Urban One, Inc.

materially from those indicated by its projections or forward-looking statements. This call will present information as of August 5, 2021. Please note that Urban One disclaims any duty to update any forward-looking statements made in the presentation. In this call, Urban One may also discuss some non-GAAP financial measures in talking about its performance. These measures will be reconciled to DAP either during the course of this call or in the company's press release, which can be found on its website, www.urbanone.com. A replay of this conference will be made available from 12 p.m. Eastern Standard Time today, August 5, 2021, until 1159, August 8, 2021. Callers may access this replay by calling the following number, 1-866-207-1041, or dialing 402-970-0847 with the access code of 618-0679. Access to live audio and a replay of the conference will also be available on Urban One's corporate website at www.urbanone.com. The replay will be available on the website for seven days after the call. No other recordings or copies of this call are authorized or may be relied upon. I will now turn the call over to Alfred C. Ligon, Chief Executive Officer of Urban One, who is joined by Peter Thompson, Chief Financial Officer. Mr. Liggins, please go ahead.

Thank you, Operator, and thank you, everybody, and welcome to our second quarter results conference call. Also joining Peter and I is Jody Drewer, our Chief Financial Officer at TV1, and also Christopher Simpson, our General Counsel at Urban One. We have issued our results in the press release, and so... Hopefully, you've seen the good news. We had an outstanding quarter, a great bounce off the lows from COVID, happy to get the vast majority of the COVID effect behind us, although, as we all know, we're not out of the woods yet with potential reinfections and you know, mask mandates, but, you know, we are, you know, starting to, you know, really feel like there's light at the end of the tunnel. And in addition, there's been significant interest in our platform, African American targeted, African American owned platforms. from major advertisers all across the spectrum, which is considerably positively impacting our business. It's my belief that this is systemic change and not a moment in time, and it's great to see. I'm really proud of our management team all the way at the radio market level and through the different divisions for coming through this pandemic on the other side stronger than we went into it. The team really handled themselves extraordinarily well in the toughest of times and is now really poised to take advantage of the positive momentum that the business has and the environment has and the economy is clipping along at a very nice pace. So got a lot of wind in our sails. To that end, we decided to update our year-end guidance. We have been kind of guiding people to us doing about $130 million of EBITDA this year. We're very comfortable at this point in time of increasing that guidance to the mid-130s. A lot of what It's going to happen. The rest of the year is going to depend on Q4. We had an exceptionally strong Q4 last year, so we now need to see how that's all going to play out. So we know it's going to play out better than we thought. We just don't know exactly where it's going to land. So there could be more good news on the horizons. I'm going to turn it over to Peter to go into the detail of the numbers, and then after that I'll give you all an update on our progress in the Richmond Casino gaming efforts. We're making a lot of good, steady progress, so I'll give you an update there, and then we'll go into Q&A. So, Peter?

