Reporting its operating results for the first quarter of 2023, Beasley Broadcast Group (parent of Beasley Media Group) announces net revenue of $57.8 million, an increase of 3.7% over the same period in 2022 that the company says reflects “a year-over-year increase in digital revenue, local spot revenue and network revenue, partially offset by a decrease in national spot revenue, related to continued softness in the national agency business.” Beasley reports operating income of $400,000 in Q1 of 2023, compared to the operating loss of $2.7 million reported in Q1 of 2022. The company also reports a reduced net loss of $3.5 million
compared to the net loss of $3.7 million in Q1 of 2022. Beasley CEO Caroline Beasley states, “Beasley’s strong first quarter financial operating results highlight our continued local audio leadership and the ongoing success of our digital transformation and revenue diversification initiatives which are driving top-line and SOI (station operating income) growth. Despite ongoing challenges related to the economy and softness in the national spot market, Beasley generated healthy growth across its digital, local audio, and network revenue sources, as reflected by the 3.7% increase in first quarter net revenues to $57.8 million. Top-
line growth was the primary factor contributing to an impressive 21% year-over-year increase in SOI to $7.1 million. Our digital strategy delivered first quarter digital revenue growth of 27.8% year-over-year and accounted for 17.3% of total first quarter revenue. Similar to recent quarters, strong digital revenue performance was driven by Beasley’s organic content creation initiatives and the roll-out of our tailored web services. Beasley continues to see accelerating demand from consumers for our innovative digital content, with our unique digital users more than doubling over the prior year quarter, resulting in a more than 90% year-over-year increase in sellable digital impressions. We believe we remain on path for this revenue source to reach 20% of total revenue by 2023 year-end.” Total outstanding debt as of March 31, 2023 was $290 million, and first quarter interest expense slightly declined to $6.6 million. Beasley had $35.9 million of cash and cash equivalents on hand at quarter end. We intend to keep our cash on the balance sheet in order to maintain our strong liquidity position, while we monitor the economic environment.”
