Q1 2022 Townsquare Media Inc Earnings Call
Thank you for standing by this is the conference operator.
Good morning, and welcome to town squares first quarter 2022 conference call. As a reminder, today's call is being recorded and your participation implies consent to such recording.
At this time all participants are in listen only mode. A brief question and answer session will follow the formal presentation.
Should anyone require operator assistance during the conference. Please press star zero on your telephone keypad.
With that I would like to introduce the first speaker for todays call Claire you're on a case and best Executive Vice President. Please go ahead.
Thank you operator, and good morning to everyone. Thank you for joining us today for town squares first quarter financial update with me on the call today are Bill Wilson, our CEO and Stuart Rosenstein, our CFO and executive Vice President.
Please note that during this call we may make statements that provide information on historical information.
Statements relating to the company's future expectations plans and prospects. These statements.
It's are considered forward looking statements under the safe Harbor provision of the private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and are subject.
The risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from these statements.
These statements reflect the company's beliefs based on current conditions, but are subject to certain risks and uncertainties, including those that are detailed in the company's annual report on Form 10-K filed with the SEC.
You May also discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures, including adjusted EBITDA adjusted net income and adjusted operating income, which we may refer to as profit in our remarks, such non-GAAP financial measures should be used in conjunction with all the information contained in the quarterly yearend current reports available on our website I would also encourage all participants to go to our corporate <unk>.
Web site and download our investor presentation is still referenced some of those slides during our discussion. This morning at this time I would like to turn the call over to Bill Wilson.
Thank you Claire and thank you all for joining us I've been looking forward to our call. This morning for quite some time as we've had an exciting start to the year.
I am pleased to be able to provide you an update on our strong Q1 performance.
Discuss the announcement of our Cherry Creek acquisition.
As well as reaffirm our very strong outlook for the year, including our expectation of all time high record level profits for town square.
Our first quarter financial results reflect strong growth and strong margins.
And as a result, the town square team exceeded our first quarter revenue and EBITDA guidance as outlined on slide 18.
First quarter net revenue increased a very strong plus 13% year over year to $100.2 million above our guidance range of $97.5 million to $99.5 million.
Importantly, we have now meaningfully surpassed 2019 levels with first quarter net revenue exceeding 29 teens net revenue by plus 7%.
Our first quarter adjusted EBITDA also increased double digits up a robust plus 10% year over year to $22 $1 million also above our guidance range of 21 million to $22 million.
And of course that also exceeds 2019 levels as.
As we have now been above 2019, EBITDA levels for six straight quarters since the fourth quarter of 2020.
Now that we have successfully recovered unsurpassed pre COVID-19 levels for both net revenue and adjusted EBITDA. It is no longer relevant to be comparing our results to 2019.
Organically town squares is above 2019, pre COVID-19 revenue and EBITDA levels due largely to a consistent digital strength and our digital growth in.
In the first quarter of 2022, our digital revenue and digital profit increased plus 16% and plus 11% respectively over the prior year.
In total 51% of our Q1 revenue and 55% of our Q1 profit came from our digital solutions.
Let me repeat that as it is a clear differentiator for our company, 55% of our Q1 profit came from our digital solutions for local businesses.
Despite this fact to many investors continue to perceive us as a radio company and in fact, we currently trade at a discount to other radio broadcasters, who have far less digital revenue and digital profit. While it is true that we have great market, leading local radio stations that we love radio is only a component.
All of our business, we view local radio as an extremely valuable asset with significant and attractive cash flow properties unparalleled consumer reach and an important and trusted local connection to our audience in communities and thus a component of our multi platform diverse local media business.
But radio as a mature cash cow business and radio is not our primary growth driver nor has it been for some time.
Our growth engine has been digital and it will continue to be digital moving forward.
In order to demonstrate and reinforce that point, let me briefly dive into our digital platform and its financial results.
