LAYOFFS ONGOING AT BEASLEY MEDIA GROUP

[Y2kTheNewOldies]

Beasley Media Group Makes Significant Cuts - RadioInsight

A round of layoffs is ongoing at Beasley Media Group today. We have confirmed that there have been cuts in multiple markets. Among the people who have exited the company include: Boston Boston Radio Watch reports that Ken West departs as Program Director of “Rock 92.9” WBOS and Classic Hits...

radioinsight.com

So far the cuts are being reported in Boston, New Jersey and Philadelphia outlets.

 

[101tm]

There were 3 major layoffs in Tampa also.

 

[Mikey Radio]

@frankberry or @DavidEduardo would it be possible to merge the Beasley layoff threads? This is the 3rd one that's been started today about the same subject and referencing the same layoffs and the same article. The first one was posted under the Boston radio header and preceded this one by about 7 hours.

 

[Y2kTheNewOldies]

Steve Hoffman

Steve Hoffman exits Beasley Media Group Las Vegas as the ongoing company-wide cuts continue. Hoffman joined the cluster in October 2019 as PD of hot AC KVGS (102.7) and APD

www.insideradio.com

Steve Hoffman to exit Beasley's Las Vegas Outlets as part of the company cuts.

 

[Y2kTheNewOldies]

Nikki Vaughn

Midday host Nikki Vaughn (Fawn Conley) exits Beasley Media Group urban AC “105.9 Kiss FM” WDMK Detroit as the company-wide cuts continue. Vaughn, who previously worked at the station using

www.insideradio.com

Nikki Vaughn exits Beasley's Detroit outlet.

 

[Kelly A]

Tis the season. Q4=cuts.

 

[Deleted User]

it isn't even Q4 cuts anymore, it is a perpetual cut, and now that their stock is about to fall thru the one dollar value level into penny stock land, they are getting desperate.

How many people can they cut.... look at the cuts over the last 3 years.

The high point for their stock in the last 52 weeks was like $2.80, today as I type it is $1.02/share

 

[Kelly A]

it isn't even Q4 cuts anymore,

Really? What quarter are we in?

it is a perpetual cut, and now that their stock is about to fall thru the one dollar value level into penny stock land, they are getting desperate.

Hmm.. You must know a lot about their financials to make that sort of statement. All companies make RIF's in Q4. The timing is for:
A-Get into a situation where you can reach reported estimates ending your fiscal or calendar year. B- Show investors that you're going through a right-sizing process to keep expenses down because of pressures from reduced advertising. Pretty simple, actually.

How many people can they cut.... look at the cuts over the last 3 years.

I have no data on the number of total cuts over however many years. Doubt you do either.
Most companies enact hiring freezes first, so once an employee leaves, the position isn't filled in the same year. Once those aren't enough, you start looking at eliminating positions through Q4.

The high point for their stock in the last 52 weeks was like $2.80, today as I type it is $1.02/share

Their traded share price isn't always indicative of their financial situation, nor EBITA for the prior three quarters. Overall, pure radio stocks are all in the dumper. Likely that's more because of the industry, then it is particularly for Beasley's financial health.

 

[101tm]

Many of Beasley’s smaller markets were cut to the bone a while ago, or either personalities left and weren’t replaced…also some were promoted to larger markets, moved, and kept tracking their old shift. Augusta, GA is still local in mornings and afternoons on the news/talker, the country station has a local morning show and is mostly local, but the CHR is almost all syndicated/tracked and the classic hits and classic hip hop translator are automated.

 

[Deleted User]

Kelly, I respect your opinion, but IMHO the days of Q4 cuts to make the books look good are now cuts any day of the year to adjust to cash flow and advertising sales and rates.

Stock price in my world is a pretty good indication of how people that know more than I about the whole financial workings of a company feel about it.

At $1.01 a share that is not giving me a warm fuzzy feeling

Do you know something I don't know about their financial outlook?

 

[Kelly A]

Kelly, I respect your opinion, but IMHO the days of Q4 cuts to make the books look good are now cuts any day of the year to adjust to cash flow and advertising sales and rates.

Stock price in my world is a pretty good indication of how people that know more than I about the whole financial workings of a company feel about it.

At $1.01 a share that is not giving me a warm fuzzy feeling

Do you know something I don't know about their financial outlook?

Tell you what, if stock price is an indicator of a broadcast company financial health, how are other pure radio stocks doing? Better yet, compare those same stocks spread over the past ten years. I'll wait.

 

[Deleted User]

we all know Radio stocks have been in the tank, with the high price of most of them was in 1999

By 2006 they were all in the tank, look at the beating Bain Capital and Lee Partners took after they had no choice but to close on the sale of Clear Channel ( or whatever their name was then) after negotiating what they thought was a good deal and having the bottom fall out of the value before the closing.

