DallasNews Corporation (NASDAQ:DALN) Q3 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

DallasNews Corporation (NASDAQ:DALN) Q3 2024 Earnings Call Transcript November 14, 2024

Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to the DallasNews Corporation Investor Call. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would like to turn the conference call over to your host, Gary Cobleigh. Please go ahead.

Gary Cobleigh: Good morning, everyone. This Gary Cobleigh, Vice President and Controller of DallasNews Corporation. Welcome to our third quarter 2024 investor call. I’m joined by Cathy Collins, DallasNews’ Chief Financial Officer, who will be reviewing financial results; Katy Murray, President of DallasNews; and Grant Moise, Chief Executive Officer, who will provide brief business remarks. Tuesday afternoon, we issued a press release announcing third quarter 2024 results, and we filed our third quarter 10-Q. Both of these are posted on our website, dallasnewscorporation.com under the Investor Relations section, unless otherwise specified comparisons used on today’s call measure third quarter 2024 performance against third quarter 2023 performance.

Our discussion today will include forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are subject to risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those statements. The company assumes no obligation to update the information in this communication except as otherwise required by law. Additional information about these factors is detailed in the company’s press releases and publicly available filings with the SEC. Today’s discussion will include non-GAAP financial measures. We believe non-GAAP financial measures provide useful supplemental information to assist investors in determining performance comparisons to our peers. A reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP financial measures is included with our press release.

I’ll now turn the call over to Cathy.

Cathy Collins: Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining today’s call. On a GAAP basis for the quarter, DallasNews Corporation reported a net loss of $3.9 million or $0.73 per share, and an operating loss of $4.1 million. In Q3 last year, we reported a net loss of $1.4 million and an operating loss of $1.6 million. 2024 net loss includes $3 million severance expense due to the anticipated headcount reductions related to our transition to a smaller printing facility. On a non-GAAP basis for the quarter, we reported an adjusted operating loss of $700,000, an improvement of $200,000 when compared to an adjusted operating loss of $900,000 reported for the same period last year. The improvement is due to expense savings of $1.9 million in distribution, $1.2 million in employee benefits and compensation, and $1.1 million in newsprint, partially offset by a total revenue decline of $3.4 million that is primarily due to discontinuing the shared mail program and printing our niche publications.

All other advertising and marketing services revenue, excluding the discontinued products I just mentioned, increased $400,000 or 3.3% when compared to the third quarter last year. While print advertising revenue was down, digital advertising revenue improved $48,000 primarily due to an increase in advertisements in the DallasMorning News e- paper, partially offset by a decline in digital advertisements on dallasnews.com. In a moment, Grant will provide insight into the digital advertising trends we are seeing on our website. Marketing and media services revenue improved $900,000, primarily resulting from two new customer contracts focused on media services that began in the third quarter of the year. Circulation revenue decreased $100,000 or less than 1%, the digital circulation revenue increase of $400,000 mostly offset the print circulation revenue decline of $500,000.

Digital only subscription rates increased approximately 13.5% offsetting the decline of 5,348 or 8% in digital subscribers. Total subscribers, including both home delivery and digital subscribers, was 124,886 as of September 30, compared to 132,694 as of December 31 and 137,493 as of September last year, Grant will also provide commentary on our digital pricing strategy. Other revenue decreased $500,000 primarily due to declines in commercial printing and distribution revenue and mailed advertising to business customers. In the third quarter, our partner for our program to distribute shared mail, located in Tempe, Arizona, gave their six month termination notice. This program has been experiencing revenue decline consistent with the overall industry trends.

So ending this business relationship is consistent with the shared mail business in Dallas that we exited in 2023. We do not expect a significant financial impact from the termination of this agreement when production ends in April of 2025. On a non-GAAP basis, total adjusted operating expenses for the quarter improved $3.5 million driven by expense savings of $1.9 million in distribution, $1.2 million in employee compensation and benefits, and $1.1 million in newsprint, primarily resulting from the discontinued product and the decline in the cost of newsprint, which was down 6.2% compared to prior year. As of September 30, pay count was 534 down 74 compared to last year, resulting from the voluntary severance program offered in the fall of 2023 and additional first quarter headcount reductions within Medium Giant.