As a reminder of the extremely valuable and quite differentiated digital assets, we have at town square.
First it is extremely important to acknowledge that our entire digital platform has been developed organically by our own very talented product design and engineering team.
Many of whom have been with town square since day one.
They are our digital backbone and have developed countless products and tools for town square, including our content management platform, our subscription digital marketing solutions platform and our premium digital advertising products and solutions.
I am very proud to announce that this team was just awarded with the N. B 2022 pilot Technology Innovation Challenge award for the creation of our own CRM customer relationship management platform, which we call blueprint.
Blueprint is a true game changer that was built based on feedback from our own local markets, allowing both our managers and our sales people to effectively manage and grow their business without the recurring cost of a third party CRM.
The fact that our digital products and solutions are in house and are not outsourced as a significant significant competitive advantage that grants us the ability to fully control the customer experience from the point of sale to execution and reporting.
Which enhances our customer retention having.
Having these solutions in house also enhances our digital profit margins as evidenced by our results.
Our digital advertising segment marketed externally as town square ignite is presented on slide 15.
This segment includes a portfolio of over 340, local and National News and entertainment websites and mobile apps that generate over 60 million monthly unique visitors have over 40 million followers across social platforms and generated over $3 5 billion lifetime views across our Youtube Plaid.
For them, we have organically built and have sustained this audience through our focus and investment in creating high quality local content curated through our local audiences.
On average we publish approximately 20000 pieces of content each month across our portfolio, making us one of the largest producers of local content in the United States.
In addition, we organically built a digital programmatic advertising platform that has access to more than 250 billion impressions per day.
And created a data management platform with rich and valuable first party data with 15 million user profiles.
We use this incredibly valuable first party data collected from our own audience for advertising on both our owned and operated brands.
As well as at our digital programmatic solution.
Being a large add scale publisher with first party data is a significant competitive advantage in digital advertising, especially in the programmatic business as we are able to be more effectively targeting our customers desire audience.
As we prepare for a potential cookie less world publisher own first party data becomes even more critical.
Let me now highlight our digital financial performance, which continues to be very strong in the first quarter digital advertising net revenue increased plus 17% year over year and digital advertising profit increase plus 13% year over year.
On a trailing 12 month basis as of March 31, we generated $121 million of digital advertising net revenue and $38 million of digital advertising profit.
31% profit margin.
The other critical component of our digital business is town square interactive, which is our subscription digital marketing solutions segment discussed on slide number 13.
This business is a significant differentiator for us versus other local media companies for two reasons one most local media companies don't offer their clients. This service and solution and to town square Interactive is a monthly recurring subscription based model that generates a substantial profit on a trailing 12 month basis as of March 31st.
Town square interacted had $85 million of subscription revenue and $25 million of subscription profit a 29% profit margin.
We have consistently grown town square interact as revenue profit and net subscribers since its launch in 2012 and.
And in the first quarter of 2022.
Net revenue of town square interactive increased plus 15% year over year in.
And profit increased plus 7% year over year, and we added approximately 1050 net subscribers 200 more than the first quarter of 2021.
This business has incredible upside due to its substantial addressable market of $32 billion or nearly 9 million customers Ela as outlined on slide number 14 with 27850 subscribers at the end of the first quarter. We are only scratching the surface as we have discussed a key component of our <unk>.
Town Square interactive growth plan is to open a second location and we are close to signing a lease for our new Phoenix location. We are planning some modifications to the office space and expect to physically move in during the second half of 2022 in the meantime, we continue to ramp our sales and support teams for both our legacy Charlotte office and our soon to be opened Phoenix.
Office.
As we have previously stated we are confident that we will be able to scale and operate the second location at strong profit margins, given our history and experience from watching tsi organically in Charlotte Charlotte a decade ago.
In total we expect that our digital revenue will grow from $206 million of digital revenue on a trailing 12 month basis as of March 31st.
To a minimum of $275 million of digital revenue by 2024.
