Urban One, Inc.

During this conference call, Urban One will be sharing with you certain projections or other forward-looking statements regarding future events or its future performance. Urban One cautions you that certain factors, including risks and uncertainties, referred to in the 10 case, 10 cues, and other reports it periodically files with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Could cause the company's actual results to differ materially from those indicated by its projections or forward-looking statements. This call will present information as of November 3, 2022. 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 GAAP either during the course of this call or in the company's press release, which can be found on its website at .urban1.com. A replay of this conference call will be available from 12 p.m. Eastern time today until 1159 p.m. November 6, 2022. Callers may access the replay by calling -207-1041. International callers may dial direct -970-0847. The replay access code is 1399699. Access to live audio and a replay of the conference will also be available on Urban One's Corporate website at .urban1.com. The replay will be made 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'll now turn the call over to Alfred C. Liggins, Chief Executive Officer of Urban One, who is joined by Peter D. Thompson, Chief Financial Officer. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Operator. Also joining me are Jody Druehr, who is the Chief Financial Officer for TV1, our General Counsel Christopher Sensen, and our Chief Administrative Officer Karen Wisher. Thank you for joining, folks. You've gotten our press release for our third quarter results. Very happy with the quarter. Almost 9% net revenue growth, increase of adjusted EBITDA in the face of increasing headwinds. We thought this was a very, very solid performance. Even more importantly, our Q4 pacings continue to be strong, particularly relative to some of the other reports that we've seen coming from folks that have already reported our radio business, including political, is going very well into Q4. Political, what we've done in 2018, we're expecting double-digit revenue growth in the radio segment. We are experiencing very, very robust growth in our digital segment this year that's also continuing from Q3 and into Q4. With that, we are going to update our full-year guidance. I think that we originally had it at 145 to 150, and then we're going to do probably better than the top end of that range of 150. It's probably impossible to not update it now that we have about two months left in the year. We feel pretty comfortable that our full-year EBITDA will end up in the mid-160s this year. There are a number of things that happen in the fourth quarter, bonus accruals, true-up for TV1 programming amortization that will affect that, but even that of all that, we feel that it's safe that we'll be in the mid-160s. We had a great robust up-front for TV1 and Clio, and again, our radio pacings are doing better than many of our other brethren. We owe that to continued demand for our target audience and the move towards more diversity and inclusion in the advertising sector. We've had a long history, decades of building a brand that is serving the African-American community, and that brand recognition is really proving to be very fruitful during this time period. A update on the Richmond Casino, if you've been following in the press, it's a battle. It will be a battle in the upcoming General Assembly session starting in January as to whether the casino opportunity stays in Richmond, where we have been the chosen developer, or if it moves to Petersburg. Petersburg has announced that they're working with the Corvish Companies, which was the runner-up in the Richmond process. The legislature is tricky, and it'll be highly political. I don't really have a good answer as to ultimately what happens. My position on the casino opportunity has been muted in previous conference calls. I think investors to really think of that as something that could be a positive, obviously, if it happens, but speculative, because again, it's going to be all about politics and not about where the best place for this casino resort operation to go. We continue to fight the good fight. We're most focused on the continued trajectory of the business. We're continuing to de-lever. We've been buying back our bonds in the open market, which is actually great. When we first put this facility in place, we were going to have to pay $103 in order to take out bonds before the first call date. Now, with pretty much everything in the market trade at a discount, it creates an advantageous de-levering opportunity for the company since we're sitting on a fair amount of cash, and we've been taking advantage of that. With that, I'm going to turn it over to Peter so he can go through the numbers in more detail, and then we'll come back for Q&A.

