Walter F. Ulloa
Analyst · Noble Financial
Thank you, Laura. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to Entravision's fourth quarter and full year 2013 earnings conference call. Joining me today is Chris Young, our Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin, I must inform you that this conference call will contain forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ. Please refer to our SEC filings for a list of risks and uncertainties that could impact actual results. This call is the property of Entravision Communications Corporation. Any redistribution, retransmission or rebroadcast of this call, in any form, without the expressed written consent of Entravision Communications Corporation is strictly prohibited. Also, this call will include certain non-GAAP financial measures. The company has provided a reconciliation of these non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures in today's press release. The press release is available on the company's website and was filed with the SEC on a Form 8-K. Our fourth quarter results marked a strong end to a highly successful year for Entravision. We generated solid core advertising revenues in the fourth quarter and full year, and consistently outperformed the broader television and radio industries. At the same time, our conservative approach to debt management continue to deliver strong free cash flow generation and improved net income over the fourth quarter of 2012. We prepaid $10 million of term loans under our senior secured term loan credit facility and have entered into a 2-year forward interest rate swap agreement that will become effective December 31, 2015 and provide for fixed rate interest rate of 5.23% on $186 million of our outstanding debt. We also initiated the first quarter dividend in Entravision's history. During the year, we further extended our revenue streams and strengthened our multimedia platform advertising campaigns through deeper integration of our online mobile and social offerings. Our digital and core radio and television properties all remained strongly positioned within the nation's most densely populated Latino markets at a time where interest in targeting and reaching Latino consumers continues to increase. Consolidated fourth quarter revenue was $60.1 million, down 6% compared to fourth quarter of 2012. The decline was solely due to almost $9 million of nonrecurring political revenues that were booked during the fourth quarter of 2012. The year-over-year decline in political revenues was primarily offset by strong core advertising performance and growth in retransmission fees. On a core basis, consolidated revenues increased 9% in the quarter. Due to the absence of approximately $9 million of political advertising revenue in the fourth quarter, consolidated adjusted EBITDA decreased 22% to $19.8 million compared to $25.3 million in the fourth quarter of 2012, and free cash flow decreased 14% to $13.5 million compared to $15.6 million in the fourth quarter of 2012. Although these measurements decreased, we benefited from the successful third quarter refinancing of our debt and managed to reduce our interest expense by $5.1 million in the fourth quarter. The savings contributed to net income of $9.5 million in the quarter compared to $7.7 million in the fourth quarter of 2012. Additionally, earnings per share increased to $0.11 per share for the quarter compared to $0.09 per share in the fourth quarter of 2012. Consolidated 2013 revenue was $223.9 million, slightly higher than 2012's revenue of $223.3 million. For the year, we are particularly pleased to have achieved nominal revenue growth over 2012, during which we benefited from a record $16.6 million in political advertising revenue. The year-over-year decline in political revenues was primarily offset by strong core advertising performance and growth in retransmission fees. On a core basis, consolidated revenue increased 7.5% in 2013. While consolidated adjusted EBITDA decreased 5% to $73 million for the year, compared to $76.9 million for 2012, free cash flow for the year increased 12% to $39.1 million compared to $34.8 million in 2012. Free cash flow per share increased to $0.45 in 2013 compared to $0.41 in 2012. Although our debt refinancing occurred in the third quarter, we managed to reduce our interest expense by $10.8 million this year. While the new debt refinancing reduces our interest expense, it resulted in a noncash loss on debt extinguishment of $29.7 million due to the redemption of the high-yield notes. As a result, we reported a net loss of $7.7 million for the year compared to a net income of $13.6 million in 2012. Now moving onto operating highlights for the fourth quarter. Our television revenue decreased 6% during the fourth quarter due to the absence of political revenue this year, or I should say, in 2013. Local television revenues increased 14% in the quarter while national TV revenues declined 25%. The decrease in national revenues was driven primarily by the impact of higher political television advertising sales of approximately $7.8 million in the fourth quarter of 2012. On a core basis, excluding political revenues and retransmission fees, fourth quarter TV revenues increased 11% compared to the fourth quarter of 2012. Core local television revenue grew 18% while core national revenues increased 4% during the quarter. This growth demonstrates our ability to consistently outperform the broader television industry. Television Advertising Bureau estimated that core television industry revenue increased 7% in the fourth quarter compared to our core growth of 11%. We have now significantly exceeded the industry's core growth projections for 9 consecutive quarters. One contributor to this consistent out-performance is the automotive category, which, once again, delivered double-digit growth during the fourth quarter, with ad sales up 16.3%. Automotive spending growth at our television stations has now posted double-digit increases in 15 consecutive quarters and the growth was broad-based as we posted increases in all 3 automotive tiers in Q4 2013. The auto category finished the year up 20.4% in our television business compared to 2012 and generated