Beasley Broadcast Group, Inc. Q1 2024 earnings call transcript

Beasley Broadcast Group, Inc. isn’t one of the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds at the end of the third quarter.

Operator: Good morning, and welcome to Beasley Broadcast Group First Quarter 2024 Earnings Call. Before proceeding, I would 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 described 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 on 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 would also like to 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 or Press Room sections of the site. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to your host, Beasley Broadcast Group CEO, Caroline Beasley. Please go ahead.

Caroline Beasley: Thank you, Melissa, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us to review our first quarter results. Marie Tedesco, our CFO, is with me this morning. Industry-wide ad softness led to a first quarter revenue decrease of 5.9%, which is slightly below the pacings we previewed at the time Q4 was reported. Perhaps more importantly, on a same-station basis, meaning excluding revenue from WJBR, the Outlaws and the March 23 home show in the year-ago period, first quarter revenue declined 3.1% or $1.7 million. During the quarter, we generated $548,000 of net political revenue, and that compares to $19,000 in Q1 ’23. This exceeds our first quarter budget for political, and we continue to look forward to robust ’24 political spend as several of our markets are located in swing states.

Operating expenses declined 2.8% or $1.4 million, reflecting the divestiture of WJBR and our esports team. Same-station expenses declined $23,000, which includes a headcount reduction from last year, offset by increased third-party digital cost related to the increase in digital PPP revenue. As a result, our first quarter adjusted EBITDA was $731,000 compared to $2.6 million last year. Breaking down our first quarter revenue performance. Over-the-air local spot was down 12.8% or $4.4 million, and same-station local was down 12% or $4.1 million. This was driven by a decline in agency business as local direct was flat. We remain highly focused on developing new local direct business, and our efforts paid off as our new business increased 53% or $2.9 million to $8.4 million for the first quarter.

Local direct accounts for 57% of our total local business as we continue to shift from agency to direct. Now showing signs of stabilizing, during the quarter, national increased $100,000 or 1.1% year-over-year, and it declined just 4.9% excluding political. Our digital build continues as we delivered year-over-year 20% digital revenue growth in the quarter, and this is on a same-station basis. Digital revenue accounted for 20.1% of first quarter total revenue, again, outbilling national revenue, which was at 12.7% of total. And this is ex political as we’ve been successful in offsetting the national declines with growing digital revenue. We expect digital to account for between 20% and 25% of total revenue in 2024 driven by our content creation and the continued success and growth of digital services. Yahoo