Bill Wilson
Analyst · NOBLE Capital Markets
Thank you, Claire, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. Townsquare's third quarter net revenue increased plus 4% year-over-year and exceeded the guidance range we provided on our last call. And adjusted EBITDA increased plus 3% year-over-year and came in within our guidance range. These results were driven by the strength of our differentiated Digital Advertising platform, upside to our political revenue expectations, and most importantly, the hard work of our teams in what remains a challenging advertising environment. On our last call, we told you that Digital Advertising will accelerate once again in the third quarter, and I'm proud to say that our team delivered exactly that. Digital Advertising revenue increased plus 13% year-over-year in Q3, up from plus 11% in Q2 and plus 7% in Q1. And our Media Partnerships business is stronger than it's ever been with 18 media partners, more in the pipeline and revenue more than doubling year-over-year. At the same time, I want to be candid about the environment we are operating in. Traditional media advertising remains incredibly soft, particularly for local businesses in our small- and medium-sized markets, where SMBs continue to feel the pressure from higher operating expenses across the board. That pressure is most evident in our Broadcast business, which I'll discuss in more detail shortly. Higher interest rates are adding further pressure for our local clients as well as for Townsquare. Because our term loan and revolver are floating rate instruments, the September quarter point rate increase alone will add approximately $1.2 million of annualized interest expense going forward. Further rate increases are possible and each would add to our interest expense. In addition, I had previously shared with you that I expected our digital subscription SaaS business, Townsquare Interactive, to return to sequential month-over-month revenue growth by year-end. It is now apparent we will not achieve that expectation. In fact, we now project that sequential Interactive revenue decline from Q3 to Q4 will be larger than the decline we saw from Q2 to Q3. As a result of these challenges, we have taken steps to further enhance our liquidity and financial flexibility, including the decision, together with our Board, to suspend our dividend. Stu will walk through this in more detail. Now let me turn to what's working well. For many years, we've talked about transforming Townsquare from a traditional broadcast company into a digital-first local media company, and our results continue to show that we have done exactly that. Year-to-date, digital represents approximately 57% of our total net revenue and 56% of our total segment profit, levels that we believe remain unmatched among our local media peers. As highlighted on Slide 10, our peers generate on average only 32% of their revenue from digital sources. That gap is not an accident. It is a result of more than a decade of strategic decisions and investment in our technologies, in our products, in our people and our proprietary platforms. It is also a big part of why we are better positioned than most in local media to navigate difficult macro environments. Let's now turn to our largest growth engine, Townsquare Ignite, our Digital Advertising business, which represented 41% of our total net revenue in the third quarter. Townsquare Ignite had an excellent third quarter with revenue of $45.3 million, up plus 13% year-over-year, one of our strongest quarterly growth rates in recent years on a materially higher base of revenue than years past. The primary driver of our Digital Advertising growth continues to be our programmatic business, which represents approximately 70% of our Digital Advertising revenue. Programmatic revenue increased over 20% year-over-year in the third quarter, and we expect similar strong programmatic revenue growth to continue in the fourth quarter, resulting in full year 2026 programmatic revenue growth north of plus 20%. These are outstanding results, and they are the direct reflection of what makes our platform different. We are much more than a digital reseller. We operate as a full-service digital marketing partner for local businesses and agencies, combining campaign strategy, creative development, sophisticated audience targeting, campaign optimization and unified reporting into a single solution. Our customers aren't simply buying Digital Advertising inventory, they're buying measurable business outcomes. In an advertising environment where every marketing dollar is being scrutinized, that accountability matters more than ever, and we believe it is a key reason we continue to take share and drive outsized growth. One area I am especially excited about is our Media Partnerships business, which continues to build momentum. We now have 18 media partners, up from 16 when we spoke last quarter, contributing 48 incremental markets beyond our owned and operated footprint of 74 markets, bringing our digital programmatic footprint to 122 markets across the U.S. Our recent partnership announcements include Midlands Media Group in South Carolina and Lakes Media Networks serving Southside Virginia and Northern North Carolina. We expect that our Media Partnerships revenue, which was approximately $6 million in 2025, will be over $13 million and thus more than double revenue in 2026. What continues to set our Media Partnership business apart is that