As we previously announced in May of this year, we expect additional headcount reductions in the first quarter of 2025 due to our transition to a smaller printing facility and less staff needed to operate a more modern press. Consistent with interim periods, the company used the estimated annual effective tax method and recorded $345,000 of tax expense in the quarter For the Texas franchise tax. We continue to have a strong balance sheet with no debt. At the end of September, cash and cash equivalents were $14 million and as of November 8, we had $11.6 million in cash and cash equivalents. As we look to the last quarter of the year, we will continue our disciplined expense management, the transition to the new printing facility requires incurring additional capital and operating costs this year, but once complete, will result in an annual expense saving that is key to our return to growth plan.

I will now turn the call over to

Katy Murray : Thank you, Cathy. Good morning, everyone. I am going to be providing some updates on our pension plan funding status, our printing and distribution facility transition and the status on the marketing for the sale of our existing printing facility in Plano. As we have always stated, the funding of our pension plan is and continues to be a priority for management and for the board of directors. I am pleased to say that the plans are currently over 90% funded and that we do not have any mandatory contributions in the near term, we continue to look at any opportunities to de-risk the plan. The transition of our printing and distribution operations from Plano to Carrollton continues to move forward, and we are in the process of installing the first of the two new presses.

There is still considerable work to do, including the receipt and installation of the second press, but we remain optimistic that we will complete the transition of the operation from Plano to Carrollton in the first quarter of 2025. As part of this transition, we have worked with our national printing and distribution partners, and I’m happy to say that the partnerships to print and distribute the Wall Street Journal, New York Times and USA Today will continue as part of this transition. The Fort Worth Star Telegram, decided in the third quarter to cease their daily printing and distribution in October of this year and move to a three day a week print product distributed by mail. And we are no longer printing their product. As we discussed on our last investor call, we engage brokers to assist us with the sale of the 28.8 acres and 620,000 square foot facility in Plano.

While I do not have a specific update on the status of the process, I can say that we are encouraged by the level of interest and activity we have seen from all types of buyers, including data centers, end users and industrial redevelopment. In terms of how the company thinks about the future use of any potential proceeds. We view this through three distinct lenses. First, the investments in the company, we need to build a sustainably profitable media company. Second, continuing to be responsible stewards of the company’s pension plan, and third, returning capital to our shareholders. I will now turn the call over to Grant.

Grant Moise : Thanks. Katy. Good morning, everyone. In the second quarter investor call, I discussed that while we have yet to reach sustainable profitability, we are making steady progress. The third quarter reflected this progress with the $200,000 year-over-year improvement in the company’s adjusted operating loss. At a more detailed level, the third quarter was the last quarter in which Medium Giant reported revenue comparisons, including our discontinued shared mail program, which y’all will remember, ended in the third quarter of last year. Medium Giant has been focused on growing its revenue from continued operations, and so I was very happy to see they grow that revenue by $400,000. On the digital side of The Dallas Morning News, we’ve been focused on referral traffic trends to our website.

Referral traffic is significant because it generates advertising revenue and provides potential consumers with whom we can convert into digital members. Google has been our most significant source of referral traffic for many years, and since the beginning of this year, we have witnessed a steady decline in the audience coming from Google. This decline in website traffic contributed to the slight decrease in our digital advertising revenue coming from dallasnews.com, which is down 1% through September of this year and has typically been a source of growth for the company. The newsroom and our audience team are creating new audience engagement strategies to offset this decline, but the power of search engines is difficult to overcome. Shifting to the digital subscription side of the business at The Morning News, I noted in our last Investor call that we were reviewing our strategy to find the optimal balance between subscription volume and pricing.

This quarter, we modified our digital subscription strategy to be more volume centric by extending our introductory pricing window from one month to three; while also testing the ongoing price the consumer is willing to pay for local digital news on an ongoing basis. This strategic decision successfully ended our 14 month digital member volume decline, and I’m pleased to say that the digital member growth has exceeded our early expectations since we implemented this new strategy. This decision will take time to be reflected in the revenue growth, but we are cautiously optimistic, given how consumers have responded to the new pricing in its early stages. Greg, we are now ready to open it up for questions.

Q&A Session

Operator: [Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from Rohan Gilmore, a Private Investor.

Unidentified Analyst : Hey guys, good morning. I have a few questions for you, if that’s okay. So number one, what was the digital circulation volume growth since the change in pricing midway through the quarter?

