WideOpenWest, Inc. (NYSE:WOW) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

WideOpenWest, Inc. (NYSE:WOW) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript March 13, 2024

WideOpenWest, Inc. misses on earnings expectations. Reported EPS is $-0.08 EPS, expectations were $-0.00207. WOW isn’t one of the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds at the end of the third quarter (see the details here).

Operator: Thanks for standing by and welcome to the WideOpenWest Fourth Quarter 2023 Earnings Call. I would now like to welcome Andrew Posen, Vice President, Head of Investor Relations to begin the call. Andrew, over to you.

Andrew Posen: Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining our fourth quarter of 2023 earnings call. With me today is Teresa Elder, WOW’s Chief Executive Officer; and John Rego, WOW’s Chief Financial Officer. Before we get started, I would like to remind everyone that during our call, we will make some forward-looking statements about our expected operating results, our business strategy, and other matters relating to our business. These forward-looking statements are in reliance on the safe harbor provisions of the federal securities laws and are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors that may cause our actual operating results, financial position, or performance to be materially different from those expressed or implied in our forward-looking statements.

You are cautioned not to place undue reliance on such forward-looking statements. We disclaim any obligation to update such forward-looking statements. For additional information concerning factors that could affect our financial results or cause actual results to differ materially from our forward-looking statements, please refer to our filings with the SEC, including the risk factors section of our Form 10-K filed with the SEC, as well as the forward-looking statement section of our press release. In addition, please note that on today’s call and in the press release we issued this morning, we may refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures. While the company believes these non-GAAP financial measures provide useful information for investors, the presentation of this information is not intended to be considered in isolation or as a substitute for the financial information presented in accordance with GAAP.

Reconciliation between GAAP and non-GAAP metrics for our financial reported — for our historical reported results can be found in our earnings releases and our trending schedules which can be found on our website. We have also included the presentation this afternoon to complement our prepared remarks. Now I’ll turn the call over to Teresa Elder, WOW’s Chief Executive Officer.

Teresa Elder: Thanks, Andrew. Welcome to WOW’s fourth quarter earnings call. We are continuing to build momentum in our market expansion initiative and we are seeing positive early indicators in our legacy markets in response to the efforts we are taking to stabilize subscriber losses. Our fourth quarter results include high-speed data revenue of $108.7 million, up 1.5% year-over-year, adjusted EBITDA of $71.2 million, which decreased 4.6% year-over-year, but increased sequentially for the third consecutive quarter and a record adjusted EBITDA margin of 42.2%, which increased steadily throughout the year. For the full-year, our high-speed data revenue increased 4.4% from the last year to $430.4 million, while adjusted EBITDA declined by 1.7% to $275.4 million, with an adjusted EBITDA margin of 40.1%.

The pace of construction in our Greenfield and Agile markets accelerated throughout the year, culminating in a total of 48,400 new homes passed, including 30,400 in our Greenfield markets and 18,000 new homes passed in Edge-outs. In fact, our fourth quarter was the most robust quarterly expansion of our network in our 25-year history. We passed nearly as many homes in the fourth quarter alone as we did throughout the first three quarters of the year. Our momentum has continued through early 2024 as we have added over 10,000 more homes as part of our expansion initiative so far this year, predominantly in our greenfield markets. I am extremely proud of the effort of our team that is driving our expansion, which is central to our growth strategy.

I’m not the only one who recognizes the quality of WOW. U.S. News and World Report just named WOW a best Internet service provider of 2024. Out of a list of 25 providers offering all types of Internet across the U.S., including fiber, cable, digital subscriber lines, satellite, fixed wireless, and 5G home Internet services, WOW ranked first for fastest cable upload speeds. Second for best cable internet service providers, and fourth overall. This is the proud moment for our team and we will continue to prioritize innovation and customer satisfaction in this competitive marketplace. Our HSD subscribers losses during the fourth quarter of 13,300 were in line with the expectations that we set on our last call as the macro environment continued to be challenging.

Low move activity, higher churn, in lower speed tiers, and ongoing competitive threats from fixed wireless carried into the fourth quarter, but have begun to improve in the first quarter as a result of several steps that we took to address these challenges. Specifically, we increased our minimum speed for existing customers to 300 meg, giving them a surprise boost in their broadband speed at no additional cost. We gave a surprise boost as well to the 500 meg customers. Second, we introduced a simplified pricing option, which includes a price lock, free modem, no data caps, or contracts. This surprise-free approach has been extremely well received. Third, we strategically offered short-term extensions to help create a soft landing for customers rolling off promotions.

The early success of these steps has given us additional confidence in the progress we are making to strengthen our subscriber numbers in our legacy footprint. The chart on the lower left quadrant on the slide shows a small increase in the proportion of new customers buying in the lower tiers. This shift during the quarter did not limit the growth in HSD ARPU, as a majority of new customers across our legacy markets, Edge-outs, and especially in Greenfield markets, continue to buy 500 meg and above. The chart on the lower right-hand side of the slide shows our HSD ARPU reaching a new high of $72.90. We expect HSD ARPU will increase further in 2024. Although the rate of growth will likely ease as the impact of the steps we’re taking to address subscriber churn work their way to our financials.

