Beasley Broadcast Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:BBGI) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript
Beasley Broadcast Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:BBGI) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript February 12, 2024
Beasley Broadcast Group, Inc. beats earnings expectations. Reported EPS is $0.06, expectations were $-0.07. Beasley Broadcast Group, Inc. isn’t one of the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds at the end of the third quarter (see the details here).
Operator: Good morning. Welcome to the Beasley Broadcast Group Fourth Quarter 2023 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 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 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 in 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's CEO, Caroline Beasley. Please go ahead.
Caroline Beasley: Thank you, Sherry, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us to review our fourth quarter and full year results. Marie Tedesco, our CFO, is with me this morning. The combination of cyclical, political revenue and overall ad softness led to a fourth quarter revenue decline of 8.7%, slightly better than the expectation we provided when we reported third quarter of minus 9%. However, excluding fourth quarter '22 political of approximately $5.1 million, fourth quarter revenue would have declined just 2.4%. Similarly, full year revenue dropped 3.6%, but excluding political, full year revenue would have declined just 0.9%. Same-station ex-political would have been down just 0.3% and down 0.6% for the full year.
And as a point of reference, total net political for fourth quarter ‘22 and full year ‘22 was $5.1 million and $7.5 million respectively. With our focus on expense control, we managed to reduce our expenses primarily from headcount reductions in 2023 and brought our total expenses down 3.3% year-over-year for fourth quarter and 2.3% for the full year. And as a result, fourth quarter SOI declined by $4.3 million. However, when excluding political, SOI would have been down 1.2% or just $113,000. And on a full year basis, excluding political, SOI increased 5.4%. And on a same station basis ex-political, for the fourth quarter and full year, SOI increased 9% and 16.9%, respectively. Now breaking down our fourth quarter revenue performance. Over-the-air local spot was down 6.1% or $2.5 million.
And on a same-station basis, excluding political, local was down 2.5% or $986,000. We remain focused on developing new local direct business, and our efforts paid off as our new business increased 52% year-over-year for the fourth quarter, and we saw a 20% increase for the full year compared to 2022. In addition, we saw a shift between local direct and local agency, where local direct as a percentage of total local increased 7% for the quarter. National remained challenged, decreasing 36.8% or net $5 million and that is primarily due to political revenue. Excluding political, net national declined $1.2 million or 12.4% for the quarter. Furthermore, national for the fourth quarter represented 12.7% of total revenue and 13.2% for the full year.
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