our best-in-class sales talent integrates directly into our partners' local markets, leading 4-legged calls and mentoring their sales teams while we simultaneously manage campaign strategy, creative development, media buying, optimization and customer support. That approach helps our partners drive incremental digital revenue, removing the post-sale burden from sellers while protecting their high-margin radio business. It is why we have maintained a 100% retention rate of our media partners. Last quarter, we also announced that we have started licensing our CRM software to one of our media partners, further enhancing the relationship and building additional recurring revenue streams. And importantly, in today's environment, this is a capital-light model that allows us to expand well beyond our owned market footprint with very little incremental investment. We continue to see a long runway for this business and targets $50 million of revenue at a 20% profit margin within the next 4 years. In addition, direct sales of our local owned and operated websites and mobile apps grew north of 10% in the third quarter. And as we anticipated on our last call, in the third quarter, we began to lap the significant declines in search referral traffic and associated remnant revenue that started in August of 2025. In fact, our digital audience has been stable at roughly 20 million unique visitors per month for the past 2 quarters. And importantly, our indirect or remnant revenue was flat year-over-year in Q3, and we expect the same in Q4. With that headwind now largely behind us, the underlying strength of our direct sold digital business is emerging in our reported results, and we expect that to be even more evident in 2027 and beyond. For the full year 2026, we expect Digital Advertising to deliver approximately plus 10% year-over-year revenue growth, led by our programmatic business, which on a full year basis will be up over 20% year-over-year. Let me now turn to our second digital business, Townsquare Interactive, our subscription-based digital marketing solutions SaaS business. Third quarter revenue was $17.1 million, roughly in line with the second quarter at approximately $5.7 million of revenue per month and down negative 8.5% year-over-year. Profitability remains very strong with segment profit margins of 36% in the quarter, representing year-over-year margin expansion, which reflects the operational improvements we made in our customer service organization and the efficiencies we continue to capture through AI. As I already noted on our last call, we said that we expected Townsquare Interactive to return to sequential monthly revenue growth by the end of this year. It is now evident we will not achieve that expectation, and that is disappointing. Thankfully, our churn levels remain low, but sales velocity has been muted and below our own expectations and that lower sales volume is why we will not return to sequential revenue growth in 2026. Turning to Broadcast. Local radio remains a valuable strategic asset with unmatched local reach, deep relationships with our audiences and trusted partnerships with thousands of local advertisers across our markets. However, the environment for traditional media remains difficult. In the third quarter, total Broadcast revenue increased plus 0.4% year-over-year, supported by political. Excluding political, Broadcast revenue declined negative 5.2%. While that is a moderation from the negative 7% declines we saw in the first half of the year, we do not view it as a turning point. In the fourth quarter, we expect ex political Broadcast revenue declines to return to roughly the declines we saw in the first half of 2026, if not slightly worse, partly because political is crowding on other inventory given its strength in October. We do not see a catalyst for meaningful improvement in our Broadcast business in the near term, and we are planning the business accordingly. Political revenue is tracking meaningfully ahead of our forecast. As a reminder, we originally forecasted $8 million of political revenue, and now we expect over $11 million, driven by significant spending in tight races in Maine, Iowa, Michigan, Texas, Montana and others. Despite the Broadcast ex-political headwinds, we once again outperformed the industry according to Miller Kaplan estimates and as a result, gained Broadcast share. Our teams continue to manage expenses tightly, but cost management can only offset so much. Year-to-date, Townsquare adjusted EBITDA, excluding political, declined negative 9% or approximately $6 million, driven primarily by Broadcast segment profit, excluding political. Broadcast still generates meaningful profit and cash flow, but that contribution is shrinking and is a key reason we are taking the actions Stu will discuss. As we look ahead, I want to be clear about how we are thinking about the business. Our Digital Advertising platform is performing exceptionally well. At the same time, we are planning for continued pressure in Broadcast, a higher interest rate environment and a delayed return to sequential revenue growth at Townsquare Interactive. That is why we are taking the steps necessary to improve our liquidity so that we are well positioned regardless of how our traditional broadcast business and the interest rate environment evolve. With that, I'll turn the call over to Stu to review our financial results, our liquidity and our outlook in more detail. Stu, over to you.