On a trailing 12 month basis, our digital profit was $63 million.
A 31% profit margin and we expect margins will continue to be very strong going forward.
Importantly, we re segmented the business at the end of last year, highlighting the profit characteristics of our digital platform essentially equal to our broadcast platform each with profit margins of approximately 30%.
It is our expectation that given this new and more detailed information task, where we'll begin to get credit and value for being a digital first local media company that will be afforded a sum of the parts valuation that gives credit to our digital assets and strong digital profit, which as I noted earlier was 55%.
Of our total profit in Q1 credit which to date, we have not yet received.
Last month, we announced the accretive acquisition of Cherry Creek Broadcasting.
While it may seem counterintuitive to some to invest in more local radio stations given that radio is a mature cash cow business. It is because of our digital first local media strategy that this investment makes so much sense.
We will bring our large scale sophisticated digital platform solutions and expertise to the Cherry Creek markets and team, which today generates only 15% of its revenue from digital solutions. The majority of which is outsourced digital solutions, which generally lowers profit margins.
Just on our own experience, we know that we can drive accelerated digital revenue growth and stronger and more profitable margins such that within a few years. The Cherry Creek markets will be voting, a 50% digital revenue contribution and a 30% profit margin just like town square has today in digital.
At the same time, our acquisition strategy has always been to invest in market leading properties in markets outside the top 50 cities, we're stabilizing institutions, such as four year universities or military bases.
This approach ensures that we will have an optimal competitive and economic landscape to launch our digital first local media strategy there.
The 35 stations in nine markets that we'd be adding to our portfolio with this acquisition fit these criteria with their heritage strong local brands many of which are number one in their format. We are confident that we will have a long term stable broadcast base from which to inject our digital growth engine.
And importantly, this furthers our ultimate goal of being coming the number one local media company in markets outside the top 50 cities in the United States for.
For example, this acquisition will greatly strengthen our existing competitive positions in the great States of Montana, and Washington, where we already own radio stations today.
From an economic standpoint, the acquisition also makes tremendous sense the $18 $75 million acquisition is immediately accretive can be financed with cash on hand, and as net leverage neutral given our strong cash flow ability. It also it does not impact our target net leverage goal of four times by the end of <unk>.
2022.
We expect the acquisition will close relatively soon following FCC approval.
Our broadcast advertising business continues to post COVID-19 recovery growth with net revenue, increasing plus 8% and profit increasing plus 5% year over year. Despite continued strong headwinds from the auto industry. We.
We do not expect auto advertising to return to growth until sometime during 2023.
Our digital solutions benefit of our radio solutions, and our radio platform and reach Supercharge, our digital solutions in the long term, we view local radio as an extremely valuable asset with significant cash flow properties unparalleled reach and an important local connection to our audience and community.
These.
But local radio as a mature cash cow business, our strong revenue and profit growth will continue to be driven primarily by our digital platform and solutions for local businesses.
It's been a great start to the year and all credit is due to our incredible incredible town square team, who has fully embraced our transformation to a digital first local media company and whose super serve their local communities and their local businesses each and every day.
I look forward to growing our team with the acquisition of Cherry Creek and.
And the addition of their stellar employees, many of whom I have already visited with and had the opportunity to meet and spend time with now.
Now I'll turn the call over to Stu, who will break down our very strong results and outlook in much greater details for everyone Stu take it away.
You Bill and good morning, everyone. We started the year with strong first quarter financial results that exceeded 2019 revenue as well as our guidance driven by growth across all of our segments first quarter net revenue increased 12, 9% over the prior year period to $100.2 million and above our guidance range of <unk> 90.
$7 5 million to $99 $5 million.
As compared to 2019 first quarter net revenue increased 7%.
Excluding political first quarter net revenue increased 13% year over year.
Political revenue of $432000 was below 2000, eighteen's political revenue and therefore below our expectations for political this quarter.
