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spk00: Greetings. Welcome to the Odyssey, Inc. Second Quarter 2022 Earnings Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. Please note this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the conference over to your host, Rich Smelling, Chief Financial Officer. Thank you. You may begin.
spk06: Thank you, Alex. Welcome to Odyssey's second quarter earnings conference call. A replay of this call will be available shortly after the conclusion at the replay link or number noted in our release. During this call, the company may make forward-looking statements which are based upon the company's current expectations and involve risks and uncertainties. The company's actual results could differ materially from those projected in these forward-looking statements. Additional information concerning factors that could cause actual results to differ materially are described in the risk factor section of the company's annual report on Form 10-K, as such risks and uncertainties may be updated from time to time in the company's SEC filings. We assume no obligation to update any forward-looking statements except as may be required by law. During this call, we may make reference to certain non-GAAP financial measures. We refer you to the investors page of our website at odysseyinc.com for reconciliations of such measures and other pro forma financial information. I'll now hand the call over to David Field, our president and CEO.
spk01: Thanks, Rich. Good morning, everybody. Odyssey began 2022 with a very strong first quarter in which we grew revenues by 14% and EBITDA by 152%. it looked like we were on a path to deliver 2022 financial results in the ballpark of 2019 results. Since then, deteriorating macroeconomic conditions and increasing uncertainty has caused ad spending headwinds, which have impacted our business. In second quarter, our revenues grew 5% within our mid-single-digit to high single-digit guidance range, but definitely not the quarter we were expecting earlier in the year. Spot radio was up 1%, including political, with core flat. Digital revenue growth accelerated from plus 16% in Q1 to plus 19% in Q2, and network radio grew by 7%. Podcasting revenues led the way at plus 27%, excluding the low-margin crooked media business, which moved off of our platform in May. Podcast downloads grew 40% year over year, driven by continued strong growth in our local podcast business and our 2,400 sports podcast studio. The Odyssey Podcast Network is one of the largest premium networks in the country, number two by reach in the Triton Podcast Ranker, reaching 40 million unique listeners worldwide and nearly one-third of all U.S. podcast listeners. Streaming listeners grew 18% during the quarter, and we also achieved solid CPM growth on our streaming audio business. We also recorded growth in radio ratings performance, with our total radio ratings up 5% in second quarter versus first quarter outpacing the industry, which grew by 3%. On today's call, Rich and I will focus on sharing an assessment of where we are, where we are headed, and how we plan to get there. I'd like to start off by sharing a little context. It's worth pointing out that our 2019 EBITDA was $341 million, and we were on pace to get into the high 300s in 2020 and approach four times total leverage. And then, of course, COVID struck. We had every expectation of getting back close to 2019 this year, And we're off to a great start in Q1. The twin punches of the pandemic and now the economic slowdown over the past two-plus years have definitely adversely impacted our business. But it's essential to distinguish between the adverse impact of the pandemic and slowdown on our business and Odyssey's fundamental strength and earnings potential going forward. Odyssey has been meaningfully enhanced and is today a much stronger company than the one that generated $341 million in EBITDA in 2019. We have transformed and elevated our products and capabilities and emerged as a scaled, multi-platform leader in audio content and entertainment with greater capacity to serve listeners and customers. Building on our strategic progress, we are aggressively pursuing a number of significant, tangible opportunities to capitalize on our enhancements and drive substantial additional revenues and profitability. At the same time, we are acutely mindful of the macroeconomic uncertainties and have built a focused game plan to navigate through the turbulence so that we can emerge strong and healthy with robust opportunities intact. Let me walk you through the key drivers at a high level. Number one, we are making meaningful progress in bolstering our ad tech capabilities, addressing, frankly, an area of weakness. We have historically relied on third parties for services, which has adversely impacted revenues, increasingly so in recent quarters. Our acquisition of Amperwave at the end of 2021 now provides us with a strategic ad tech foundation which we have bolstered through