As of the end of the fourth quarter, we now have more than 490,000 HSD subscribers. As expected, our traditional video business declined further during the quarter, which will continue as we transition to YouTube TV. As mentioned, this YouTube TV partnership provides a fantastic opportunity to provide our customers more content at a much better value and to capitalize on the shift to video streaming, which we believe will also contribute to great results this year. Our penetration rates remain strong in our Greenfield markets and the early positive reception reinforces our conviction and commitment to our expansion strategy. Our 2023 Edge-out vintage has a penetration rate of 24.4%, while the 2021 and 2022 vintages also continue to report strong penetration rates of 47.6% and 31%, respectively.

Penetration rates in our Greenfield markets decreased to just under 10% in the fourth quarter, because we significantly increased the number of homes passed late in the quarter. However, the cohorts are demonstrating extremely strong penetration rates, averaging more than 20% within the first six months after activation. To conclude, before handing the call to John, I want to reiterate the key points that I made at the outset of this call. First, we continued to make great progress in our expansion markets, passing 48,400 new homes in both Greenfield and Edge-Out markets through December 31, and more than 10,000 homes so far this year. Second, we took steps during the quarter to stabilize the losses in our legacy footprint and improvements are evident in our expectations for the first quarter.

And lastly, we continue to see positive reception to our YouTube TV offering. Now I’ll turn the call over to John, who will go over our financial results in more detail.

John Rego: Thanks, Teresa. In the fourth quarter, we reported $108.7 million of HSD revenue, which increased 1.5% year-over-year, reflecting the impact of the respective rate increases, as well as new and existing customers upgrading to higher speed tiers. The growth in HSD revenue was more than offset by a 19.7% and 4.8% drop in video and telephony revenue respectively resulting in a 6.5% decline in total revenue from the same period last year to $168.8 million. Adjusted EBITDA decreased 4.6% from the same period last year to $71.2 million with a record adjusted even a margin of 42.2%, driven by the increase in higher margin HSD revenue. The incremental contribution margin increased sequentially and continue to grow year-over-year driven by the proportionate increase in HSD revenue, which increased to 64% of our total revenue this quarter, up from 59% in the same period last year.

Now for a progress update on our cost structure alignment. We continue to be on pace to hit our target of $35.5 million by the end of 2025. As of the fourth quarter, our total savings equate to $28.8 million, which represents approximately 81% of the $35.5 million we identified for cost reduction over the next few years. In addition to these measures, we also made further headcount reductions, predominantly in our corporate and administrative areas. We made significant progress on realizing savings across the company, and we’ll continue to be diligent as we manage costs despite the higher inflationary environment. We ended the quarter with total cash of $23.4 million and total outstanding debt of $934.5 million with our leverage ratio at 3.3 times.

We reported total capital spend of $80.6 million, which is up $27.9 million from last year. Our core CapEx efficiency was 23.6% in the fourth quarter and 19.9% for the year. Expansion CapEx increased $26.3 million from the same period last year as we continued to invest in our future growth, bringing fiber-to-the-homes of Central Florida and Greenville County, South Carolina. In the fourth quarter, we spent $33.8 million on Greenfields, $3.4 million on Edge-outs and an additional $3.6 million on business services. Our unlevered adjusted free cash flow, which we define as adjusted EBITDA less CapEx, decreased to negative $9.4 million in the fourth quarter, almost entirely driven by higher expansion spend predominantly on Greenfields. For the full-year, we reported $6.5 million in adjusted unlevered free cash flow, which is down significantly from last year.

We are undertaking several steps to increase our free cash flow in 2024. In 2023, we invested $132 million in market expansion with a significant portion of the upfront spend to support the entrance to our new markets. This year, we plan to spend approximately $60 million, predominantly focused on testing new homes, leveraging the investment spent last year in these markets. In addition to managing our expansion spend, we will continue to be particularly targeted in our network spending as we strategically identify areas within our infrastructure that will immediately benefit from investment whether it is upgrading in support of DOCSIS 4.0 or fiber-to-the-home upgrades. We also executed hedges on $500 million of our long-term debt, which will help us manage our annual interest expense in 2024.

Combined, we believe these efforts should put us back in a position of generating free cash flow by the end of this year. Finally, before we open the call for questions, I’d like to provide our expectations for the first quarter. As Teresa indicated in her comments this morning, we’re seeing some positive indications from the steps we are taking to address the challenges in our legacy markets, and we believe that we will see further improvements throughout the year. For the first quarter, we expect HSD subscribers to be between negative 2,000 and negative 500, a significant improvement from the fourth quarter. We believe HSD revenue will be between $104 million and $107 million. We expect total revenue for the first quarter to be between $159 million and $162 million and adjusted EBITDA to be between $64 million and $67 million.

