iHeartMedia, Inc. (NASDAQ:IHRT) Q1 2023 Earnings Conference Call May 2, 2023 8:30 AM ET

Company Participants

Mike McGuinness – Head of Investor Relations

Bob Pittman – Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Rich Bressler – President, Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer

Conference Call Participants

Jessica Reif Ehrlich – Bank of America Securities

Steven Cahall – Wells Fargo

Dan Day – B. Riley Securities

Ben Swinburne – Morgan Stanley

Sebastiano Petti – JPMorgan

Jim Goss – Barrington Research

Stephen Laszczyk – Goldman Sachs

Operator

Hello and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the iHeartMedia Q1 2023 Earnings Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers' remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session and instructions will be provided at that time.

I will now turn the conference over to Mike McGuinness, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Mike McGuinness

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for taking the time to join us for our first quarter 2023 earnings call. Joining me for today's discussion are Bob Pittman, our Chairman and CEO; and Rich Bressler, our President, COO and CFO.

At the conclusion of our prepared remarks, management will take your questions. In addition to our press release, we have an earnings presentation available on our website that you can use to follow along with our remarks. Please note that this call may include forward-looking statements regarding our financial performance and operating results. These statements are based on management's current expectations, and actual results could differ from what is stated as a result of certain factors identified on today's call and in the company's SEC filings. Additionally, during this call, we will refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations between GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures are included in our earnings release, earnings presentation and our SEC filings, which are available in the Investor Relations section of our website.

And now I'll turn the call over to Bob.

Bob Pittman

Thanks, Mike, and good morning everyone. We're pleased to report that our first quarter 2023 results were little above the high-end of our adjusted EBITDA and revenue guidance ranges. More importantly, while both the macroeconomic climate and the advertising marketplace remain uncertain, the advertising market was a bit stronger in the quarter than we had initially anticipated. Additionally, we expect that our second quarter adjusted EBITDA, while still below 2022 levels, will be approximately double what we generated in the first quarter. The second quarter outlook in combination with our first quarter performance relative to guidance gives us confidence that our adjusted EBITDA results will continue to improve throughout 2023. And if this advertising market recovery trend continues in 2024, we expect to resume our growth trajectory that was interrupted by this period of advertising softness. Rich will provide additional thoughts on our forward-looking estimates during his remarks.