additional staff investments and an aggressive product roadmap with important deliverables over the next several months that will materially reduce our reliance on third parties. Our emerging ad tech will enable us to unlock new pools of digital advertising demand, increasing our sell-through rates and improving yield, and also enable us to bring additional off-platform supply to market. It will also enable us to more effectively deliver holistic, multi-platform ad products and programs that tap into our total audience of 200 million, including 60 million that are digitally addressable. Number two is the launch of our new reimagined Odyssey digital platform, which is rolling out in a series of releases during Q3 and Q4. We have made a large investment in building and developing new innovative technology to create a unique listening experience with exclusive content and unique capabilities and features to provide a more personalized, curated listening experience. So let me share an example. If you're a New Yorker, the Odyssey app will provide you with essentially what you can get on the other leading platforms, plus the best in local sports and news with WFAN, the Yankees, Mets, and Giants games, 10-10 wins, and WCBS, plus a suite of new unique features to listen to radio as you never have before, such as new interactive chapter functionality, a first for live radio, so that listeners can scroll through to easily find and play topical content on demand from across our owned and partnered broadcasts. We believe that our digital strategy will benefit from our distinctive competitive advantage in the quality of our premium exclusive original audio content, led by our unrivaled leadership in local news and sports, and our critically acclaimed original podcasts. Our aspirations for the new platform are high, and we expect to see significant increases in our digital audience usage and engagement, along with richer data enablement bolstering our revenues in EBITDA in 2023 and beyond. Number three, our digital business continues to grow nicely, and we see growing demand for all three of our primary digital businesses going forward. We have built one of the country's largest and most important podcast businesses through our acquisitions of C13, Pineapple Street Studios, and the market-leading Podcorn Podcast Marketplace, plus a significant amount of organic product development, including our new 2400 Sports Studio. We are expanding our off-platform digital audio business with recent exclusive sales agreements with Major League Baseball, Fox News, and now an exclusive sales partnership with CBS Sports Podcast, which we announced earlier today. We also have built a rapidly growing digital marketing solutions business and, as noted, are poised to take a big step forward with our new and improved Odyssey digital platform. Collectively, our digital business has grown from 10% to 22% of revenues since 2019 and is poised for a very bright future. Number four. Under the leadership of former Spotify CRO Brian Benedict, who joined us several months ago, we are meaningfully enhancing our national enterprise business development group and deepening our engagement with leading national brands and ad agencies to garner significantly greater national ad spending that better reflects the scale and scope and capabilities of Odyssey today. We believe our efforts are bearing fruit and will be successful in driving increased national ad spending. Number five. While one can debate whether or not we're currently in a recession, the fact is that substantial portions of our business have effectively been in a deep recession since the start of the pandemic from an advertising perspective due to supply chain issues, most notably auto. So while a healthy number of our primary customer categories now exceed pre-pandemic spending levels, auto has remained 40% under 2019 levels. As our largest category, The shortfall in auto has been a key contributor to our GAAP versus 19 revenues. We look forward to the day when supply chain issues are resolved and we return to a healthy supply-demand equilibrium in the auto market. GM made some encouraging remarks on their earnings call last week. We shall see. But if we return to our pre-COVID auto spend levels, that would represent about a $60 million increase in our sales. Number six, expenses. We are working to enact substantial investments sustainable savings through a number of measures to improve margins and profitability across the business. We believe we will be able to deliver meaningful cost reductions without hindering our strategic priorities and growth plans. So each of these six specific, tangible, actionable growth drivers represent significant eight figures of potential EBITDA enhancement. Collectively, they provide plenty of opportunity for us to drive EBITDA back above and beyond 2019 levels with room to grow as economic conditions improve. And of course, as a leader in the growing audio market, we would also expect to see a general increase in