Cumulus Media Inc. (CMLS) on Q1 2021 Results - Earnings Call Transcript
Operator: Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Cumulus Media Quarterly Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speakers’ presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Collin Jones. Please go ahead.
Collin Jones: Thank you, operator. Welcome everyone to our First Quarter 2021 Earnings Conference Call. I'm joined today by our President and CEO Mary Berner, and our CFO, Frank Lopez-Balboa. Before we start, please note that certain statements in today's press release and discussed on this call may constitute forward-looking statements under federal securities laws.
Mary Berner: Thanks, Collin, and good morning, everyone. Every year the Q1 earnings call come so soon after the prior year wrap up that we often feel like we're just confirming what we said a short while earlier. But that pandemic changed that. Last year, our first quarter report was devoted to how we were going to weather the biggest crisis our business had ever faced, one that was not even on our radar when we ended 2019. And this year, with a much better outlook on the pandemic and greater conviction on recovery than when we last spoke to you, I'll start by saying what a difference 10 weeks makes. Today, we are pleased to report our Q1 results against the backdrop of an improving public health and economic environment. Once again, we delivered quarterly sequential revenue improvement with positive momentum across all our businesses with particularly strong results in podcasting, which was up approximately 35% year-over-year. On a same-station and ex-political basis, we finished the quarter with total revenues down less than 10% year-over-year despite the fact that we were pacing down about 20% at the time of our last earnings call. Additionally, our 2020 cost actions will result in a fixed cost base that is permanently reduced by more than $50 million versus the 2019 baseline and improvement from the $45 million we guided to last quarter. And, through cash generated from operations, including continued strong working capital management, we increased cash by $22 million in the quarter, finishing with nearly $300 million in the bank.
Frank Lopez-Balboa: Thank you, Mary. It's nice to be speaking with everyone today in the context of a market environment that is improving on a number of fronts. As usual, I'll speak to our numbers on a same-station basis. In Q1, we finished the quarter better than down 20% that we indicated on our last call with total revenue of $201.7 million, down 10.9% from Q1 2020. It was also a nice improvement versus our fourth quarter results. On an ex-political basis Q4 was down 17% year-over-year while on that same basis, Q1 was down less than 10% year-over-year. We saw improvement across the board driven not just by the market environment, but also the various growth strategies in areas that Mary discussed. Digital led the way in the quarter with aggregate growth and podcasting, once again, was a bright spot, up approximately 35% year-over-year. One thing to note on the digital front is that we made a change to our presentation of digital versus spot revenue this quarter, which is prompted by measurement changes from Nielsen that led us to shift several stations to a full simulcast. This allows us to differentiate the listenership that advertisers receive between over-the-air broadcast and the accompanying stream. As a result, we're not presenting the revenues related to the streaming simulcast audience as digital revenues, which more accurately reflects the actual contribution of streaming to our business. The magnitude of this change was mid-single digit millions in the quarter. And to be clear, this had no impact on total revenue. Expenses declined in the quarter by $5 million or 3% but if not for the return of the NCAA tournament which of course was not held last year, expenses would have been down more. We delivered more than $10 million of permanent cost reductions year-over-year in the quarter. As Mary mentioned, we're now on track to have a fixed cost base that is permanently lower than our 2019 annual baseline by more than $50 million. EBITDA for the quarter was $8.9 million. However, with the strong working capital performance, we generated $26 million of cash from operations in the quarter and increased cash by $22 million. This allowed us to finish the quarter with a cash balance of approximately $294 million. As you review our 10-Q, you also will note that with the December changes to the PPP loan program, we became eligible to apply for PPP loans like several of our broadcast peers. We applied and were approved for $20 million and we received $1.7 million of that amount in Q1 and the other $18.3 million in early April. As we've mentioned in prior quarters, we do have a mandatory prepayment requirement for about $133 million of our cash balance, which reflects net proceeds from asset sales in 2020 that have not reinvested, including CapEx, are required to pay down debt.
Operator: There are no questions at this time.
:
:
Mary Berner: Thank you, everyone, for joining us and we will see you in the next quarter. Thanks.
Operator: Thank you for your participation. This does conclude today’s conference. You may now disconnect.