Although off to a slow start this year, we still believe that political revenue for 2022 has the potential to exceed 2000, eighteen's political revenue of $10 million.
First quarter adjusted EBITDA also surpassed our guidance of $21 million to $22 million up 9.8% year over year to $22 $1 million.
The impact of political revenue in the first quarter adjusted EBITDA increased 10% versus the prior year.
Our subscription digital marketing solution segment town square interactive again delivered another strong quarter of net revenue profit and net subscriber growth.
In the first quarter net revenue increased 15% as compared to the prior year.
This revenue growth was supported by a Q1 record high net subscriber additions of approximately 1050 <unk>.
This compares to approximately 850 net subscriber adds in Q1 of last year.
Town Square interactive first quarter profit increased seven 5% year over year to $6 $4 million with a 29% profit margin.
That's consistent with a 12 months trailing profit margin.
Our digital advertising segments net revenue increase was even stronger and that's the fastest growing division of our company with growth of 16, 6% in Q1 over the prior year.
Digital advertising profit, which we just started breaking out and providing details on in March with our year end results increased 13, 1% year over year to $8 $2 million in Q1 was at 28% profit margin.
Total digital revenue composed of our subscription digital marketing solutions segment, and our digital advertising segment increased year over year by 15% in the first quarter.
And as Bill noted earlier represented 51% of our total net revenue in Q1 digital profit represented 55% of our total profit.
At $206 million of revenue for the trailing 12 months ending March 31st we are well on our way to our goal of generating a minimum of $275 million of digital revenue in 2024.
Even with increased internal investments to leverage the market opportunity and our differentiated digital solutions, we expect our digital margins to continue to be in the high 20% range in 2022.
First quarter broadcast advertising net revenue increased seven 7% versus the prior year and seven 8% excluding political revenue.
Kissed advertising profit improved by five 1% year over year.
Our other category, which is live events had revenue of $1.1 million and profit of $227000, which is still only a fraction of 2019 live event activity.
However, our live events were operated at an overall profit margin of approximately 21%.
As a reminder, live events are not a material part of our business nor a growth vehicle for our company, but rather act as a profitable marketing arm of the company, providing yet another way for us to connect with our audience and communities and allowing advertisers to do the same.
In a normal operating year live events revenue and profit is less than 5% of the total company revenue and profit.
We do expect to see some pickup in live events in the second quarter as we have scheduled 27 events, including Buffalo's taste of country concert Tyler.
Tyler's Red dirt barbecue and music festival and taste of Fort Collins.
However for live events, we will still be below 2019 levels and expect that to be true for the remainder of 2022.
First quarter corporate expenses increased $275000, primarily due to an increase in professional fees.
First quarter net income increased $8 $9 million to $2 $7 million or 11 cents per diluted share as compared to a loss of $6 1 million or a loss of 35 cents per diluted share in the first quarter of 2021.
Adjusted net income, which excludes one off items and as detailed in the schedules to our earnings release was $3 $8 million or <unk> 19 per diluted share for the first quarter in 2022.
We'd like to remind you that any benefit or provision for income taxes included on the face of the income statement is for GAAP financial statement purposes, only we maintain significant tax attributes, including $172 million of federal NOL carryforwards, and other substantial tax shields related to the tax amortization of our intangible assets.
We continue to believe that we will not be a material cash taxpayer until approximately 2026.
In the first quarter of 2022, we generated positive cash flow from operations of approximately $8 $6 million after a $19 million cash interest payment in February .
Our total cash balance was $50 $9 million at the end of the quarter.
With total debt of $550 million and a trailing 12 month adjusted EBITDA of $107 1 million as of March 31, our net leverage has declined to 4.66 times from 4.75 times at year end.
We are focused on continuing to reduce our net leverage with a target of 4.0 times, which we believe is readily achievable by the end of this year.