advertising demand in a normalized recovering economy where supply chain and staffing issues are resolved and economic growth resumes. In addition, we have a seventh non-operational focus area, which is the balance sheet. We will explore select non-strategic asset sales, such as a parcel of land in Houston, which we expect to close later this month. We will also consider other pragmatic value-creating moves to reduce our debt. And we are fortunate that as we work our way through the turbulent economic conditions, all of our junior debt and the majority of our total debt is not due until 2027 or 2029. Now, before turning it over to Rich, let me share some additional updates on the business. During the quarter, we announced a significant expansion of our multi-year partnership with BetMGM, in which they have become the official sportsbook of our BetQL audio network. We continue to make strong progress enhancing and building our exclusive podcast and digital content. As noted, today we announced an exclusive sales agreement for all CBS sports podcasts. This past month, we launched our new exclusive streaming audio sales agreement with Fox News and a new platform partnership with Newsy and Court TV. We have ramped up our exclusive celebrity content on our platform with unique programming from artists including Justin Bieber, Lizzo, Carrie Underwood, Jason Aldean, Harry Styles, and more. and our 2400 Sports Studio is ramping up our NFL podcast network with plans to launch regular podcasts on all 32 NFL clubs plus the league for this upcoming season. Pineapple Street Studios continued their best-in-class, critically acclaimed work, which included Will Be Wild, part of our Amazon Podcast Slate Partnership, an in-depth investigation into the January 6th event that hit number one on the Apple Podcasts list, plus Project Unibomb, which we developed in partnership with with Apple TV. And one additional noteworthy data point that speaks to the health of the overall audio market, Americans are now spending 20 more minutes per day listening to audio, an 8% increase over Q2 2021, according to the Edison Research share of your report. In conclusion, these are uncertain times in our world with many challenges and risks, but the potential exists for extraordinary investment returns. We are acutely focused on navigating through the turbulence and capitalizing effectively on the acquisitions, investments, and enhancements we have made to position the company for a bright future in the dynamic, growing world of audio. With the additions of a strong leadership position in podcasting, a meaningfully enhanced national sales organization, the rollout of a new, reimagined digital platform, and emerging ad tech and data capabilities, Odyssey is a stronger company than ever with greater revenue and earnings potential under normalized market conditions. one should not conflate the impact of the ongoing macroeconomic disruption of the past two-plus years as a reflection of the fundamental efficacy of the organization and its future. Mindful of the challenges, we are excited by our plans and our robust set of opportunities and are deeply committed to the work ahead. And with that, I'll turn it over to Rich.
spk06: Thanks, David. Good morning. Our total net revenues for the second quarter came in at $319.4 million, up 5% year-over-year. and as compared to the 14% growth we posted in the first quarter. Our core spot revenues were flat. Local spot was up over 3%, while national spot, which was up 5% in the first quarter, was down mid-single digits. During the second quarter, we saw continued strong growth and recovery in a number of our key core spot advertising categories, including sports betting, which was up over 75% year over year. Hospitals and clinics, which is our second largest advertising category, was up 25%. The 12 get out and go categories, which we discussed during our first quarter call, were up 56%. And the casual dining and fast food categories were up over 20%. These 16 categories represented 20% of our core spot revenues in the second quarter versus just 14% last year, and in the aggregate, we're up 42% year over year. It was also good to see that the auto dealer category grew by 1% in the second quarter after being down mid-single digits in the first quarter, and we hope this bodes well for the remainder of this year as auto supply chain issues start to recede and manufacturers have more inventory to compete for pent-up consumer demand. We continue to believe that these examples are strong evidence that the advertising categories that were severely impacted by the pandemic are returning to radio, and that when the economy gets back on track, that our spot revenues led by local will continue to recover and will significantly narrow or close the gap the pre-pandemic levels of revenue performance. Our digital revenues in the second quarter were up 19% and we saw strength across streaming, podcasting, and our digital marketing solutions revenue lines. As David mentioned, in