Thanks, Alfred. So net revenue is up by 41.6% year-over-year, quarter ended June 30th, 2021, at approximately $107.6 million. Net revenue for the radio division was up 73% year-over-year in the second quarter. Local advertising sales for Q2 were up 108.7% year-over-year, while national ad sales were up 36.8% compared to last year. All of the major advertising categories were up from last year. Government and public was the largest category, driven by COVID-19 vaccine outreach, followed by services, which was driven by law firms coming back, then telecoms and retail, and automotive was up by 83.9%. Radio continues to be a high-margin platform, with 83% of the revenue increase falling to adjusted EBITDA which is an improvement of $12.4 million year-over-year. The outlook for radio in the third quarter is also strong. Q3 2021 is currently pacing up by over 40%, and we expect Q3 core radio to finish up over 20%. Net revenue for reach media was up by 50.2% in the second quarter, driven by increased advertiser demand for the African-American audience. Adjusted EBITDA was up by approximately $1.9 million year-over-year. Net revenues for our digital segment increased by $9 million in Q2. Continued demand for black-owned and targeted brands drove growth in direct advertising sales at I1 Digital. And adjusted EBITDA increased for the quarter by approximately $6.1 million year-over-year in our digital segment. We recognized approximately $48.5 million of revenue from our cable television segment during the quarter, an increase of 10.7%. Cable TV advertising revenue was up 21.3%. Increased demand drove about a 35% average unit rate increase. And Clio TV ad revenue was up by $1.2 million. However, ADU partially offset these gains. Cable TV affiliate revenue was up by 3.2%, with rate increases of approximately $1 million, partially offset by churn. Cable subscribers for TV1, as measured by Nielsen, finished Q2 2021 at 45.5 million, down from 49.4 million at the end of Q1, and Clio had 28.8 million Nielsen subs. The reduction in Nielsen subscribers was not reflective of the underlying trend in paying subscribers, which were down by just 1.9% for the same period. We recorded approximately $1.9 million cost method income, less administrative expenses for our investment in the MGM National Harbor property for the quarter, compared to only $40,000 last year, and $1.7 million in 2019. Operating expenses excluding depreciation, amortization, impairments, and stock-based compensation increased to approximately $67.2 million in Q2 compared to $53 million in Q2 of 2020 and $84.9 million in Q2 of 2019. Employee compensation expenses increased by approximately $3.4 million mainly due to the reversal of temporary salary cuts in 2020. Marketing and promotional spending increased by $4.8 million, mostly at TV One. Revenue variable expenses increased by $2.3 million. Outside services increased by $2.2 million. And program content amortization expense at the cable television segment increased by $1.3 million in the quarter. all signs of a healthier business environment. The increase in corporate selling general and administrative expense is primarily due to an increase in professional fees related to the Richmond gaming opportunity, as well as a non-cash charge for the CEO's TV1 award, both of which are added back to adjusted EBITDA. Radio operating expenses were up 8.7%. Employee compensation and commissions were up, while bad debt expense and severance expense were down. REACH operating expenses were up by $1.1 million, mainly due to higher employee and talent compensation and higher affiliate station compensation. Operating expenses in the digital segment were up by $3 million, against a revenue increase of $9 million, driven predominantly by variable expenses related to traffic acquisition costs and sales. Cable TV expenses were up 39% year-over-year. Programming content expense increased by approximately $1.3 million. Sales and marketing expense was up approximately $5 million, driven by increased media campaigns to support programming. And we were also catching up on some contractual marketing spend commitments that were deferred from 2020. Operating expenses in the corporate and elimination segment were up by $1.6 million, due to an increase in professional fees for corporate development activities related to the Richmond Casino Venture and a non-cast charge for the CEO's Employment Agreement Award. For the second quarter, consolidated broadcast and digital operating income was approximately $49.6 million, an increase of 64.3%. Consolidated adjusted EBITDA was $44.8 million, an increase of 82.4 percent year-to-year, and $5.1 million higher than the second quarter of 2019. All of our divisions are significantly ahead of our operating budget for the first six months of the year. Given this strong performance, we've raised our full-year adjusted EBITDA guidance to the mid-130 million, excluding casino chase costs Obviously, a resurgence of the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent business closures could, of course, have an adverse impact to this guidance. Interest expense was approximately $15.9 million for the second quarter compared to approximately $18.4 million for the same period in 2020. The company made cash interest payments of approximately $172,000 in the quarter, as semiannual debt service payments are due on February 1st and August 1st. Provision for income taxes was approximately $6.1 million in the quarter, and the company paid cash taxes of $814,000. Net income was approximately $17.9 million, or 36 cents per share, compared to $1.4 million, or 3 cents per share, for the second quarter of 2020. Capital expenditures were approximately $1.6 million, compared to approximately $1.2 million last year, Company issued and sold 1,893,126 Class A shares during the quarter and received net proceeds of approximately $21.2 million. As of June 30th, 2021, total gross debt was $825 million. Ending unrestricted cash was $129.3 million. and net debt was approximately $695.7 million, compared to $156.2 million of LTM-reported adjusted EBITDA for a total net leverage ratio of 4.45 times. And with that, I'll hand back to Alfred.