Thank you, Alfred. The third quarter was another strong quarter for us with both consolidated net revenue and adjusted EBITDA up year over year and also significantly above pre-pandemic levels. Consolidated adjusted EBITDA was $44.3 million for the quarter, up from $42.7 million in 2021 and up from $38.7 million in pre-pandemic 2019. Net revenue was up by .9% year over year for the quarter, approximately $121.4 million. Net revenue for the radio segment increased by .8% year over year, and on the same station basis by 1.4%. According to Miller-Kaplan, our local advertising sales were down .7% against a market that was down 2.1%. Our national ad sales were up .7% against a market that was up 0.8%. That was helped by our corporate sales effort and the continuing demand for our target audience. While we outperformed the spot markets, particularly in national sales, we lagged the market in the NTR category as a result of disappointing performances on events in Atlanta and Raleigh, and that also impacted margins overall at the radio division. Midterm election spending started in Q3 in earnest, and we booked $2.7 million in net political ad revenue, of which $1.8 million was at radio compared to $711,000 last year. That meant that government and public was our biggest advertising category for the quarter, up 6.7%. Healthcare was up 35.5%. Auto was up strongly, 57.3%. Telecommunications was up .5% year over year, while services, entertainment, retail, financial, food and beverage, and travel and transportation were all down in the quarter. Fourth quarter revenue, radio division is currently pacing up approximately .5% including political and about .9% excluding political. $5.6 million of net political ad revenue is on the books for fourth quarter, bringing the annual total to approximately 9.5 million, which is above the 6.6 million net that we did in 2018. On a same station basis, fourth quarter is pacing up .1% excluding political, with national pacing up .1% and local pacing down 2.8%. Net revenue for reach media was $10.1 million in the third quarter, up .3% over prior year, and just to leave it there was $3.7 million up by .9% for the quarter. Fourth quarter ad sales are holding steady, however we don't have a cruise event in the fourth quarter this year, and that event generated approximately $7 million in revenue and $400,000 in profit for fourth quarter last year, which is not returning this year, but we will have a cruise in 2023. Net revenues for our digital segment increased by .1% to $21 million. The direct sales team continued to build on the momentum that began in the first half of 2022. The sharp revenue growth was really a result of the continued demand from advertisers to spend with black owned and certified diversity publishers, also midterm political revenue, as well as brands remaining committed to drive deeper engagement and reach with black audiences. Just as EBITDA increased for the quarter by $2.2 million, up 40.7%. Demand continues to be strong and fourth quarter digital revenue is expected to exceed our Q3 number. We recognized approximately $50.8 million of revenue from our cable television segment during the quarter, an increase of 4%. Cable TV advertising revenue was up 16.7%, with a favorable rate volume impact of $3.4 million driven by higher hybrid unit rates, $0.4 million of free video on demand, a million dollar increase for Cleo TV, and then there was a million three unfavorable audience deficiency unit burn off. Cable TV affiliate revenue was down by 7.6%, with favorable rate increases of $1.2 million offset by $2.2 million of net churn, and a million dollars of increased launch support. Cable subscribers for TV1, as measured by Nielsen, finished third quarter at 43.6 million compared to 45 million at the end of Q2, and Cleo TV had 41.3 million Nielsen subs. We recorded approximately $2.1 million cost method income for our investment in the MGM National Harbor property for the quarter, the same as last year. Operating expenses excluding depreciation, amortization, impairments, and stock-based compensation increased to approximately $80.5 million in Q3 compared to $74.6 million in Q3 of 2021. Employee compensation increased by approximately $1.9 million. Revenue variable expenses increased by $2.4 million. Travel, entertainment, and office expenses increased by $525,000. And outside services including contracts, talent, and consulting fees increased by $1.2 million. Marketing promotional and event spending increased by $3.3 million. Our corporate development costs decreased by $2.1 million, and cable TV content amortization decreased by $1.1 million. About $1 million of increased expense for the Indianapolis radio acquisition is included in these totals. Radio operating expenses were up 9%. The Indianapolis cluster added $1 million of that increase. Event expenses were up in Cleveland and Raleigh. Expenses relating to the revenue increase such as sales, commissions, and bonuses were up as well, and there were some increases in outside services and employee compensation and benefits. Reach operating expenses were up by 2%. Talent costs drove the increase, but expenses remained mostly flat otherwise at reach. Operating expenses in the digital segment were up 39.7%, driven predominantly by variable expenses related to traffic acquisition, sales, and integrated marketing. Cable TV expenses were up .8% year over year. Content amortization expense was down $1.1 million, while employee compensation and benefits were up by $855,000, and sales and marketing spend was up by $1.4 million. Operating expenses in the corporate and elimination segment were down by $1.5 million due to a $2.1 million decrease in corporate development costs relating to the Richmond casino venture last year. Employee compensation and recruiting fees increased slightly. The third quarter consolidated broadcast and digital operating income was approximately $50.8 million, an increase of 3.5%. During the quarter, the company repurchased $25 million of its 2028 notes at an average price of approximately .1% apart, resulting in a net gain on retirement of approximately $1.8 million. An additional ,271,000 of the 28 notes were repurchased in the fourth quarter at an average price of approximately 85.75%, bringing total gross debt to a balance of $756.7 million, down from $825 million at the start of the year. Interest expense decreased to approximately $15.3 million for the third quarter. Company-made cash interest payments of approximately $29.9 million in the quarter, including the accrued interest on the retired notes. The next semiannual debt service payment is due in Q123. A non-cash impairment charge of $14.5 million was recorded for Atlanta, Charlotte, Dallas, Houston, Philadelphia, Raleigh, and Richmond radio market broadcasting licenses. And that was really triggered by the overall market performance in these markets, rather than a specific radio-worn performance. The provision for income taxes was approximately $3.4 million for the quarter, and the company paid cash income taxes in the amount of $247,000. Net income was approximately $4.2 million, or $0.09 per share, compared to $13.9 million, or $0.27 per share for the third quarter of 2021. Capital expenditures were approximately $1.4 million. The company repurchased 100,803 shares of Class D common stock in the amount of $439,000 and executed a stock-based tax repurchase of 325,872 shares of Class D common stock in the amount of $1.4 million. As of September 30, 2022, total gross debt was $775 million. Our ending unrestricted cash balance was $105.1 million, resulting in net debt of approximately $669.9 million, which we compared to $166.3 million of LTM-reported adjusted EBITDA for a total net leverage ratio of 4.03 times. And pro forma for the Indianapolis acquisition, total net leverage was 3.97 times. And with that, I'll hand back to Albert.