July, we released the first version of our new streaming platform and we expect to make several other point releases to enhance the listener experience over the remainder of this year. This new platform will provide consumers with a personalized and interactive radio listening experience that we believe will drive increased listening and enable us to accelerate the growth of MAUs. We expect that this new platform will be an important driver of our growth in 2023 and beyond. Turning to the third quarter, clearly the level of uncertainty about the outlook is elevated. But based on where we are today, we projected our revenues for the quarter will come in flat to down low single digits. Moving to our operating expenses, our cash operating expenses for the second quarter came in at $281 million or up 6% year-over-year and exceeded our target. We made a number of investments in the quarter that we weren't able to dial back fast enough as revenues rapidly softened. the company is actively working to reduce its expenses and we expect to be able to reduce the rate of our expense growth in the third quarter to about one to 2%. We will provide more specificity about the scope and extent of our expense reduction actions and their impact on the fourth quarter and on 2023 during our third quarter call. Turning to our financial position, Our compliance basis first lien net leverage was 3.6 at the end of the second quarter compared to our maintenance covenant of four times. And our liquidity was $150 million. The company is working to control everything that it can control and has evaluated a range of projection scenarios incorporating the expected benefits of its actions including the planned sales of several parcels of land. This analysis leads us to believe, assuming that the severity and duration of any recession is more akin to the 2001 recession and not like the Great Recession, that we should be able to maintain compliance with the requirements of our credit agreements and that our liquidity should be sufficient to weather the slowdown in advertising demand. The company is continuously monitoring advertising market conditions and updating its projections. If we deem it necessary, the company would proactively seek compliance requirement waivers from its lenders. We believe it is also important to note that the company's upcoming 2024 maturities are all first lien and that the company's second lien bonds do not begin to mature until five years from now in 2027. Again, Assuming any recession that we face is not severe and that the recovery commences in the second half of 2023, we believe we ought to be able to refinance our $767 million of outstanding first lien debt well before this debt matures in about two years.
spk04: With that, we'll now go to your questions. Operator?
spk00: Thank you. At this time, we will be conducting a question and answer session. If you'd like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star 2 if you'd like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. Our first question comes from the line of Aaron Watts with Deutsche Bank. Please proceed with your question.
spk07: Hi, guys. Thanks for having me on. I appreciate all the commentary. A couple questions here. I guess I'll start with, I'm curious how the declining macro conditions and the ad market headwinds you're experiencing played out in your markets in terms of both volume and rates. Can you talk a little bit about what you're seeing on those fronts and the competitive dynamics on the ground right now?
spk01: Sure. You know, it's... What we find is that there is just some pause and that advertisers, obviously many of them are conducting business as usual, but some of them are just a little more hesitant and being a little more cautious as they look at the same general uncertainty that we're looking at. And again, we're up 5% in Q2, but we're expecting significantly stronger as we're going into the quarter.
spk07: And, David, any kind of monthly cadence you can talk to, like, as you exited kind of 1Q into 2Q and then exited 2Q into 3Q? Were you seeing any themes, like the start of the quarter was softer and got stronger as you went on? Any commentary around that?
spk01: Yeah, we have seen that pattern. Others have spoken to that, that the beginning of the quarter starts a little softer. Our July was flattish, which may be useful here. Yeah. You know, the other thing that we see, which it's a little early to talk about, but, Aaron, as we look to fourth quarter, and, again, it's really early, so nobody should be looking too much at this, but with about 40% of the business in, we're pacing up 10% in fourth quarter with political really not in that number yet at all. So we find that encouraging, but, again, it's early, and I wouldn't overemphasize it, but it's a useful data point.
spk07: Okay. Rich, maybe I'd point a couple your way here. On the potential cost savings that you've worked through, any kind of goalposts around how much you think you can save from those actions?
