Townsquare Media, Inc. (NYSE:TSQ) Q1 2022 Earnings Conference Call May 10, 2022 8:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Claire Yenicay - EVP of IR

Bill Wilson - CEO

Stuart Rosenstein - CFO

Conference Call Participants

Michael Kupinski - NOBLE Capital Markets

Jim Goss - Barrington Research

Michael Kupinski - NOBLE Capital Markets

Jim Goss - Barrington Research

Claire Yenicay

Thank you, operator, and good morning to everyone. Thank you for joining us today for Townsquare's first quarter financial update. With me on the call today are Bill Wilson, our CEO; and Stuart Rosenstein, our CFO and Executive Vice President.

Please note that during this call, we may make statements that provide information other than historical information, including statements relating to the company's future expectations, plans and prospects. These statements are considered forward-looking statements under the safe harbor provision of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, and are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from these statements. These statements reflect the company's beliefs based on current conditions that are subject to certain risks and uncertainties, including those that are detailed in the company's annual report on Form 10-K filed with the SEC.

We may also discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures, including adjusted EBITDA, adjusted net income and adjusted operating income, which we may refer to as profit in our remarks. Such non-GAAP financial measures should be used in conjunction with all the information contained in the quarterly, year-end and current reports available on our website. I would also encourage all participants to go to our corporate website and download our investor presentation, as Bill will reference some of those slides during our discussion this morning. At this time, I would like to turn the call over to Bill Wilson.

Bill Wilson

Thank you, Claire, and thank you all for joining us. I've been looking forward to our call this morning for quite some time as we've had an exciting start to the year. I'm pleased to be able to provide you an update on our strong Q1 performance, discuss the announcement of our Cherry Creek acquisition as well as reaffirm our very strong outlook for the year, including our expectation of all-time high record level profits for Townsquare. Our first quarter financial results reflect strong growth and strong margins. And as a result, the Townsquare team exceeded our first quarter revenue and EBITDA guidance, as outlined on Slide 18. First quarter net revenue increased a very strong plus 13% year-over-year to $100.2 million, above our guidance range of $97.5 million to $99.5 million. And importantly, we have now meaningfully surpassed 2019 levels, with first quarter net revenue exceeding 2019's net revenue by plus 7%. Our first quarter adjusted EBITDA also increased double digits, up a robust plus 10% year-over-year to $22.1 million, also above our guidance range of $21 million to $22 million. And of course, that also exceeds 2019 levels as we have now been above 2019 EBITDA levels for 6 straight quarters since the fourth quarter of 2020. Now that we have successfully recovered and surpassed pre-COVID levels for both net revenue and adjusted EBITDA, it is no longer relevant to be comparing our results to 2019.