Thank you, Peter. Operator, could you open the lines up for questions?

Yes, thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, if you wish to ask a question, please press 1 then 0. Again, if you do wish to ask a question, please press 1 then 0 at this time. Our first question comes from Ben Briggs with Stonyx Financial, Inc. Please go ahead.

Good morning, guys. Thank you for taking the questions. Sure. Yes, so congrats on the quarter. It looks like a great quarter. Congrats on the buybacks. I just want to make sure I heard you guys right. You bought back another $19 million of debt in the fourth quarter so far, you said?

Yes, $18.7 million call it, Ben. Okay, perfect. Thank you.

Are there plans to continue this? Is there additional authorization that you need to do any more buybacks? How are we thinking about that going forward? We

actually, that $18.7 million is an odd number. We had an additional $25 million authorization, so there's almost a $7 million balance on that. We're looking to be opportunistic. I think that paying down debt is a good thing. So you'll continue to see us be opportunistic and fruit.

You there?

Yes, I'm sorry. It cut out for just a second.

Go ahead. There's like $7 million left, seven-ish left on the last $25 million authorization. So we'll get through that and then we'll see where we sit. Obviously, we want to get a feel for what the economy is doing, et cetera. But paying down debt is a good thing. We'll continue to look at being prudent in how we utilize our cash.

Ben, sorry, I missed the question. $18.2 million, $18.7 million. So I'll put $7 million as close to the mark.

$18.2 million, okay. So you've got about $8 million of authorization left. What does the process of getting authorization to buy back more look like? Is it a quick enough process that it allows you to be opportunistic if there's an off end mark that makes

sense? It's super quick. We just basically reach out and communicate with our board and they respond. Generally, getting a board to approve paying down debt is not that difficult.

Right, right, right. It certainly seems that way from your history of buying back debt. Yeah. Okay, moving on from the debt for a second. So what, I know that there's a formula where you can put back the MGM Grand National Harbor investment back to MGM. What does that formula look like right now? What does that look like right now and what, you know, theoretically, will be put back to that? How much is it worth?

