2023 to be around $4,000,000 to $5,000,000 for the full year. And with that, I'll turn it back to Caroline.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Marie. So I'm pleased with our Q2 performance in an environment where we've had some headwinds. We continue to show growth in our digital business, partially offsetting the decline in spot. Our content strategy initiated mid year 2022 helped drive 14.8% growth in our digital revenue for the quarter. So we're very excited about this opportunity as we continue through the balance of And our owned and operated audience monthly reach is now almost 29,000,000.

Speaker 2

That compares to 25,000,000 during the same period in 20 22. Again, this is a 14% overall monthly audience increase from last year. Our radio brands continue to maintain dominant Shans Nielsen, where our market share grew by 3% in our large PPM market with the key demographic of adults 2,554. And we maintain the highest average PPM cluster share when compared to the other major broadcasters. And overall, including both PPM and diary markets, Our average share grew by 6% year over year with adults 2,554.

Speaker 2

However, Like other recent quarters, the largest audience growth was seen on our digital O and O asset with unique users increasing by 62 from Q222 to Q222 2023. This audience growth led to a 59% increase of sellable digital impressions for the Same period. Digital now accounts for 44% of our total monthly audience. That's up two points from last quarter, and we expect Now moving on to esports, we now have moved into the second half of the 2023 Overwatch We now have our eyes set on the October playoffs In grand finals, which will be played October 4th through 6th in Toronto, our focus remains on expanding our audience on our social platform and competing for prize money. Now looking into Q3 and into the back half of twenty twenty three, our goals remain on maximizing revenue and driving Further revenue diversification, audience expansion, improving our margins, maintaining a strong and flexible balance sheet, reducing our debt, net leverage and growing free cash flow.

Speaker 2

As of today, our Q3 revenue is pacing down 3% And breaking that down, July was down approximately 5%. That's pretty similar to where we saw June end. August is pacing down approximately 3% Timber is pacing up 1%. Now last year, we recorded approximately $2,000,000 net of political revenue With half of that book as of this date last year. So excluding political, we're currently pacing down 1% for the quarter, With July down 3%, August down 2% and September pacing up 4%.

Speaker 2

We continue to be super focused on developing new local direct business and digital to offset the softness in the political comps. Finally, we are proud of the Strong results we have delivered over the last several quarters even against headwinds and before going into Q and A, I'd like to acknowledge our team members across the company for everything they've done and are doing, I'm absolutely thrilled with them as we've clearly accomplished a lot as we pursue additional opportunities to strengthen the company and build shareholder value. So with that, I'm going to turn it over to Marie. We do have some questions that were submitted to us. So Marie, you want to go through this question?

Speaker 3

Yes, I will do. As Caroline said, we received a few questions that we would like to address. And the first question is, could you give an update on your Esports investment? Sure.

Speaker 2

So Esports, We continue to make progress in this area and building our overall audience and also with a focus on winning prize dollars, as I mentioned earlier in the script, however, some of you may have read, there are some questions with Al, And we are currently looking at all of our options with the Overwatch League, and we should have an update sometime in 4th

Speaker 3

Great. Also the next question, could you talk about your refinancing process of your bonds that are coming Due in February of 2026, and I will take that. And yes, we are we certainly have our eye on this day, And we are hyper focused on continuing to reduce our debt and reduce our leverage. We will be exploring all options regarding our refinance well in advance of our bond's due date. And the last question is would you consider divesting non core assets?

Speaker 2

Yes. We discussed this last quarter, and that is something that we will consider doing. Great. All right. Thank you very much for your time today.

Speaker 2

And should you have any questions, feel free to reach out to either Marie or myself.

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Earnings Conference Call
Beasley Broadcast Group Q2 2023
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