Cumulus Media Inc. (NASDAQ:CMLS) Q4 2022 Earnings Conference Call February 23, 2023 8:30 AM ET

Company Participants

Collin Jones - Executive Vice President of Strategy and Development

Mary Berner - President and Chief Executive Officer

Frank Lopez-Balboa - Chief Financial Officer

Conference Call Participants

Avi Steiner - JPMorgan

Michael Kupinski - NOBLE Capital Markets

James Goss - Barrington Research

Daniel Day - B. Riley Securities

Kevin Wivell - Octagon Credit Investors

Operator

Welcome to the Cumulus Media Quarterly Earnings Conference Call.

I'll now turn it over to Collin Jones, Executive Vice President of Strategy and Development. Sir, you may proceed.

Collin Jones

Thank you, operator. Welcome, everyone, to our fourth quarter and full year 2022 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. Actual results may differ materially from the results expressed or implied in forward-looking statements. These statements are based on management's current assessments and assumptions, and they are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties.

In addition, we will also use certain non-GAAP financial measures. We believe the supplementary information is useful to investors, although it should not be considered superior to the measures presented in accordance with GAAP. A full description of these risks as well as financial reconciliations to non-GAAP terms are in our press release and SEC filings. The press release can be found in the Investor Relations portion of our website, and our Form 10-K was also filed with the SEC shortly before this call.

We finally posted a 2022 Investor Update to our website, which we encourage you to download if you haven't already. A recording of today's call will be available for about a month via link on that website.

With that, I'll now turn it over to our President and CEO, Mary Berner. Mary?

Mary Berner

Thanks, Collin, and good morning, everyone. During the fourth quarter, against an increasingly challenging economic backdrop, we delivered financial results, which were in the upper half of the guidance range that we provided during our last earnings call. This performance continued a multiyear period of significant accomplishments.

First, we executed a multifaceted turnaround, which included fixing a broken corporate culture, recruiting an excellent management team, implementing a strategic plan for optimizing our radio portfolio and developing new digital businesses. These actions underpinned our ability to improve our operating leverage and free cash flow generation and set us up to deliver sustainable revenue growth, which, with the exception of the pandemic impacted 2020, we have achieved every year since 2018 on a same-station basis.