And now we’d like to open up the line for questions.

See also 20 Cheap Alternatives to Aveda Shampoo and 25 Most Powerful Passports in the World.

Q&A Session

Operator: The floor is now open for your questions. [Operator Instructions] The first question comes from the line of [Chris Joel] (ph) with UBS. Please go ahead.

Unidentified Analyst: Great. Thank you for taking the questions. You guided to an improved broadband subscriber trajectory in 1Q. I recognize you highlighted the steps you’re taking to mitigate the impact of fixed wireless. But can you help us think through maybe other factors that contributed to the 4Q results that you don’t expect to repeat here in 1Q? And given what’s going on with the ACP program, can you help us size your ACP exposure and how you’re thinking about mitigating churn there, funding does lapse? Thank you.

Teresa Elder: Thanks, Chris. I’ll go ahead and get started. This is Teresa. And so I do not believe we will see any repeat of the fourth quarter. Fourth quarter, as we said in our last call, what we were telling you what was coming was unusual, because we had just come off a large rate increase, and we were also seeing significant promo roll-offs from the customers. We’ve taken significant steps, as I outlined in my remarks, to really address that, and we saw improvement coming out of the end of the fourth quarter and certainly in the fourth — first quarter. So those steps, again, are really focused on a soft landing for our promo roll-off customers, the simplified pricing that we have done that is really attracting great attention from both existing and new customers, as well as the upgrades of speed tiers that we did as a surprise and delight for our existing base.

All of those are really getting tremendous traction. And I think hit the sweet spot of what customers really want. On the simplified pricing, we did significant research. We really know what customers want, and that is that consistency and pricing, I think we hit a great, sweet spot there with the pricing, with the tiers not having any kind of surprised fees and giving them an option if they want to do a price lock for the future. So a very different approach, I think, than some others have taken and customers are responding well. So we feel very good about Q1 and really the results for the rest of the year as we think about the greenfield homes that are coming on. I believe your second question was about ACP. And yes, we’ve been watching that news closely and certainly preparing for that.

We currently have 30,000 customers who are on the ACP program. 99% of those have opted in to continue services with WOW when the program ends. And we feel some certainty of that, and we’ll have to see what happens in the future. but about 82% of our ACP participants were existing WOW! customers prior to enrolling in the ACP and many use this really to up-tier to higher services. So it’s hard to say exactly what’s going to happen, but we feel that we should be okay in terms of the subscriber side, and we’ll continue to offer attractive pricing so that hopefully, we won’t see much of any hit from the revenue side, but more to come since that hasn’t been implemented yet.

Unidentified Analyst: That’s very helpful. Thank you. And then if I could just do one follow-up. There’s been a lot of focus on fixed wireless, but can you maybe just remind us where telco fiber overlap is in your footprint today and how you expect that to evolve this year?

Teresa Elder: Yes. We have continued to have some telco overlap. It’s grown a bit. It’s still not one of the largest, I think, compared to our peers. I think generally, fiber is deployed in areas where they know they can get a good return. And given that we are an additional provider to the incumbent in our markets, it’s usually not the most financially beneficial to come in with another alternative in our footprint. So we compete extremely well with that. And so I feel good about our ability to compete with fiber where it is but we do that every day. So not a huge concern of ours.

Unidentified Analyst: Great. Thanks again for all the color.

Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Frank Louthan with Raymond James. Please go ahead.

Frank Louthan: Great, thanks. So you continue to build a lot outside your market. Can you give us some color on some of those bills and how that is expected to kind of drive adds going forward? I mean in theory, those should be relatively easy adds. Last year, we saw more base erosion there. Is there a point where you think that’s going to shift? And what is the competitive issue in the larger — in your larger legacy markets that’s kind of still overwhelming the base builds or the new builds here? Thanks.

Teresa Elder: So I think, I understand the question, but Frank, I know you’ll correct me if I don’t quite understand it. So talking about the new builds and the new markets, we are driving penetration very quickly, 20% within six months. Those are very attractive markets. The reception that we’re getting is extremely strong, and we feel great about the pace of the construction. Last year, we really focused a lot on many of the upfront aspects of that construction, be it the warehouses, getting the inventory there, getting all of the initial work, the hubs, everything — the locations for the hub side, all those things in place. So now this year, we really are cranking homes passed, and that is going extremely well. In terms of the legacy markets, we have both some edge out additions that we’ve done that we added last year and continue to add some this year as well.

As well as the work that we’re doing that I outlined on the previous question, to really kind of direct competition and turn around some of the losses that we’ve seen in those markets. And I feel like we are making significant progress, both on the legacy side of the business. and certainly continuing to accelerate momentum on the greenfield side. So did I get the essence of your question, Frank?