Beasley Broadcast Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:BBGI) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Beasley Broadcast Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:BBGI) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript November 1, 2023

Operator: Good morning and welcome to Beasley Broadcast Group’s Third Quarter 2023 Conference Call. Before proceeding, I’d like to emphasize that today’s conference call and webcast will contain forward-looking statements about our future performance and results of operations that involve risks and uncertainties despite in the Risk Factors section of our most recent annual report on Form 10-K 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.

I’d also remind listeners that following its completion, a replay of today’s call can be accessed for five days on the company’s website www.bbgi.com. You can also find a copy of today’s press release on the Investors and Press Room section of the site. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to your host, Beasley Broadcast Group’s CEO, Caroline Beasley. Please go ahead.

Caroline Beasley: Thank you very much, and good morning. Welcome to our third quarter conference call. Marie Tedesco, our CFO, is with me this morning. The third quarter saw continued softness in the advertising market with the cyclical offset of political, which led to a 5.8% revenue decline. However, excluding last year’s political revenue of approximately $1.8 million revenue was down 3.2% or $2 million. And on a positive note, our quarterly digital revenue continued to show year-over-year growth and with our proactive expense management initiatives, we decreased our operating expenses by 2.7%, resulting in SOI of $10 million and EBITDA of $5.5 million or down $2.3 million and $1.7 million, respectively. While overall revenue decreased 5.8%, we saw increases in digital, which was up 9.1% and network increasing 35%.

Aerial view of broadcast segment of the media company at work.

With our consistent digital revenue growth and currently representing almost 19% of total revenue we are within a basis point of reaching the lower end of our goal of digital accounting for 20% to 30% of total revenue. The increases from digital and network were offset by challenges in National, which was down $2.6 million or 20% and down 8% excluding political. And local was also down 6%. The softness of the local side was a result of a soft local agency market, which was down 4.7% and local direct market, which was down 3.5%. As a result of this softness, we reprioritized our efforts mid-quarter with a renewed focus on developing mobile direct new business. And as a result, local new business grew 22%, $7.8 million, up from $6.4 million in the prior year.

In the sports betting category, we recorded $3.7 million in the third quarter down 2.6% from the prior year, with sports betting representing 6% of total revenue. Sports betting was driven by increased spending in Boston, which generated $1.9 million this quarter versus $325,000 in the prior year. We expect sports betting in Boston to increase in fourth quarter with increased Patriots, Celtics and Bruins games. These gains were offset by year-over-year decreases in Detroit and Philadelphia. Now breaking down the quarter’s total revenue trends, July was down 4.8%, August was down 5.1% and September, showing a slight improvement declined 2.3%. September, excluding political, increased 2.1% or by $530,000, which reflected our focus on developing local direct business.

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Q&A Session

And as I point to note, same-station revenue was down 4.7%, same-station expenses were down 3.6% and same-station SOI was down 9.3%. And excluding political, revenue declined 2% and SOI increased 4.5% on a same-station basis. The sale of WJBR, our single station in Wilmington, closed in early fourth quarter, and I’m happy to announce that we took advantage of our bonds trading below par and used 100% of the proceeds along with cash on our balance sheet to reduce our debt by $10 million. In addition, we were able to retain the majority of our digital revenue from JBR, which shifted over to our digital direct agency. Our debt reduction both reduces our leverage and will lower our annual interest expense by approximately $863,000. We will continue to monitor the market conditions to determine when we should repurchase additional bonds.

I’m now going to hand it over to Marie, who will give you a deeper dive into the quarter.

Marie Tedesco: Thanks, Caroline, and good morning, everyone. Third quarter net revenue decreased 5.8% or $3.7 million to $60.1 million, which includes $609,000 from our esports team. Excluding political, revenue decreased $2 million year-over-year or by 3.2%. We generated positive revenue growth in four of our markets, including Augusta, Boston, Fort Myers and Wilmington. Digital revenue for the quarter grew 9.1% to $11.4 million and now represents 18.6% of total revenue for the quarter and we will continue to grow this revenue stream and diversify our revenue sources. Moving to our revenue categories for third quarter. Consumer services remained our largest category at 29.2% of total revenue. This category declined 1.8% during the quarter.

However, five of our markets delivered year-over-year increases. The largest decrease in this category came from medical, dental and recruitment. Our second largest category was retail, which fell 1.5% year-over-year and accounted for 16.2% of total revenue. Entertainment, number three, represents around 15.2% of third quarter total revenues and decreased 7.8% year-over-year. The entertainment category includes sports betting, which generated $3.7 million for the quarter compared to $3.8 million in the prior year quarter. Auto, our fourth largest category saw revenues up 1.6% year-over-year and the category accounted for 8.8% of total revenue. We saw increases in auto in more than half of our market, including a 24% growth in Philadelphia. Domestic auto advertising increased 1% in the quarter, while import auto ads were up around 10%.

We have seen a spike in National Auto Tier 1 branding, while domestic auto has slowed somewhat, especially Tier 1, and this has been partly driven by the current auto strike. We expect continued improvement once the auto strike is resolved. Finance jumped the fifth spot with revenues up almost 4% and finance is 5.2% of our total revenue. SOI for the quarter decreased 18.8% or by $2.3 million year-over-year as revenue declines were partially offset by our success in reducing expenses by $1.4 million in the quarter. And echoing Caroline, same-station revenue excluding WWWE-AM, which was divested in the quarter and the KDWN, KXTE swap and the Guarantee Digital acquisition declined 4.7% or $2.9 million to $59.2 million and same-station SOI declined 9.3% or $1.1 million to $10.8 million.

Same-station does not reflect the sale of WJBR, which took place on October 5th, 2023. Year-to-date revenue decreased 1.6% with year-to-date same-station revenue decreasing 1.9%. Year-to-date SOI increased 0.2% with year-to-date same-station SOI increasing 8.4%. Corporate G&A expenses for the quarter decreased 12% or $639,000 compared to the same quarter a year ago to $4.5 million. The year-over-year decrease in corporate G&A is related to a decrease in wages and corporate digital expenses. Noncash stock-based compensation decreased 34% or $92,000 to $178,000 in the quarter and we paid $107,000 in income taxes in the quarter. Third quarter 2023 operating income of negative $85.5 million reflects a noncash impairment charge of $78.2 million and a noncash goodwill impairment of $10.6 million, driven by the increase in discount rates and reduced overall radio market revenue projections.