spk06: Yeah, so I think if you look at our expense performance so far this year, you go back and see in the first quarter our expenses grew 8% year over year. They grew 6% year-over-year in 2Q. We've given guidance that for 3Q, expenses will be up 1% to 2%. So we are making substantial progress. We are working on a program to meaningfully reduce our expenses, and we will provide further details about the scope and extent of those actions on our third quarter call.
spk07: Okay. And maybe a similar question on the land sales or other non-core asset sales. Any idea of the proceeds range that we should think about that that could generate?
spk06: You know, not at the moment, Aaron, but we're working, as David says, a lot of things we're considering and working on. And the company is being very proactive in managing through this slowdown in the So as soon as when we're able to, we will absolutely share, you know, further specificity.
spk07: Okay. And if I could just ask one more, and I appreciate all the time, Rich, you've talked about your desire to deleverage. You have bonds right now that are trading at a fairly significant discount. As you think about your current liquidity position and the cashflow outlook, would buying back bonds be something you'd consider as a use of your cash and And can you remind us if there's any covenant limitations on you buying bonds in the open market? And that's it for me. Thank you.
spk06: Yep. So, you know, we haven't. We did buy back a small amount of our bonds at the very outset of the quarter, frankly, before revenues started pacing down and softening fairly significantly sequentially. And at the moment, we're not focused on or interested in using cash to buy back our bonds.
spk05: Okay. Thank you.
spk00: Our next question comes from the line of Dan Day with B. Reilly Securities. Please proceed with your question.
spk02: Yeah. Morning, guys. Appreciate you taking the questions. A lot of mentions about this new digital platform that rolled out in July. I mentioned it should be new pools of ad demand. Just maybe how quickly you think that could start showing up in the financial, like is this like a, you know, back half of the year acceleration in revenue or is it something that might take a little bit longer to start having an impact? And then maybe just also if you could give us an update on like the ballpark figure for what margins look like in the digital and podcasting business today and then how you expect those to trend over time.
spk01: Let me take the first question, Dan, and then Rich will grab the second. So, yeah, we are very excited about this reinvented Odyssey digital platform, which we do think is going to deliver a significant impact on usage, engagement, and ultimately revenues and EBITDA. It's going to come out in a series of releases over the course of the next few months that will collectively be substantial in terms of the impact on the listener experience and our capabilities. But I think from a financial standpoint, we look at it beginning to have an impact in 2023. I think we're still in a ramp mode. You know, we might get a very negligible kiss in the fourth quarter, but I view it as a 2023 event from the standpoint of impact on our numbers. And Rich?
spk06: Yep. And then, Dan, you know, from the digital perspective, the digital product line, when we look at the profitability of our digital product lines in the aggregate on a marginal basis, so not burdened with overhead, that margin's in the low to mid-20s. And we look at our podcasting business, we are making progress. When I look at our gross margin for that product line, so revenues less, all of the costs directly associated with content like rev shares to other publishers. We've expanded our gross margin by over 10 points year over year, year to date. So look, we're making great progress for us. We need Spot to rebound. We see lots of evidence of categories that were significantly impacted by the pandemic rebounding. And, you know, as David said earlier, the first quarter started out great. We beat our internal plan. And unfortunately, things have decelerated. But, you know, from our perspective, the fundamental outlook in terms of the business's ability to generate revenue growth and profitability looks better today than it looked, frankly, you know, two years ago. And we just need to get to the point where, you know, financial, where market conditions are better.
spk04: Got it. Thanks. I totally appreciate it.
spk02: And just maybe any specific plans you have in regards to the NICE listing requirements. Like, you know, do you feel like you can get, back to compliance just through execution results, or do you think something like a reverse split or something else you might have considered to get back in compliance within that six-month time frame?
spk06: We're discussing that now internally, and we'll be discussing it with our board. The company hasn't yet decided how best to proceed. We sure hope and expect if the stock market's right, and we've all seen interest rates falling quite a bit. Mortgage rates have fallen below 5%. Hopefully the stock market is sniffing out a turn in the economy. We'll see. So I think that all options are on the table. We intend to regain compliance.
