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spk02: Your conference will begin momentarily. Please continue to hold.
spk03: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by and welcome to the Dallas News Corporation Investor Call. At this time, all phone participants are in listen-only mode. You may queue up with questions at any time during the presentation by pressing 1 then 0 on your phone's keypad, and your questions will be taken during the question and answer session following the presentation. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded, and at this time I'd like to turn the conference call over to your host, Vice President and Controller, Mr. Gary Cobley. Please go ahead, sir.
spk00: Good morning, everyone. This is Gary Cobley, Vice President and Controller of Dallas News Corporation. Welcome to our fourth quarter and full year 2023 investor call. I'm joined by Katie Murray, President and Chief Financial Officer, who will be reviewing financial results, and Grant Moise, Chief Executive Officer, who will provide brief business remarks. Yesterday afternoon, we issued a press release announcing fourth quarter and full year 2023 results and filed our 2023 10-K. Both of these are posted on our website. dallasnewscorporation.com under the Investor Relations section. Unless otherwise specified, comparisons used on today's call measure fourth quarter and full year 2023 performance against fourth quarter and full year 2022 performance. Our discussion today will include forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are subject to risks, uncertainties, and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those statements. The company assumes no obligation to update the information in this communication except as otherwise required by law. Additional information about these factors is detailed in the company's press releases and publicly available filings with the SEC. Today's discussion will include non-GAAP financial measures. We believe that non-GAAP financial measures provide useful supplemental information to assist investors in determining performance comparisons to our peers. A reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP financial measures is included with our press release. I'll now turn the call over to Katie.
spk02: Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining today's call. I'm going to begin by reviewing fourth quarter financial results and then follow with the full year results. On a GAAP basis for the quarter, Dallas News Corporation reported a net loss of $2.2 million, or 41 cents per share, and an operating loss of $2.5 million. which includes 2.7 million related to previously announced voluntary severance program that closed in the fourth quarter. Excluding the severance impact, Dallas News would have reported $200,000 operating income in the quarter. In Q4 last year, we reported a net loss of 2.1 million and an operating loss of 1.9 million. On a non-GAAP basis for the quarter, we reported adjusted operating income of $600,000, an improvement of 1.6 million, compared to an adjusted operating loss of 1 million reported for the same period last year. The improvement is primarily due to expense savings of 6.7 million, with the greatest reductions in distribution and employee compensation and benefits, partially offset by a total revenue decline of 5.1 million. We reported 34 million of total revenue for the quarter. This compares to 39.1 million last year. The year-over-year decline is primarily due to a 5.3 million or 45.6% reduction in print advertising revenue, primarily resulting from the decision to end our shared mail program to deliver weekly preprints and inserts on August 31st. After accounting for this decline, core print advertising was down 5.1% year-over-year. Circulation revenue increased 500,000 when compared to last year, which includes 230,000 from single copy sales celebrating the Texas Rangers winning the World Series. Digital-only subscription revenue increased 1.2 million, or 34.1%, partially offset by a print circulation decline of 600,000, or 4.8%. On a non-GAAP basis, total adjusted operating expense for the quarter was 33.4 million, an improvement of 6.7 million, when compared to the same period last year, driven by expense savings of $3.1 million in distribution, $1.6 million in employee compensation and benefits, $1.1 million in newsprint, and $600,000 in outside services. The expense reduction is primarily, again, the result of the discontinuation of the shared mail program and print-only editions of our niche publications, Aldea and Briefing, at the end of August of last year. Turning to full year results on a GAAP basis, we reported a net loss of $7.1 million or $1.33 per share and an operating loss of $8 million which includes severance expense of $3.8 million. For 2022, we reported a GAAP net loss of $9.8 million and an operating loss of $9 million which includes severance expense of $800,000. On a non-GAAP basis for the year, we reported an adjusted operating loss of $2.7 million an improvement of $2.6 million when compared to an adjusted operating loss of $5.3 million for the year 2022. The improvement is primarily due to expense savings of $13.5 million, with the greatest reductions in distribution costs, outside services and newsprint, partially offset by a total revenue decline of $11 million. The $7 million expense savings and distribution and total revenue decline of $11 million, again, are primarily the result of the discontinuation of the shared mail program and the print-only editions. We reported $139.7 million of total revenue for the year, and this compares to $150.7 million last year. The year-over-year decline is primarily due to a print advertising decline of $9.8 million, again, driven by the discontinuation of the shared mail program and print-only editions of our niche publications. Digital advertising and marketing services revenue declined 900,000 or 3.5%, primarily due to a decline in marketing services