Fourth quarter rocks for Beasley

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Beasley Broadcast Group, Inc.A presence in three politically-significant markets went a long way toward providing radio group Beasley Broadcast Group with a liberal dose of black ink to record its revenue results in. And an extra FM in Las Vegas didn’t hurt, either.


Net revenue leaped 9.1% to $27.4M for the quarter, helping to feed a 2.6% increase for 2012 over 2011 to $100.2M. On a same-station basis, excluding the contribution of newly acquired KOAS-FM Las Vegas, net revenue increased 5.7%.

Station operating income was up 16.7% to $10.8M; and net income was up 6.4% to $3.6M.

Chairman/CEO George G. Beasley said, “Beasley Broadcast Group ended 2012 strongly as fourth quarter net revenue rose 9.1% and same station net revenue increased 5.7%. Fourth quarter revenue growth reflects several factors including the cyclical return of political advertising particularly in our Las Vegas, Miami and Wilmington market clusters, continued strength in key advertising categories including automotive, a full quarter’s contribution from KOAS-FM in Las Vegas which was acquired in the third quarter, and overall strength in the Company’s Philadelphia, Las Vegas, Fort Myers and Augusta market clusters.

“Looking forward, we remain focused on managing our station clusters to match or exceed their market’s revenue performance while delivering continued ratings strength through our strong core programming and targeted localism. In addition to our focus on on-air and digital advertising initiatives, we will continue to strengthen our balance sheet and lower leverage by allocating cash flows from operations to further reduce our borrowings. With further progress on this front, and, reflecting the terms of our new credit facility, we will evaluate future opportunities to return capital to shareholders in the form of dividends or share repurchases.

“Finally, the licensing agreement between Beasley Broadcast Group and Big Machine Label Group represents yet another way Beasley is leveraging its core broadcasting platform and digital initiatives to benefit on-air and digital listeners and users. We believe this alignment furthers our mission of offering advertisers a wider range of platforms and options for reaching listeners while bringing them great content when and where they want it.”

RBR-TVBR observation: It’s good to see a radio company able to brag about its share of the political pie. It is the strong belief of this publication that radio can be a huge tool in the kit of every political operative out there, for a number of reasons. They include targeting efficiency, inexpensiveness, and production speed, allowing almost instantaneous airwave responses to rapidly developing events.

Radio needs to sell itself to campaign decision makers now, by teaching them how it can and should be used.

Congrats, Beasley, on a great quarter and an inspirational performance on the political front.