Grant Moise : Yes. Rohan, so we have grown a little bit over 3,100 digital subscribers since we changed the strategy back in early September.

Unidentified Analyst : Got it. And then in one and a half months of the current quarter, would you say that trend is continued?

Grant Moise : Yes, it’s gotten even a little bit better, Rohan, I would say in the fourth quarter, if you’re kind of referring to kind of where things have been since October 1. Out of that 3,100 about 2,500 of that has come from the beginning of the fourth quarter.

Unidentified Analyst : Okay, so it’s about 600 from the change in strategy in Q3 and then 2,500 in the quarter to date, is that what you are saying?

Grant Moise : Correct.

Unidentified Analyst : Okay, that’s helpful. Where do you guys — what do you guys think about the TAM for the digital news product at the current price point? I mean, I’ve done some kind of research and back of the math and math, and I, my estimate is, could be somewhere between $250,000 and $500,000 but is that way off? Is that a ballpark bigger or how do you guys think about that?

Grant Moise : So, Rohan, I guess, from Tam, just to clarify for everyone on the call, I’m guessing you’re just talking about the total addressable market for digital subscribers for dallasnews.com and Dallas Morning News is that what you’re saying?

Unidentified Analyst : Yes, that’s correct.

Grant Moise : Yes. I mean, the way we look at the total addressable market is, you can take the 8.3 million people in North Texas, and then we narrow it down to how many our intelligence tells us are paying for news, which is about 600,000. So we think that the amount of people in North Texas who are paying for news is roughly 600,000, so if you look at where we are today, we’re a little north of 10% of that. So the question is, and that’s also, why, on the heels of what we’re what we’ve just done on pricing. When we’re thinking about volume, we’re also trying to figure out at what price point, ongoing, is that volume going to be in play? So, I think your number obviously, would get closer to 50% of that addressable market. I don’t know if that’s attainable, frankly, the way that we look at it strategically is just thinking through, how do we get from roughly 10% of that market to 15% to 20% to 25% and just say, if we can keep taking this up in 5% increments, as you can tell, every 10% would be 60,000 digital subscribers.

If our addressable market size of people paying for news is accurate.

Unidentified Analyst : That’s great color. Thank you. On the advertising side, has there been any meaningful pickup in advertising revenue related to — in the current quarter, related to election spending?

Grant Moise : No, I think someone, I believe, may have asked that question at the end of last quarter. It’s kind of the good news and the bad news I guess in our side of the industry, if you look at the television side of the business, obviously, they just saw a significant lift in ad revenue. Ours is probably going to be a rounding error, Rohan, in the fourth quarter. It’s just not material in the kind of, if you think about the newspaper side of it, they are just putting a lot of money into television and streaming. We got a little bit of video revenue or digital ad revenue, but not enough to matter.

Unidentified Analyst : Okay. And then last question on digital is, is there any update on kind of release of new digital products, or any news there?

Grant Moise : Yes. So I mean, one of the things that we’re always assessing, and we think just to clarify for everyone on the call. When I think of a new digital product, I’m thinking about standing something up with its own brand, most likely its own website and its own app. And so for us, we also look at we’re also weighing the cost of launching a new product versus launching new features. And right now, Rohan, really a lot of the pro formas that we’re running on the new products are not where Katy and I especially would like to see them. And so rather, we’ve just turned the team’s attention in the short term to launching as many new features as possible to drive revenue and operating income. Let me give you a couple examples of what I mean by that.

We are in a beta test of an entirely new video platform on our website that is being tested in sports. It will roll out to the full website in the first quarter. Now that’s great because it adds to engagement. And the advertising revenue that comes from video for us is more — the advertisers willing to pay more for video than they are for a static ad. We are also, we just updated our new app this week. If you’ve not updated that in the iTunes, iTunes is actually launched. We have not launched yet in the Android store, but that plus bringing in commenting to the website which we will launch in the first quarter. We, all of our math is showing us, Rohan, that focusing in the short term on these features can provide more initial financial benefit to the company.

But again, we are still going to keep looking for new products, because that diversification in the long run is going to be valuable. But we have not seen something pencil out to where we are putting investment dollars behind it yet.