strong growth across brands and tiers. For the year, Entravision Television posted year-to-year growth with 6 of our top 8 automotive brands, led by Kia up 67%, Nissan up 55%, Honda plus 36%, and GM plus 35% and Toyota plus 27%. We are encouraged by the initial industry reports that the auto segment is expected to continue its momentum into 2014 due to strong, pent-up demand, easier access to credit, low interest rates and a robust product cycle, which means more product launches in 2014, as well as our own internal monitoring of this important advertising category in the first quarter of the new year. Looking now at other television advertising categories, we experienced growth in 7 of our top 10 categories during the fourth quarter, including strong performances from automotive, healthcare plus 50%, travel and leisure plus 46% and retail plus 16%. Healthcare, driven by new legislation, posted the largest percentage growth in the quarter and finished as our third highest billing category. It's noteworthy that the majority of the healthcare investment did not come from government-sponsored awareness campaigns, but from leading healthcare providers like Blue Cross, Blue Shield, UnitedHealthcare, Humana, Kaiser, Molina, WellPoint, Aetna and Aflac. We fully expect health care to continue as a revenue driver into 2014. During the fourth quarter, we added 47 new television advertisers who invested $10,000 or more with our television properties. New television clients include the Mexican Tourism Board, Nevada Health Coop, Microsoft and Living Spaces, just to name a few. For the full year, Entravision Television business added 172 new advertisers who invested $10,000 or more with our television assets. Turning to our ratings performance. Our Univision affiliates increased their ratings leadership positions in the November 2013 sweeps. Among all adults 18 to 49, regardless of language, 7 of our Univision affiliates ranked #1 or #2, sign on to sign off. Five of our UniMás Television affiliates, are #2 ranked behind our Univision affiliates in their respective markets in adults 18 to 49. During our prime time novela block, Entravision Univision affiliates delivered higher ratings among adults 18 to 49 in 9 markups than at least 1 of the big 4 television network affiliates. In early network newscast, 13 of our Univision affiliates are ranked #1 or #2 regardless of language. And 11 of our Univision Television affiliates are #1 or #2 in early local news and 5 are #1 or #2 in late local news, again, regardless of language. Moving over to our Radio division. Revenues decreased 5% in the fourth quarter compared to last year. Our station group was right in line with the broader radio industry, which Miller Kaplan estimates is down 5% during the fourth quarter in the 12 markets which we subscribe. For the overall year, Entravision Radio's revenues increased 1% compared to last year. Our Radio Station group outperformed the industry by over 2 points, according to Miller Kaplan. The radio industry was down 1.3% for the year in the markets where we subscribe to Miller Kaplan. For the quarter, local, which represents 70% of our total revenue, increased 7%, while national, which represents 30% of our total revenue, declined 26% due to the reduction of political advertising compared to the fourth quarter of 2012. Net political revenue in the fourth quarter of 2013 was $52,000 compared to almost $1.6 million in the fourth quarter of 2012. When you exclude political advertising, our Radio division core revenue finished up 3% for quarter and increased 4% for the year. Local revenue was up 11% and national revenue was down 12% in the fourth quarter on a core basis. For the year, local revenue was up 7% and national finished plus 1% on a core basis. Revenues at our Entravision Solutions Audio Network decreased 9% during the quarter and finished up 5% for the full year. Our Entravision Solutions Network had a strong year, as our sales teams and platform continued to generate solid interest from companies looking to effectively reach Latinos across the country. In addition, during 2013, we increased our network reach from 70% to 95% coverage of the total U.S. Latino population. During the fourth quarter, we had a total of 26 Entravision Solutions Network advertisers compared to 18 during the fourth quarter of last year. Our top 5 network advertisers during the fourth quarter were Mars, Lowes, AutoZone, JCPenney and the O'Reilly Auto Parts. Due to quarter revenue growth in 3 of our top 10 categories in the fourth quarter, the automotive category, which is the second highest generating category, was down 3% for the quarter, but was up 9% for the year. Tier 3 was a driving force of the automotive category in the quarter, with an increase of 4% over fourth quarter 2012. In addition to the before-mentioned automotive, in order of spending, our top ad categories during the fourth quarter for radio were services, retail, travel and leisure, health care, restaurants and grocery. Services, our top category for the quarter, was flat versus Q4 of 2012. Retail saw a 9% decrease, which was a result of reduced spending in the quarter by both Walmart and Sears, and offset by increased spending by Lowe's, Target and JCPenney. Travel and leisure increased by 22% in the quarter, with increased spending by the Mexico Tourism, NASCAR and a number of local entertainment accounts. Healthcare increased 17% due to increased spending by Kaiser Permanente, Health Net California and Dignity Health. For the year, we saw increased spending in our top 5 categories. Services saw a 5% increase, automotive was up 9%, travel and leisure plus 4%, and retail saw a 6% increase and health care was up 9% for the full year. Our strong radio sales teams continue to attract new advertisers for the division. During the fourth quarter, we added 28 new radio advertisers who spent more than $10,000, and which generated approximately $700,000 in advertising revenues. These new advertisers included WellPoint and Dean's [ph] Sports. For the full year, Entravision Radio added 118 new advertisers who invested more than $10,000 with our radio assets. For the fall 2013, radio rankings -- our radio stations continue to be the ranked among the leaders in adults 18 to 49 against all competitors regardless of language. 