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Beasley Media Net Revenue Drops By $34.4 Million In 2025

andygradel

andygradel

Beasley Media Net Revenue Drops By $34.4 Million In 2025

The headline says it all. A 14% YoY revenue drop to round out a rough year for Beasley. Whew. But, the article doesn't break out anything beyond digital vs. broadcast revenue. Does anyone have any idea how their Philly properties fared? WMMR, WMGK, XTU and Ben have to be in the black, right?
 
andygradel said:
Beasley Media Net Revenue Drops By $34.4 Million In 2025

The headline says it all. A 14% YoY revenue drop to round out a rough year for Beasley. Whew. But, the article doesn't break out anything beyond digital vs. broadcast revenue. Does anyone have any idea how their Philly properties fared? WMMR, WMGK, XTU and Ben have to be in the black, right?
Click to expand...
The attachment to the 8-K from the TSA announcement has much more detailed information and has revenue by market broken out by digital vs. broadcast. They hadn’t finished closing out 2025’s books when they filed it, so the 2025 numbers may not tie back to the earnings report exactly.

I’ll try to link here:

 
BoboKnight said:
The attachment to the 8-K from the TSA announcement has much more detailed information and has revenue by market broken out by digital vs. broadcast. They hadn’t finished closing out 2025’s books when they filed it, so the 2025 numbers may not tie back to the earnings report exactly.

I’ll try to link here:

Click to expand...
Thanks for the link!

Not a great three-year revenue trend for their Philly stations: $50.4M (2023) -> $48.9M (2024) -> $41.3M (2025), for a -14.5% decline is audio revenue. Digital is ticking up, but they're trading dollars for dimes. Their Jersey stations are on almost the same exact trajectory.

On page 22, the "programming / engineering" forecast "to decline between 36.2% of Net Revenue in 2025E to 29.9% of Net Revenue in 2028E, driven by operational enhancements via HC restructuring, department consolidation, increasing efficiency via software, and minimizing consulting expense" points to more cuts on the horizon. Not going to be pretty, as pages 23/26 shows them looking for about $10M in annual programming savings within the next year - and that's after cutting programming costs from $81M -> $74.6M over the past year.

If the goal is to find an average of $1M in programming savings per market, they're going to be cutting meat off the bone...
 
When the ad spend pie is being cut in ever smaller pieces on top of contracting, there isn’t much else to be done. You can’t just spend what isn’t coming in. 🤷
 
The good news for Beasley is their stock was up 76% today.

Unfortunately for them, I don’t think it was so much because of the earnings release but because the stock has become a little bit of a meme stock.
 
Golly. From reading this kinda news, one might start to think that the radio industry isn't growing. Or that it's evolving. Or that it's trying to evolve. Or that it's failing at trying to evolve.

In the words of some old pop music has-been, it must be exhausting always rooting for the anti-hero
 
Miguelito said:
Golly. From reading this kinda news, one might start to think that the radio industry isn't growing. Or that it's evolving.
Click to expand...

It depends on the company. Some companies have adapted better than others. Beasley's problem is debt.

Remember Greater Media? The Beasley problems began when it bought Greater Media. That created a big pile of debt that they haven't been able to pay off. So now they're giving the lenders control of the company.

www.insideradio.com

Beasley Reaches Refinancing Pact That Could Hand 95% Equity To Creditors.

Beasley Media Group has reached a deal with key creditors to restructure its balance sheet, including a steep cut on second-lien debt and new governance provisions that give noteholders board
www.insideradio.com www.insideradio.com

But yes, broadcasting revenues everywhere are dropping, and companies have to adjust their budgets to the new reality. Unless they can find a new revenue stream, they will be in trouble.
 
TheBigA said:
Remember Greater Media? The Beasley problems began when it bought Greater Media. That created a big pile of debt that they haven't been able to pay off. So now they're giving the lenders control of the company.

www.insideradio.com

Beasley Reaches Refinancing Pact That Could Hand 95% Equity To Creditors.

Beasley Media Group has reached a deal with key creditors to restructure its balance sheet, including a steep cut on second-lien debt and new governance provisions that give noteholders board
www.insideradio.com www.insideradio.com
Click to expand...
No, I totally get that. It was a...not smart move on their part at that particular point in time. I'm just saying that the industry is what the industry is. Radio is... Audio? Media? Music? Sounds? LOL.

Everyone is trying to figure out what lane to get into. It wasn't the right time to buy Greater Media. Beasley is just Beasleying, as they are wont to do.
 
TheBigA said:
It depends on the company. Some companies have adapted better than others. Beasley's problem is debt.

Remember Greater Media? The Beasley problems began when it bought Greater Media. That created a big pile of debt that they haven't been able to pay off. So now they're giving the lenders control of the company.

www.insideradio.com

Beasley Reaches Refinancing Pact That Could Hand 95% Equity To Creditors.