Yeah, it's seven times their EBITDAHR. There's a slight adjustment to what their EBITDAHR is to what our definition is, you know, and it equates to several millions of dollars on the EBITDAHR number. Nothing to get crazy about. But, I mean, look, it's worth over $100 million, right? Last year, their EBITDAHR, you know, I think our number that we would get paid on was like $236 million of EBITDAHR. This is no secret, but, you know, because they report their revenues, but they've been continuing to gain market share here in Maryland this year. They're going to do, you know, over $800 million of gaming revenue. So, I suspect that EBITDAHR is going to go up, you know, from last year. And, you know, we've got a window in the first quarter of every year to put our interest at seven times whatever, you know, the previous year's ultimate reported adjusted EBITDAHR is. And so, you know, we'll see what it looks like and make a decision, you know, but it's worth over $100 million.

Okay, got it, got it. So, it's a window in the first quarter, you're saying? It's not something you can just

do

at any time. Okay. Yeah, it's not any

time you want.

Okay, got it. So, and then, so obviously this first quarter, once you see their annual results, there'll be internal discussions and that'll be the time that you guys make a decision. Are you leaning?

We haven't thought about that. I mean, we're sitting, you know, it's like, you know, we're sitting on cash now. So, if we want to, you know, pay down debt, we just use the cash on our balance sheet, right? You know, so the question is, if we were to put it, you know, what are we going to do with that cash? Are we going to pay down more debt? Are we going to put it into an investment? Yeah, so we don't know yet, but there's no pressing reason to have to monetize it today. And it's good that we didn't because, you know, EBITDA has been growing.

Okay, okay, that's helpful. Thank you. And then kind of moving on, it was good to hear that the radio paces seem like they're well up. I think you said in fourth quarter, they're pacing up 26% if you're inclusive of political. It sounds like you lost a few subs, though, at the TV1 network. You're down to 43.6, you said, versus 45. Do you have any clarity sort of mid-fourth quarter right now where that sub number stands? Does it continue to build subs or has it stabilized?

Yeah, I mean, look, you know, I wouldn't want to give a mid-quarter estimate of what we think churn is going to be. I mean...

November Nielsen

numbers

came out and we actually gained over 200,000 subs.

Yeah. Oh, okay, great.

But look, you know, it's probably the biggest debate in media right now is, you know, what is the trajectory of the pay TV ecosystem, right? You know, and so I don't know. You know, is it stabilizing? Is it increasing? Yeah, it's definitely a big debate. You know, we feel good about the TV business given that we've gotten more subs launched for our new service, Cleo TV. You know, we've re-upped many of our affiliate agreements. Advertisers still have a robust appetite for video programming and advertising, although we are seeing a softening in ad demand in our TV space. And, you know, I mean, I think Paramount, you know, has released earnings and, you know, said the same thing. NBCU, Comcast before that, the same thing. So, you know, we're experiencing it. We're going to, I think, be affected less because of our target demo and the commitment to our audience and diversity inclusion. So, you know, we feel good about that. But, you know, make no mistake, you're in a, you know, macroeconomic headwind that's affecting national television advertising.

Okay.

All right. Well, these questions have been very helpful. Like I said, I appreciate the time. And I'll hand it back off to somebody else.

Appreciate it. Operator,

next question.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Aaron Watts with Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

Hi, guys. Thanks for having me on. Maybe a follow-up on that last answer. Just curious what you're hearing or seeing within the radio business in terms of any advertiser reactions or concerns related to the macro headwinds to close out this year or roll into 23. It sounds like you're feeling a little bit of it on the TV side. Alfred, maybe just a little more on the radio side, what you're seeing out there.