revenue, partially offset by an increase in digital advertising on dallasnews.com and in our digital replica. Circulation revenue increased $200,000. This is the third consecutive year of year-over-year growth, again, helped by Ranger's single copy sales. As of December 31st, the news had 63,000 digital-only subscribers, a decrease of 5,010, or 7.4% compared to last year. The decline in digital subscribers is the result of the company's specific focus on balancing volume and price. Total subscribers, including both home delivery and digital subscribers, was 132,694 as of December 31st. and this compares to $146,583 as of December 31st of 2022. A quarterly summary of historical print and digital subscriptions, also known as memberships, is saved on our website under the investor relations section. Other revenue decreased $500,000 or 3.1% compared to last year, and these are primarily due to reductions in revenue from commercial printing and distribution. On a non-GAAP basis, total adjusted operating expense for the year was $142.4 million. An improvement of $13.5 million or 8.7% when compared to $155.9 million of adjusted operating expense last year. The improvement is primarily due to expense savings of $7 million in distribution, again, resulting from the changes in our shared mail program, $2.2 million in outside services, $2.2 million in newsprint, $600,000 in employee comp and bin, and $800,000 in property rental. Newsprint expense is favorable year-over-year as a result of lower circulation and discontinuing print-only editions of Aldea and Briefing. The newsprint purchase price has continued to trend favorably. As of the end of the year, average newsprint inventory cost per metric ton was $687, and this compares to $829 per metric ton in 2022, a decrease of $142, or 17.1%. And I'm pleased to say we are continuing to see favorable pricing so far in 2024. As of December 31st, headcount was 601, down 62 compared to last year. As of the end of February, we had 546 employees, which reflects the departure of most of the 58 employees who elected to participate in the Voluntary Severance Program offered last fall and left the company on January 1st. Cash along with short-term investments was $22.5 million as of December 31st, and as of March 1st, cash was $19 million. For the year, the company recorded $464,000 of tax expense. We expect cash taxes to be approximately $580,000 in 2024, primarily related to the Texas franchise tax. As of December 31st, 2023, the company had 54.2 million in federal net operating loss carry forwards. 17.5 million expires in 2037, and 36.7 million does not have any expiration. In regards to our pension plan, we do not expect to have any mandatory contributions in 2024 or in 2025. We are pleased with the progress the company made this year toward our long-term strategy, and we were right in line with how we expected to end the year. We remain in a good position on our balance sheet and are encouraged by what we are seeing so far in 2024. I will now turn the call over to Grant.
spk01: Thank you, Katie. Reflecting on 2023, I was pleased with our progress in improving our adjusted operating income. The year was highlighted by exceptional journalism, a strong year of digital subscription revenue growth, and a disciplined approach to managing the decline of the print business. Starting with our journalism, our year was highlighted by two strong series that framed important issues facing North Texans. First, our newsroom created a 30-day series in September entitled Deadly Faith, which highlighted the threat of fentanyl in our community and helped inform North Texans about the threat of this deadly drug. Second, our editorial board focused on a six-part series throughout the year that was called The Unraveling of Latin America, where we helped North Texans understand the root causes of the immigration problems on our southern border. This outstanding journalism largely contributed to what Katie referred to as our third consecutive year of membership revenue growth. Because we remain committed to pricing our digital membership at a premium rate, Last, I'm proud of our Medium Giant team's discipline when we chose to exit the shared mail business in August of last year. Medium Giant continues to offer advertisers the products and services they value most, and it was clear from the rapid decline in our shared mail revenue that advertisers no longer saw value in this product offering. Looking ahead to 2024, we've recently added Chris Pythiger to our team as the company's Chief Product and Innovation Officer. We brought Chris on board to enhance our digital product offering and build new digital products to reach new audiences. We are in the early stages of Chris's work, but our goal is to expand our product portfolio to reach new audiences and provide new sources of revenue growth for the company. John, we will now open it up to questions.
spk03: Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, if you'd like to ask a question, please press 1, then 0 on your phone's keypad. You'll hear a tone indicating you've been placed in queue. Pressing 1, 0 a second time will remove you from the queue. Once you're in the queue, wait for your name to be called. Once again, for questions, please press 1, 0 at this time. We have no callers queuing up with questions.
spk02: All right, well, John, thank you very much for your assistance this morning. Everyone who has joined, thank you again for listening to our fourth quarter and full year 2023 results, and we look forward to updating everyone with our progress on our first quarter of 2024 earnings call, which will be handled sometime in the second quarter. Thank you.
spk03: All right, ladies and gentlemen, that does conclude your conference call for today. We do thank you for your participation and for using AT&T Event Conference, and you may now disconnect.
spk00: We're sorry. Your conference is ending now. Please hang up.
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