Beasley Media Group has reached a deal with key creditors to restructure its balance sheet, including a steep cut on second-lien debt and new governance provisions that give noteholders board
www.insideradio.com www.insideradio.com

But yes, broadcasting revenues everywhere are dropping, and companies have to adjust their budgets to the new reality. Unless they can find a new revenue stream, they will be in trouble.
Click to expand...
That was quite the edit.
 
Related to this:

radioink.com

Beasley Media Adopts 'War Room' Mentality After $190M Q4 Loss - Radio Ink

Beasley Broadcast Group posted a $196.5 million net loss in 2025, driven by a $224.8 million FCC license write-down, as new CBO Kevin Magratt unveiled a "war room" sales strategy to reverse course in 2026.
radioink.com radioink.com

www.insideradio.com

Beasley Details Turnaround Plan Amid Revenue Declines.

Beasley Media Group used its latest earnings call to frame 2025 as a “reset year,” marked by steep revenue declines but aggressive cost cuts, digital growth and a pending debt
www.insideradio.com www.insideradio.com
 
Cumulus also plugging holes in the ship...

Cumulus Media Net Revenue Drops 10.3% In 2025​

For the year, Cumulus reported net revenue of $741.7 million down 10.3% from $827.1 million in 2024, a net loss of $200.7 million and Adjusted EBITDA of $52.0 million. Broadcast radio revenue was down 15.9% to $474.5 million with local spot advertising down 12.9% and network revenue down 22.5%. Digital was down 1.9% while other revenue rose 6.6%.
Click to expand...

Cumulus Media Net Revenue Drops 10.3% In 2025
 
Funny how the excerpted quotes from Caroline and other leadership team members fail to mention Detroit, where revenue was down a staggering 24.5% year to year.

I suspect only a small portion of that decline is due to roll off of political ad spend, because I heard few political ads on Beasley's Detroit stations in 2024.

More programming and engineering cuts = deteriorating quality in the on-air product = more listeners fleeing = more ad dollars fleeing from broadcast radio. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Their prescription to slow the pace of broadcast revenue decline seems to be increased micromanagement (e.g. expanded CRM usage + war room meetings). Time will tell if that strategy proves successful.
 
Miguelito said:
No, I totally get that. It was a...not smart move on their part at that particular point in time. I'm just saying that the industry is what the industry is. Radio is... Audio? Media? Music? Sounds? LOL.

Everyone is trying to figure out what lane to get into. It wasn't the right time to buy Greater Media. Beasley is just Beasleying, as they are wont to do.
Click to expand...

Reading the article supplied by @TheBigA and @Miguelito's response, I am very much reminded of an interview that NPR's Scott Simon did with then Fortune magazine editor Joe Nocera during the 1990's. What Mr. Nocera said in that interview was essentially that when a company goes public, it will receive much needed cash but will no longer have control of its own destiny. Stockholders demand either that the company continue to grow or that it cut costs--it can't stay in one place since doing that doesn't allow stock values to rise.

As a publicly traded company (per the article), Beasley is a great example of what Mr. Nocera was talking about. Stockholders demanded that it continue growing so it bought Greater Media and found itself in debt it was unable to overcome. So, to keep itself out of bankruptcy (and to keep the stockholders happy), Beasley negotiated a deal with its creditors where the creditors have the potential to take over 95% of the company and that will *most* likely result in a lot of restructuring and a lot of job cuts. The thing is, most of those creditors don't know the first thing about the radio business and how money is earned in it. And if I were an employee of Beasley, what I'd be afraid of now is not only that my job might disappear but that those creditors may break up the company and sell it in pieces, figuring that is the only way they can hope to earn some money out of the bad deal they've negotiated for themselves.
 
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MarkW said:
That's not its only problem, but it is certainly a significant one.
Click to expand...

It's the fatal one. There is no format they can change, no amount of staff they can fire, and no amount of consolidation they can do that will pay off the debt. They can't raise spot rates, and they can't add more commercials. So that has led to where they turn over 95% ownership of the company to the creditors.

ted chittenden said:
I'd be afraid of now is not only that my job might disappear but that those creditors may break up the company and sell it in pieces, figuring that is the only way they can hope to earn some money out of the bad deal they've negotiated for themselves.
Click to expand...

The problem with that is the station values have deteriorated where selling the stations will only get them a fraction of the principle.

The thing that separates companies like Cumulus, Audacy, and Beasley from Hubbard, Bonneville, and Townsquare is debt. Hubbard had a chance to buy CBS Radio when it was on the market, and they said no because of the debt. Smart move.
 
Nepotism perhaps shouldn't be the most important criterion for choosing a successor to an incumbent CEO.

Caroline Beasley only sits in that chair because of her father and a friendly board of directors.

Will she last beyond 2027? I doubt she will.
 


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