Unidentified Analyst : Got it. Just two last questions, if that’s okay. So on agencies strong revenue improvement, quarter-over-quarter and year-over-year. I believe there was an associated expenses, revenue related expenses for outside services. What was that? And is that something that’s going to be kind of ongoing, or is that one time in nature?

Grant Moise : Yes, so we think of that, Rohan, is what we call the revenue mix that’s coming from the agency. So that revenue mix, for example, of where you saw that in the most recent quarter, comes from our media expense. So, Medium Giant is the agency of record for these clients. And we actually place that media on their behalf and what you saw there in that was a quarter where we had higher outside expenses, as we think of them as COGS for the media that we buy for clients. To your second question of, should we see that on an ongoing basis? It just matters what type of clients we’re winning. Some of these clients, if they are more doing more creative and strategy work for us, that is a very low COGS area for us, but if we are doing a bunch of the media buying on their behalf, you will see higher outside services expenses related to us placing that media with outside media companies.

Unidentified Analyst : Got it. My last question is on target cash balances, just for modeling purposes, wondering if you guys could provide some insight on how you think about where you would like to see cash balances upon a return to growth?

Katy Murray : Yes. Rohan, this is Katy. It’s a great question, it’s one that we think about a lot. As you know, we hit profitability in the second quarter. We had said and Grant mentioned today. We’re going to be bouncing that around a bit as we continue this path on the return to growth. Right now we’re sitting at about, call it $12 million of cash. We see ourselves getting, active profitability. Would that be enough? It just depends on what kind of investments we need to make into the business. As grant mentioned, we continue to look at that so little early for me to speculate kind of on what that target cash balance is. But I think as we continue to get through ’25 obviously, if we see the sale of that building and the property, that’ll be an impact as well.

But it’s a great question, something that we’re thinking about. But I think for right now, I feel good about our cash balance and where we’re going, and more to come as we think about investments in the business.

Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Adam Valentine from Gondola Capital.

Unidentified Analyst : Hey everyone. Good morning. Good morning. Hey, it’s really great to see the digital stocks growing again. Your strategy makes a lot of sense, and I was kind of wondering, given that we’ve experienced, I believe, sort of an average of around 20% sort of pricing growth, just that we kind of see on the top line at least over the last three years. What is your sort of expectations that becomes, as you substantially regrow, sort of the volumes? Does it, for example, does it kind of slow down to flat as sort of subscription price increases offset higher levels of, kind of the trials or maybe if you could just kind of give us some color there.

Grant Moise : Yes, Adam, it’s Grant. It’s a really good question, and it’s something that we spend not only a considerable amount of time looking at internally, of how are our consumers responding, but we’re also checking in with our peers around the country almost all the time. I mean, it’s trying to understand what’s happening in different parts of the country with local media and subscription trends through a partner that we have called Mather, who has been a partner of ours, that we launched a partnership with a couple years ago. The important part, let me just kind of say the important part of where we are on this phase is to say, to also think through once they finish an introductory pricing window like we’re in right now, the $1 for three months is what percentage of them will take, will do not churn and stick with us at the roll to price, where we’ve been taking them, we’re going to keep testing.

We’re going to AB test a couple different price points to see kind of what is ideal of people sticking with us and reducing our churn. And that’s really going to dictate where things go from a revenue standpoint, because the volume is meeting our expectations. But I will have a lot more for you, really, probably in the first probably at the end of the first quarter, because we’re going to see a bunch of these new starts, as Rohan was asking about. The most important part is how many stay with us? Because that’s when they go from paying an introductory price to that ongoing price. But also, yes, we do see a short window here of where that digital subscription volume will be kind of leveling out to very light growth. But, look, the volume is there for, in the early stages to go see that growth improve as we get further into next year, but at the same time, we are keenly focused on how many people are taking the price increase and going with us outside of the introductory window.

Katy Murray : Hey, Adam, one clarifying point on that. And as Grant was talking the volume, we are seeing the increases in the growth. He referenced a slowdown that was on the revenue side in this brief window, that there will be some revenue impact on that, but the volume is there, and it’s really going to be seeing how these subscribers take to the next increase in price and how long they stay with us.

Grant Moise : Good point.

