Salem Media Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:SALM) Q1 2023 Earnings Conference Call May 9, 2023 5:00 PM ET

Company Participants

Evan Masyr - EVP & CFO

David Santrella - CEO

David Evans - COO

Conference Call Participants

Michael Kupinski - NOBLE Capital Markets

Edward Reily - EF Hutton

David Marsh - Singular Research

Evan Masyr

This is Evan Masyr. I'm the CFO of Salem Media Group, and I thank you all for joining us today for our First Quarter 2023 Earnings Call.

As a reminder, if you get disconnected at any time, you can dial back in or listen from our website at www.salemmedia.com. I'm traveling this week, but I'm joined on the call by David Santrella, Chief Executive Officer; and David Evans, Chief Operating Officer. We will begin in just a moment with our prepared remarks. Once we're done, the conference call operator actually know, I'll be staying on the line, and I will instruct you on how to submit questions.

Please be advised that statements made on this call that relate to future plans, events, financial results, prospects or performance are forward-looking statements as defined under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements are based on currently available information. Actual results may differ materially from those anticipated, and reported results should not be considered an indication of future performance. We do not intend and undertake no obligation to update our forward-looking statements, including forecasts of future performance, the potential for growth of existing markets, the opening of new markets or the potential growth from future acquisitions.

This conference call also contains non-GAAP financial measures within the meaning of Regulation G, specifically station operating income or SOI, EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA. In conformity with Regulation G, information required to accompany the disclosure of non-GAAP financial measures is available on the Investor Relations portion of our website at salemmedia.com.

And with that, I will now turn the call over to Dave Santrella.

David Santrella

Thanks, Evan, and thanks, everybody, for joining us on the call today. I'll start my prepared remarks with a review of Salem's first quarter results. I'll discuss some M&A and provide an update on our debt. I'll then turn the call back to Evan to provide more details on the first quarter financial performance and give guidance for the second quarter.

Overall, total revenue for the first quarter increased 1.4%. Expenses were up 11.4% and adjusted EBITDA declined 79.6%. Based on this performance and recognizing the state of the economy, we made the difficult but necessary decision in late March to lay off 44 positions, representing about 3% of our workforce in addition to cutting other expenses. In total, we expect to save approximately $5 million annually through these cost containment actions. The associated severance cost in the first quarter were $0.4 million.