Audacy, a.k.a. The Fields Family is no longer dumping their own funds into the company trying to prop the stock price up over a dollar a share.... any time they got a de-listing letter before they propped the price up with their own money. Sure they could do a reverse 10 to 1 split but at this point they are not even bothering.

No insiders at Beasley are buying stock.

For the record I do not hold any radio stocks.

PS Beasley is under a dollar a share this morning as I type this

 

[Kelly A]

we all know Radio stocks have been in the tank, with the high price of most of them was in 1999

By 2006 they were all in the tank, look at the beating Bain Capital and Lee Partners took after they had no choice but to close on the sale of Clear Channel ( or whatever their name was then) after negotiating what they thought was a good deal and having the bottom fall out of the value before the closing.

The bottom fell out of broadcast stocks, and in general, back during the 2008 recession. Clear Channel took a beating in particular due to it being massively leveraged about the time that financial analysis's had moved on to digital media being the future. Fast forward to 2022, and companies with primarily radio-assets, are rapidly getting smaller in the rear view mirror of Wall Street. It doesn't mean they aren't hitting their numbers, but realize it's getting harder to do with little to no opportunity for growth.

Audacy, a.k.a. The Fields Family is no longer dumping their own funds into the company trying to prop the stock price up over a dollar a share.... any time they got a de-listing letter before they propped the price up with their own money. Sure they could do a reverse 10 to 1 split but at this point they are not even bothering.

Given the valuation of broadcast shares, doing stock splits right now would be a fools errand. You do that to attract shareholders. But considering the estimated lack of growth opportunities of the pure-play traditional media business? If it were me in a CEO role these days, I'd look into what it would take to buy back shares and potentially take my company private before I dissappear in that rear view mirror. The days of publicly-traded pure-play broadcast companies is officially over.

No insiders at Beasley are buying stock.

For the same reasons I mentioned above.

For the record I do not hold any radio stocks.

Smart man!

 

[kevtronics]

Beasley-owned WMTR is running ads saying they are hiring sales people. For an AM Oldies station that is 90% automated, immediately after this round of layoffs?

 

[Kelly A]

Beasley-owned WMTR is running ads saying they are hiring sales people. For an AM Oldies station that is 90% automated, immediately after this round of layoffs?

Probably mostly commission.

 

[Y2kTheNewOldies]

Jaxon

After nearly twenty years in afternoons at WMMR Philadelphia (93.3), Jaxon exits as part of the ongoing company cuts at Beasley Media Group. Jaxon joined the station in 2004 after

www.insideradio.com

Jaxon is out at WMMR Philadelphia.

 

[Kelly A]

Jaxon is out at WMMR Philadelphia.

Probably due to high salary to match long tenure.

 

[101tm]

Beasley has a lot of highly successful stations, and they’ve held out on big cuts for a long time, but a headcount reduction was inevitable. They haven’t really done a lot outside of the OTA broadcast business, so they’re sort of tied to the industry and its performance.

They seemed to be doing better than most from my outside, non-financial view, but obviously I was wrong. They haven’t really invested a lot in digital for their stations, but it’s a bit hard when you have a smaller scale like they do I guess. Each company can’t have their own app when they’re already competing against Spotify, Apple, SXM etc. iHeart was early and had a ton of content to build their platform. Audacy is wobbly but they had enough stations and content to be able to cobble something together. For these smaller companies like Beasley, it’s going to be tough. The acquisition of Greater Media did seem to work out well for them though.

Probably the reason Emmis exited the business.

 

[Kent]

Each company can’t have their own app when they’re already competing against Spotify, Apple, SXM etc.

Beasley used to have its own app called iRadioNow. It had a couple iterations, one through StreamTheWorld and another through Quu. It wasn’t a bad app, but I didn’t find much use for it since it didn't have a desktop version. Getting on the three main aggregators and having individual apps for its stations probably made more sense.

Probably the reason Emmis exited the business.

Emmis is exiting the business because Smulyan is 75, and his kids have no interest in running radio stations. Emmis also had its own app for a brief time. The content aggregators can be a pain, but they're really about the easiest way to get your product on every major platform. Even Townsquare has relented a little and allows TuneIn to host its stations across platforms where it doesn’t develop apps, like Roku.

 

[PTBoardOp94]

Given the valuation of broadcast shares, doing stock splits right now would be a fools errand. You do that to attract shareholders. But considering the estimated lack of growth opportunities of the pure-play traditional media business?

The odds of Audacy executing a reverse stock split in early 2023 are very high. Check back here in late January.

By the way, you don't do that to attract shareholders. You do that because the NYSE and NASDAQ rules don't allow for stocks trading under a dollar - so you're doing it for continued access to the public markets.