13 of our radio stations are ranked in the top 10 in their markets, full week, Monday to Sunday, 6:00 a.m. to 12:00 a.m. and morning drives, 7 of our radio stations, Los Picudos de la Mañana on our Tricolor stations and 5 of our radio stations airing El Show de Genio on our Jose stations, are in the top 10 in their markets. Our cornerstone afternoon drive program, Erazno y la Chokolata, is ranked in the top 10 radio stations regardless of language in 9 of our radio markets. Let me now turn to Digital business. We continue to leverage our strong brands and revenue teams to deliver attractive integrated marketing solutions. Now our clients can connect with our audiences across TV, radio, online, mobile and social for greater aggregated impact with new attractive multi-platform advertising campaigns. Our major goals for our Digital business in 2013 were to deepen the integration of our digital campaigns into our traditional radio and television offerings, and to expand and introduce new digital products. We reengineered our company in 2012 around the strategy of becoming increasingly client-centric, and we believe our efforts paid off in 2013 as we made tremendous progress in all these areas. We are delighted to announce we generated record digital revenue for both Q4 and 2013. Fourth quarter interactive revenues increased 51% over the same period in 2012. This marked the 22nd straight quarter of year-over-year digital revenue growth. For the full year, our interactive revenues finished up 45% compared to 2012. We launched our digital ventures in 2009 and since then we have experienced solid revenue growth with a compounded annual growth solid revenue growth rate of 49%. Today, our digital revenue account for over 5% of our local revenues and over 3% of our total revenues. We will continue to invest in our digital capabilities and remain committed to our goal of having at least 20% of our total revenues produced by our digital platform in 2016. We continue to expand our digital video and audio streaming offerings across our station websites. We published over 9,000 local news stories online across our markets during the fourth quarter. We also streamed 4.7 million hours of audio content during the quarter, an increased 44% compared to last year. We finished 2013 with 625,000 monthly unique audio streamers with an average session length of 1 hour. Our mobile operations continue to grow at a fast pace as well. During 2013, our annual mobile revenues increased 47% over the previous year, as usage trends remained at record levels. We sent over 11 million text messages to our mobile audience on behalf of advertisers like Toyota, Ford, AT&T, Bud Light, Coors, Comcast, the Denver Broncos, MetroPCS, McDonalds, Bud Light, State Farm insurance and many others. We continue driving social media engagement. We finished 2013 with over 650,000 followers on our social media channels, which is up 61% over the fourth quarter of last year. During 2013, in partnership with Google, we deployed a new enterprise social marketing platform that allows us to integrate our social media campaigns into our traditional advertising offerings to drive social media engagement and revenue. We continue to improve and expand our online Latino search platform, ENTRALEADS. ENTRALEADS connects potential Latino consumers, with clear purchasing intent, with our local and national advertising clients through customer calls and other high-quality lead forms. This unique automated platform continues to produce positive results for advertisers. During 2013, we continued developing our Big Data unit. Luminar is the first Big Data analytics and modeling provider to focus on the Latino market. As our audience engagement grows, we collect and analyze data to uncover opportunities and insights for our clients. Luminar's Big Data platform and analytics provides actionable Latino consumer growth strategies for Fortune 1000 companies. We continue to add clients and we are being asked to provide services to our current clients including Carnival Cruise, Valvoline, Nestlé, Publishers Clearing House, Target, the California Milk Advisory Board and others. Luminar now collects and analyzes data for 15 million U.S. Latino adults, which represent 70% of the U.S. Latino adult population's transactions in brick-and-mortar, online and catalog. During 2013, we launched the Luminar Audience Platform. LAP is a technology platform that organizes display, mobile, video and social ad inventory using data from numerous sources, including Luminar's transactional data, that enables advertisers to set customized specifications about the type of customers they want to attract and use the power of algorithms to improve marketing ROIs across all digital media. We have recruited an elite group of professionals to market the LAP product to advertisers in 2014. We are transforming Entravision. We used to be a broadcasting group, now we see ourself as an integrated media and information technology company serving the Latino market. Turning to our pacings. While we do not provide specific guidance, we can tell you that, through February, we see positive trends across our multimedia platform. Entravision's total revenue, excluding retransmission fees through February, is pacing mid-single-digits, with our television business pacing at mid-single-digits and radio business pacing at high single-digits. In summary, our software fourth quarter capped off a very productive and successful year for our company. We consistently generated solid core advertising revenues while also strengthening our digital platform in the integrated advertising opportunities we offer current and prospective clients. We are pleased with our current pacing so far in 2014, and are focused on executing our strategy and delivering increasing returns to shareholders. Our revenue for World Cup continues to build as we are well ahead of 2010, with advertising business on the books for the greatest sports spectacle in the world, the 2014 games in Brazil. I will now turn the call over to Chris Young, our Chief Financial Officer, for a review of our financial information.