Yeah. Definitely seeing radio slow down in national. However, we're offsetting that. We've got our own corporate sales team, and it's large and robust. And they're really leaning into this ad demand that we have for our space. And so we're outperforming on a national level than any of our other competitors. And so what does that mean for next year? I mean, I just described to you what fourth quarter is going to look like. And so our results in radio versus everybody else's results are going to be night and day. How does that play out for next year? We're going through budgets right now. And so I don't know yet. If I had to bet, I think that we've got some things that are going to continue to bolster us. Our Indianapolis acquisition, I think, is going to be a great deal for us in the radio space. We're already starting to figure out how we're going to control costs. We've got some things that are rolling over, like leases, where we're going to be able to reduce real estate footprint. We're going to have a killer year this year. So are we going to be able to match that next year? The answer is probably not. But quite frankly, I didn't think that going into this year, I didn't think we're going to do as well as we ended up doing this year. So I can't really, you know, I can't handicap what the recession impact is going to be on us at this point in time. But, you know, I would say it's going to be less than it is going to be on others, you know, for sure. We've got our, you know, we didn't have our Tom Joyner crews this year. We're going to have it next year. It's already 80% sold out. We're about to announce, and we haven't announced any talent lineup. We're about to announce talent lineup soon. It's really, really big. We think that that's going to push us to sell it out before the end of the year. And so I, you know, this is the first time I've gone into a recession where I wasn't

nervous

about the impact or stress it was going to put on us as a company. And that's got a lot to do with where we've gotten our leverage level to and our prospects.

Yeah, I was going to say it must be nice sitting in that position. I know you've gone through the ups and downs a couple of times before, and it seems like you are in a better position this time around, for sure. Do you think, Alfred, that for maybe some of your peers that aren't as well positioned this time going in, there's some additional nervousness and stress on their part that there could be some opportunity for you with regards to maybe investments or M&A where you could take advantage of that to grow your platform further? Yeah,

I mean, I think that, you know, that could happen. We've been super disciplined on stuff that, you know, we've been buying. And one of the problems that you have right now is that, I don't know if it's a problem, if you're a buyer, it's actually good. If you're a seller, it's not great. But, you know, multiples have come in quite a bit, particularly in the media space, right? They're bringing multiples down, you know, on a quarterly basis for even the big diversified media companies. So, you know, a lot of the stuff in radio is kind of trading, you know, low fives to six times, right? So you've got to get a seller, you know, that wants to be reasonable in this kind of multiple, you know, valuation environment. And so, and by the same token, we've got to be able to justify any acquisition, you know, with that kind of term in a multiple, right? Because that's where we're trading at now. So, you know, that's the historical, you know, conundrum of the bid-ass between a buyer and a seller. So, you know, is there a nexus where, you know, there's a meeting of the minds and something can happen? You know, I don't know, maybe probably, right? You know, we keep looking at stuff, but, you know, if we don't get to that nexus, we're going to be happy just paying down debt and, you know, continuing to grow the existing platform. But we will, we are absolutely going to be looking to see if we can take advantage of the environment, you know? So, that's, you know, that's kind of how we think about it.

Okay. All right. Appreciate the time, as always. Yep. Thank you.

And we do have a follow-up from Ben Briggs with Stonics Financial Inc. Please go ahead.

Hey, guys. Just one quick follow-up here. I just noticed something with, you know, a very strong, I think by any measure, first three quarters of the year. Your guidance, the last that I have written down here for the year for 2022 is $145 million to $150 million. At the high end of that, at $150 million, that would imply only $16 million of EBITDA in the fourth quarter, which obviously doesn't sound right.

You must have missed the first five minutes of the call. We updated guidance to mid-160s for this year.

Oh, okay. I did miss the first five minutes of the call. So, that's exactly what it is.

That was in the introduction that I gave. So, you know, sorry that I haven't read it.

But,

yeah.

And when you think about it and you look at it and you're modeling it out, you should expect the fourth quarter to look quite like fourth quarter last year overall, right? So, sequentially, it's going to be down on Q2 and Q3 for various good reasons, which I often kind of went into in the first five minutes. But, yeah, that would bring you out mid-160s.

And we figured that we needed to update guidance because somebody was going to do the math that you just did and go, what are you guys talking about? All

right. All right. Well, thank you very much for the clarification. Yeah, no

worries. Sorry about that.

No, no problem.

If there are any additional questions, please press 1 and 0 at this time. And we have a question from Brad Kern with Adelaide. Please go ahead.

Hi. Thanks for taking my question. What I wanted to ask is how sustainable do you think the updated guidances, how much of an uplift there do you think is from political? And can we think about that as sort of a sticky base or would you expect, how much

regression would you expect

following it?