spk04: We hope we do it through stock price appreciations. Great. Well, appreciate the time taking the question. Thank you, Dan.
spk00: Our next question comes from the line of Avi Steiner with JP Morgan. Please proceed with your question.
spk09: Good morning. Thank you. Two topics here. First, I'd like to start on the expense side. I know it's been tackled a couple of different directions. But just drilling down a little bit, can you elaborate or give us more detail beyond just investments and maybe bucket out between the digital platform and other inflationary costs that were there in the quarter. And what I'm really trying to get at is perhaps what may be more pertinent than previously appreciated and what may have been one-timer over this quarter and the last couple. And then I have one more thing.
spk06: Yeah, look, Avi, we're hoping that we could point to and show you that our expense growth in the first quarter was up 8%, up 6%. In the second quarter, our guidance range is about 1% to 2% in the third quarter. So I hope people see that we are already significantly pairing our costs. We did have planned investments in marketing and other, I'll say, discretionary investments that we have had to pair back given current market conditions. And so the company is working hard now to – to reexamine everything and come our third quarter call, we'll absolutely give more specificity about the scope and extent of our reduction actions.
spk09: Okay. And then my second topic, and thank you for the time. So the revolver balance is up $60 million sequentially. You put out an adjusted free cash flow number. I haven't seen a queue yet of about $18 million use. I know that doesn't include working capital, but I'm wondering if you can bucket the delta and what led to the revolver draw beyond that and obviously the small bond buyback and just how you think about the revolver balance and how we should think about it going forward. Thank you.
spk06: Yeah, so there's no doubt, Avi, when you look at our earnings release, you'll see that our CapEx investment in the second quarter was $32 million dollars. versus $12 million in the same quarter in 2021. And year to date, we've spent close to $47 million versus $20 million in the same timeframe in 2021. And that was a push to get the new platform to market. That investment, I'll say the heavy lift of that investment is behind us. There's There's more work to go, of course, and the work will be ongoing to continue to enhance our consumer proposition and to bring more features and benefits to market for advertisers. But we call it the booster rocket phase. The booster rocket phase to escape gravity is behind us. We're now on stage two. And so you will see our CapEx investment
spk09: slow considerably in the second half of this year versus the first half and that was a big driver of the consumption of cash during the first half of 2022 okay I thought that may have been reflected in adjusted free cash flow but I can circle back just very last last one on that capex number I think the full year guide had been 75 million if I'm not mistaken
spk06: is that still the case and then can you remind us what the maintenance level should be once this launches behind us thank you yeah so we're we're not gonna that that 75 million dollar number is about right uh for the full year so you know implying that the second half spend will be about half the rate uh of the first half spend and uh and and of course you know what we're looking from a maintenance perspective you know, that number is in the high teens. So there's a lot of flexibility to dial back our spend in 2023, and we expect we may need to do that if, you know, advertising market conditions don't start to rebound.
spk09: I appreciate it. I'll turn it over. Thank you. Thanks, Adam.
spk00: Our next question comes from the line of Steven Cahill with Wells Fargo. Please proceed with your question.
spk08: Thanks. Maybe first, Rich, just to follow up on a few of those questions in this line of thinking. When you just add it all up, including the lower CapEx in the second half and some of the working capital movements in the business, do you expect that you'll generate cash this year? And that would be before any debt reduction or that sort of thing. Just trying to figure out, in a tough macro environment, do you think you can generate cash or is that going to be challenging unless the macro improves?
spk06: Look, we're not... prepared at this point in time to give guidance for the rest of the year. So it's hard. It's uncertain. And so I really don't want to comment on the outlook for the remainder of this year.
