Beasley Broadcast Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:BBGI) Q2 2023 Earnings Conference Call August 3, 2023 11:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Caroline Beasley - CEO

Marie Tedesco - CFO

Operator

Good morning, and welcome to Beasley Broadcast Group Second Quarter 2023 Conference Call.

Now I will turn the call over to your host. Please go ahead.

Unidentified Company Representative

Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone. 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 and on the company's website.

I would also remind listeners that following its completion, a replay of today's call can be accessed for 5 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 our website.

At this time, it's my pleasure to turn the conference over to your host, Beasley Broadcast Group's CEO, Caroline Beasley. Please go ahead, Carolyn.

Caroline Beasley

Thank you, Joe. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us to review our 2023 second quarter operating results. Marie Tedesco, our CFO, is with me this morning. I'm pleased to present yet another successful quarter with significant improvements in both SOI and EBITDA and continued double-digit growth of digital revenue, reflecting our proactive initiatives to reduce expenses and permanently reduce headcount in 2022, we delivered a quarter where expenses were down 4.3% year-over-year, resulting in quarterly SOI growth of 8.5% and EBITDA growth of 16.8%. Overall, revenue decreased 2.1%. And while we saw double-digit increases in both digital, which was up 14.8% and network, which was up 32%. These were offset by softness in both national and local spot advertising.

As in recent quarters, National remains challenged and for the quarter was down 11%. There was also softness on the local side with local spot down 3%, and this was a result of a soft local agency market with the local direct market being relatively flat. Looking more closely at the year-over-year comp, second quarter '22 had 2 events in our Tampa market, which did not return in second quarter '23 as well as company-wide political revenue of approximately $513,000 net of agency commission. Excluding those events and political revenue from the previous year, our revenue would have been flat year-over-year.