Unidentified Analyst : Great. That’s all really helpful color guys. And just to kind of follow up, there are — what have you guys noticed as you’ve kind of meandered through the price first volume, push pull over the last three or four years, and I understanding the digital side is still fairly nascent for your product. What have you guys noticed on churn levels, like, is there a broad trend over the last four or five years where you’ve noticed a reduction in churn? Understanding, of course, that various changes in trials and pricing may increase or decrease churn. But I’m just curious if there’s sort of an apples-to- apples way to look at the long term reduction in potential churn, or what color you might share there.

Grant Moise : Yes, it’s also, it’s a very good question, Adam, when we’re looking, when I’m looking at the industry, you can see churn. I wish it was more of a straight line trend that we’re seeing, but I will say it bounces around a little bit even the most recent political season. Probably, if I were, if we were at a national publication, can be more impactful on churn. But what I will say is how long you have an introductory window also impact, can improve the churn. You will see some newspaper companies around the country doing $1 for six months rather than $1 for three months. Well, if someone’s only paying $1 your churn looks better as a percentage. So I guess my point of telling you is national trends are hard to find, because there are some papers that were doing a short window for us, like $1 for a month versus $1 for six months.

And as you can imagine, the churn from $1 six months looks much better, especially in that first year. Because, you’ve got people who are basically getting the product for free to test it, to understand, do they want to — do they see enough value in the product to become a fully paying consumer? So it is hard to find trends. And I guess my point of that is because many different media companies are testing very different introductory windows. I’ve seen some in the past couple weeks of $1 for 52 weeks. So I mean, if you’re doing $1 for a year, that’s someone who’s going to throw off the churn trends quite a bit.

Unidentified Analyst : Okay, that’s really helpful, understood. And then in terms of the Medium Giant growth, which I believe is mostly housed in the marketing and media services segment, is very, very strong growth, I think, 26% year-over-year. And I was wondering if there’s anything special to call out there maybe one offs or big customer wins. I know you mentioned, no big election impact, so it creates kind of just breakdown some parts.

Grant Moise : Yes. So the majority of that growth, Adam, is coming from the agency side of Medium Giant, and it’s why we’ve split out into segments, because it’s a distinctively different business, even to Rohan’s question that COGS that are coming through that business as well. The focus of the agency has been to go win larger clients, so clients that will spend $250,000 a year or more with us, I’ve been really pleased that those bigger clients have improved and grown about 30% for us this year, and that is really helping drive this growth, but we’re also doing that simultaneously, while reducing our small clients, because those small clients are less profitable and oftentimes take as much work as the big ones. And so that’s been the strategy and a big part of what you’re seeing there.

And John Kiker, who is the President of our agency, has just done a very nice job of attracting the bigger clients, and simplifying the business, which is helping grow the top line and is improving the bottom line. But look, we’ve still got more room for improvement, on that bottom line as well.

Unidentified Analyst : That’s great. Glad to see you guys find some more success there. And I guess just my final question, if I could, in terms of the operating structure changes that are sort of taking place mostly in the first quarter of 2025. I was wondering if you could potentially give us a ballpark figure for your employee comp benefits, or maybe it’s more of the other products, distribution, line item, what that run rate would be, pro forma, kind of these changes that are taking place. So including the headcount reduction, they’ve averaged each about the same, about $15 million or so. So, yes, I was just kind of curious what sort of that step down will be, understanding that you probably have some investments as well back into the business.

Katy Murray : Adam. That’s a great question. Look, we’re still in the transition right now. I think when we have our first quarter, I’m sorry, when we have our 2024 call in March, we’ll have a better sense of being able to kind of give a little bit more color on where comp have been, it is going to come down, obviously, with the reduction in headcount still targeted in early the first quarter. One thing we did back in May, we did give a range that once this is up and operational, we did believe that annualized expense savings was going to be around $5 million that’s still something that I feel good about. And so really, that’s all I can give you right now. And I think in again, in the March call, we’ll be able to get better insight into where we see the trends, just given that it will have already been implemented, and the transition will be complete.

Operator: And at this time, there are no further questions.

Cathy Collins: All right, thank you, Greg, for your assistance this morning, and to everyone who joined. Thank you again for listening to our third quarter 2024 results. And we look forward to updating everyone on our fourth quarter and full year 2024 earnings call, which will be held in March of 2025.

Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, that does conclude your conference for today. Thank you for your participation and for using AT&T teleconference. You may now disconnect.