spk08: Yeah, that's fair. And then maybe just a big picture one for Maybe you can each jump in on this one, but it seems like the capital structure was built on the company with a different level of earnings power in mind. I know a lot has happened, including COVID, including recession since then. When you think about the capital structure, do you think that it is possible to maintain it at this level? Or is the business better off in some way, shape, or form? with a different capital structure and being prepared for an environment where just the run rate earnings, even in a more normalized environment, are a little bit lower. Thanks.
spk01: So let's again put some context around this, right? As I mentioned in my earlier remarks, in 2019, we had $341 million in EBITDA, and we were heading to the high 300s. in 2020 before COVID hit and very much heading to a four-time multiple. And we're a stronger company today in terms of earnings power and potential than we were before. And I think, again, demonstrably across so many areas of business that frankly didn't even exist three years ago. And today we've established leadership positions, whether it's podcasting, and the exciting opportunities in this next wave of our, you know, enhancement of our Odyssey digital platform, our digital marketing solutions business, our sports betting business, and so much more. So we absolutely see that potential there. It's unfortunate that the pandemic and the recent macro slowdown have impacted us at a time when we're making big strategic transformative investments. So, yes, we're in an uncertain time. But as a stronger company, the opportunity is there for us to drive through this, capitalize on the money we've made. I would refer you also back to the list of the six key drivers that are all substantial. And we're focused very much on executing against that soberly, but capitalizing on a lot of hard work to put us in the strategic position that we're in today. Rich?
spk06: Look, I just would echo that comment that, you know, We think this is a good company. We think we have a lot of opportunity for growth, and we've all had some tough knocks. But we think we can muscle our way through what looks to be a slowdown. And on the other side, we think there's a lot of things that give us confidence that the company's going to see accelerated growth. No doubt, we are making meaningful progress building the capabilities that will enable us to more fully participate in the growth in digital audio advertising. We have not had all of the bricks in place, but we're getting there. And so we're focused on execution. And we're sure, of course, hopeful that the economic outlook starts to turn.
spk04: And that's how we see it. Thanks.
spk08: And then maybe just as a follow-up, I was wondering if you could just drill down on the podcast business a little bit. What kind of growth do you see ahead? Is there any negative impact there in the slowing ad environment, or is it really a unique one? and where are you on margins these days in podcasts? Thanks.
spk01: Let me start on that, and then, Rich, you may want to add some additional words. You know, as we mentioned, we're still seeing really strong growth in the podcast business with downloads up 40% during the quarter, and we also mentioned that we have some ad tech improvements coming online, which we believe will significantly accelerate our growth. Our podcasting revenue growth looks like pretty much in line with industry numbers that we have seen. But we continue to make strategic tweaks or pivots within the business looking to drive the higher margin areas from our self-generated podcasting, our local business. We've mentioned the 2400 Sports Studio, which is an organic launch to really ramp up our sports podcasting content. So there are a lot of moving pieces, but we are not seeing any significant macro impact on demand within podcasting. And we still see great opportunity going forward for this business, which again, we have a very strong position. And Rich, I don't know if you want to add to that.
spk06: Yeah, look, I'd like to add to that by saying right now, you know, we're punching above, our weight in terms of our audience share versus our revenue share. And so there's a gap today between our audience share and our revenue share, and we think there's a significant opportunity to close that gap over the next 12 months or so. And so there's some inherent growth potential in our current position that we haven't been yet able to fully capitalize. We're coming around the bend. And then when I think about the profitability of our podcast business, we've made some tough choices to reshape the mix of our content. And as I said earlier in response to Aaron Watt's question, you know, we've increased our podcast gross margin year-to-date by over 10 points. And so we are on our way for that business to be a low 20s contribution margin. And so it's, you know... We expect it's going to be an increasingly profitable business over the next several years. And it's a really attractive adjacency, of course, to our core radio business. And we think a really important part of the overall audio proposition on our platform. So important strategically to our total audio proposition and a market space that's seeing very significant demand. And frankly, as I said, we are doing substantially better from an audience share than a revenue share, but that's hopefully a gap that we're going to close over the next months.