Yeah, there's probably about $12 billion of total political across the platform. Probably 10 of that is in radio. So next year that's going to go away. It's not going to go to zero, right? But it's going to go down substantially. So you've got that headwind. You've got the headwind of a looming recession. But we've got our Indianapolis acquisition. Digital as a category has been robust, right? I was having a conversation with the Chief Investment Officer from one of the top three advertising holding companies. And they're still projecting revenue growth next year for digital advertising even though they're projecting down for traditional advertising. We've got a pretty robust digital platform. So no, I wouldn't say that you can look at the mid-160s as kind of like the sticky baseline because if you just take off political and then throw something in there for a recession, you're going to go backwards, right? But Indianapolis is going to be a meaningful contributor to our EBITDA next year, probably an additional $4 or $5 million. And we've got other stuff that is coming into play. The Tom Joyner cruise, I just mentioned that could be another almost a couple million dollars of EBITDA. So we're kind of working through all of that now. But look, TV companies go up and down every other year based on political ad demand. And I think at least internally, we're starting to view our business in a similar fashion because it's a double-digit revenue swing for us now.

I think that's really helpful.

In 2020, did we do almost $20 million of political? Yeah, it was an 18-change. Yeah, no, it's a real number, right? And so we're not going to have that next year. So don't be surprised if our EBITDA next year ends up being less than it is this year. But again, don't know. I mean, I'm probably not going to budget flat, right? But I got one guy looking at me. That's not what you told me.

Okay. And so within digital, just to kind of double-click on that, so what kind of growth is sustainable there and what's the nature of that? Is that website advertising or

within

apps? What does that look like?

I mean, look, we sell. Our digital business is primarily display and more and more video. I don't know if off the top of my head, but I think our revenue is probably what, 25% digital video right now. Streaming, audio streaming is a growing category in our digital business. And we've just seen a real explosion of demand against the digital category. And this was a business that before, in 2019, was probably low 30s of revenue, low to mid 30s, and it's probably going to be closer to high 70s, closer to 80s this year.

Wow. I mean, do you think you're taking share from just more people listening? Are you taking share from radio or people choosing between Spotify and your...

It's increased demand and it's, you know, well, first of all, the share, I mean, the amount of money that we're doing is a pimple on an elephant's butt in comparison to the entire digital revenue ecosystem, which includes Meta and Google and Spotify, you know? And there's no Miller-Caplan for digital, right? Like, you know, where we can sit and figure out what our digital share is. But even if there was, we probably wouldn't even register, right? And so I can't tell you... The only thing I can tell you is that national advertisers, A, are putting more money into digital, B, they are now recognizing the contextual value of targeted digital media and diverse-owned platforms, and as their increased interest in diverse audiences and diverse ownership has evolved, you know, we started Interactive One in 2008. So we've been pounding the urban digital message for a very long time. And I think I said it earlier, you know, as well, that brand building has helped us. Plus, we've got the largest urban or African-American targeted digital audience in the... Yeah, as it relates to Comscore among all the competitors, right? You know, so...

That's a great segue into my next question. Sorry.

Go ahead, now. I said that... So that's what's happening.

Okay. And that's a great segue into my next question, which is, you know, on the diversity and inclusion issues, can you speak to what the nature of those commitments from advertisers look like? Are they kind of -to-year? Have they committed a certain dollar amount? How much visibility do you have on those commitments? And second of all, you know, are they... Are you able to quantify for the advertisers what the... Are the economics pretty similar to maybe just like a typical pop station? Are they different? How are the advertisers thinking about it? Is it more for them? The same economics better? Is it a marketing expense for them in terms of the diversity and equity inclusion initiatives? How do we... Those are my two questions on that front.