spk05: Great.
spk00: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Greg Huber with Huber Research Partners. Please proceed with your question.
spk03: Great, thank you. Why don't we start with podcasting, please? Maybe I missed this early on, but what was the podcast revenue in the quarter or the year-over-year percent change, please?
spk01: What we announced is that the podcast revenues were up 27%, excluding the departure of Crooked Media, which left our platform in early May.
spk03: What was the all-in percent change then, if you don't mind me asking? Upper teens. Okay, great. Thank you. Now, if I could ask, in your guidance, I think you said for total revenue flat down slightly in the third quarter, if I have that right, are you assuming a significant slowdown in podcasting and digital in the third quarter or somewhat similar trend? How are you sort of thinking about that with the data you're seeing so far?
spk06: Yeah, we still expect digital growth in the quarter, and we are seeing some slowdown, as we saw in 2Q in spot advertising. So, look, I don't think that digital advertising is immune, but I think we've seen, at least in 2Q, that across the audio companies that digital audio advertising has been relatively stronger than other digital media. And we're seeing continued strength in the third quarter.
spk03: And then, Rich, on your spot ad revenue categories, what categories are materially trending different in the third quarter versus what you saw in the second quarter? Anything you'd want to call out on the positive and negative side that's trending materially different?
spk06: Sure. So we did see in the second quarter a pretty meaningful slowdown in the mortgage lender category. That is our third largest category. It really did slow down quite a bit from how it performed in the first quarter. And it's still quite slow at this point in the third quarter. We also saw auto insurance slow down quite a bit. They had spent more in 2021 than they had pre-pandemic, and it looks like they're kind of reverting more toward the mean. But it's slowed down quite a bit. We've seen a slowdown in the government category. You know, we did have quite a bit of money last year for, you know, Department of Health-related communications. That's slowed down, as you can imagine. And then, you know, what's interesting so far at least is we reported, Craig, that the auto dealer category, which typically has been about 75% of our total auto money, so the tier three money, the dealers themselves, typically have been about 75% of our total auto money. It did get its nose above water plus 1% in 2Q, and we are seeing in 3Q pacing. that the auto category in total, both tier two and tier three, is pacing up more strongly. Hope that sticks, but so far at least, auto is pacing more strongly in 3Q than it did perform in 2Q.
spk03: Then on the cost side, you guys obviously did a Herculean job on the costs in the throes of the pandemic two years ago and stuff, and I assume a lot of those cost savings We're permanently embedded in your cost base here and stuff. As you sort of think forward from where you're at right now, how hard is it to try and take out material costs here on a permanent basis given where the economy is at right now, unfortunately?
spk06: Look, we have the ability to reshape our cost structure and adapt to market conditions, and we are actively working to do that now. But, you know, it is... You know, it's not getting easier. But we, you know, look forward to sharing with you the results of this work during our third quarter call. And I think you'll see that we're making and will have made significant progress. And I try to point it out, Craig, that if you look at the sequential performance up eight, up six, up one to two and three Q, we are already making very substantive progress. and we'll make further progress still. And we'll give you more detail in our third quarter call.
spk03: I appreciate that. My last question, Guy, is ratings for your legacy radio operations. Is there any updated data that you can give us there, how that's trending versus a year ago?
spk01: Yeah, I mentioned in my remarks that the ratings for our aggregate station group were up 5% in second quarter ratings. over first quarter, and that compared to industry growth of 3%.
spk03: That's great. Okay, cool. Thanks, guys.
spk01: Thanks, Greg.
spk00: Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we have reached the end of the question and answer session. I'm announcing the call back over to David Fields for closing remarks.
spk01: Well, we appreciate everybody joining us here this morning and look forward to reporting back to you again next quarter. Thanks so much. Take care.
spk00: Thank you. This concludes today's conference, and you may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation, and have a wonderful day.
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