I mean, same... As they've increased their, you know, look, Procter & Gamble and McDonald's and General Motors, these are all entities that have said that they're going to... And I don't have the exact numbers off the top of my head, but they're going to grow their spend with, you know, black-owned media or, you know, from 2% to 4% over the next two years. So they've made multi-year spend target commitments. They actually haven't come in and given us a two- or three-year contract. You know, that hardwires that. There are some conversations going about multiple... About contracts for multiple years. You know, that we're working on now. I can tell you that rates have gone up because with ad demand, rates go up. But rates for our audience in comparison to what advertisers have historically paid for general market, you know, audiences, were already low, right? So, you know, I think when you match this up in comparison, you know, we're not... They're not paying an outsized premium to reach at least our particular audience at Urban One. I think there are some diverse-owned platforms that really don't have a lot of audience or some have no audience that are now getting money. You know, so, you know, the CPMs there are probably through the roof, you know, or not even calculable because, you know, there's... You know, I know some platforms that are getting real money, they aren't even rated, right? You know, but they're getting money now. We've always been rated. We've always, you know, had a decent-sized audience. And so even when, you know, if we get a 40% rate increase, we're not more expensive than, you know, just, you know, Warner, you know, you know, Discovery Networks. You know, we're probably still at a, you know, significant discount to what advertisers pay for those networks. Got

it. That's very helpful. Thank you. Thank

you. Hello? If there are any additional questions, please press 1 and 0 at this time. And we have a question from George Michaels with Barclays. Please go ahead.

Hi. First of all, you know, I wanted to congratulate you guys on another great quarter. Just quickly, is there any thought to doing any additional equity buybacks or can you talk about that? Thank you.

We've been discussing it. I think our, you know, we've been discussing it for a long time. Our focus has been on bonds. You know, we've been talking about it internally. Don't know. We haven't landed anywhere just yet. You know, we always like, you know, we always like, we used to have over 100 million shares outstanding, and now we've got 48 million. So we like to do it opportunistically. And, you know, it's been good. I mean, we've generally bought, you know, at the right time. Our last big purchase was, I think, last, you know, a quarter ago. We bought like 4.5 million shares, you know, back. And I think the average price was like in the low fives. But then the stock proceeded to trade down after that. So it wasn't feeling great a week after doing, you know, that trade. But ultimately kind of felt good about where the company was going and the opportunity to buy that many shares back in one fell swoop was a good opportunity. The fact of the matter is the volume is not huge on the stock. So even if we go in, you know, when the stock is depressed, you can't, you know, you won't be able to buy a ton of it. So we're assessing our, you know, our options now. I don't know exactly where we're going to land. But I think we kind of want to, you know, get through budgets, you know, see how we feel about it. If an opportunity to take a sizable block came up, I think we would, you know, we would look at that because it just doesn't happen, you know, that often. The other thing that we've been watching, but I kind of feel good about it, you know, now is that, you know, our EBITDA has been increasing, our debt's been coming down, you know, but the stock's kind of been just, you know, hanging in there. And that's because multiples have been, you know, coming in, right? So, and what I feel good about now is I kind of think where the company's trading at now, probably low fives, you know, not including, you know, the value of MGM, I kind of feel like that should feel like a floor, you know, for this business. When I look at, you know, the low water mark in the cable space, which is AMC, which trades at about five times, you look at what newspapers, you know, have historically, you know, trade at, which I think, you know, we have a much better business, you know, than that. Even the radio guys, iHeart's trading at almost seven times, I think. QMULIS is trading at about six times. I think if the bar company's trading in the low fives times, you know, EBITDA, you know, that's a pretty safe entry point. You know, so, you know, given that, if you were to buy back stock and keep paying down debt at the same time, you know, it's probably a pretty good trade. You know, what I don't know, and again, we're going through budgets right now, is, you know, where do I think we're going to end up next year and how does that factor into it? But we're long-term shareholders, the family's the largest shareholder. Yeah, out there. So we're believers in it and we, you know, we generally like to own more of the company than last over time. So, but we want to, you know, we want to do it right. You know, you don't like the stores, and you see, you know, a bunch of people who believe and believe and believe, and they buy, you know, at the same time, at the high, and then, you know, the stock takes a valuation adjustment and it just burnt through a lot of money. We don't really want to, you know, we don't want to see that happen to us, but I don't feel like the valuation of where we're at now, you know, there's very much risk in that at all. Thank

you.

Yeah.

If there are any additional questions, please press 1 and 0 at this time. And there are no further questions.

Thank you, Operator. Thank you, everyone. We'll talk to you offline if you have any additional questions, and we'll see you next quarter.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that does conclude your conference for today. Thank you for your participation and for using AT&T Event Conferencing Service. You may now disconnect.