February of next year, we will have the ability to refinance our $550 million $6 87, 5% senior secured notes when the two year no call period expires.
If market conditions permit we believe it will be possible and advantageous to replace our outstanding senior secured notes with a term loan facility.
We believe this capital structure could result in a lower annual interest rate as well as afford us the ability to prepay the loan at any time.
As Bill mentioned, we signed an agreement to acquire Cherry Creek broadcasting for $18 $75 million, which will add 35 stations across nine new markets to our local market portfolio.
The transaction, which we expect will close relatively soon will be funded entirely with cash on hand.
Even with this use of the $18 $75 million of cash we still expect to reach our goal of four times net leverage by year end, given our very strong cash flow generation.
Our primary capital allocation priority for the remainder of the year is to reduce net leverage so that we may successfully executed refinancing next year.
So the board has authorized a $50 million three year stock repurchase program and we sincerely believe our stock is undervalued today, our priority is net leverage reduction.
To that end in April , we repurchased and retired $9 $3 million of our 2026 notes at par.
As always we will also continue to invest in our local business in order to support and continue to drive revenue and profit growth.
Turning to our second quarter outlook, we expect second quarter net revenues to increase and be between 117 and $121 million, which is a 9% to 12.7% increase over the prior year.
We expect second quarter adjusted EBITDA to be between 32 and $33 million that is a year over year increase of five 6% to eight 9%.
For the full year 2022, we are reaffirming our net revenue guidance of $460 million to $475 million, representing a year over year increase of 10% to 14%.
We're also reaffirming our adjusted EBITDA guidance of 115, and $120 million, which is a year over year increase of 9% to 14%.
And with that I will now turn the call back over to Bill.
Thank you Sue and thank you everybody who joined US. This morning, we greatly appreciate it.
I'm extremely proud of our team at our first quarter results and I am extremely excited about our future.
We have fully recovered our revenue and adjusted EBITDA to pre Covid levels, and we will continue to drive town square to new heights, each and every quarter.
Our digital platform now more evident to have investors due to our new segment reporting continues its steady growth with over $200 million of LTM revenue today growing to a minimum of 275 million by 2024.
Over half of our company's total net revenue and total profit came from digital in Q1.
Our balance sheet has improved dramatically over the past year and net leverage is now at 4.66 times well on the path to four times by the end of the year.
And then the potential opportunity to refinance the nine months that could lead to a meaningful cash interest savings as.
As we say internally how high is high.
Thanks again to all of them. Please do not hesitate to reach out if you have any more questions about town square.
Operator at this time, please open the lines for any and all questions.
Thank you.
Now begin the question and answer session to join the question queue. You May Press Star then one on your telephone keypad, you'll hear atone acknowledging your request if youre using a speakerphone. Please pick up your handset before pressing any keys to withdraw your question. Please press Star then two.
We will pause for a moment as callers join the queue.
Okay.
The first question is from Michal Krupinski from Noble capital markets. Please go ahead.
Good morning, and first of all congratulations on your record quarter.
Can you talk a little bit about your office expansion plans.
I know that you all you opened an office in Phoenix, but I thought that you were opening offices in California, and I was just wondering if you could talk a little bit about maybe or additional locations in what what your timeline might be for for those.
Yes, good morning, Michael Thank you it's Phil.
It sounds great Iraq office expansion plans, we've always said and west coast, where in fact, we.
Our signing a lease in Phoenix, we acquired roughly 30 employees, who currently are based in that location, but working remotely while we do the build out of the office space and expect them to be operating in the office.
In the back half of this year, but it is Phoenix not California, if that helps.
Gotcha.
You were contemplating maybe opening up additional offices like maybe in the Midwest.
That still on.
A part of your plan or.
I would bet, we've talked about that in terms of in the out years, saying three to five years out as we opened the second location could we potentially open a third location, but currently our short term plan or this second location really just given the total addressable market that we've outlined for town square interactive.
At 32 billion, we continue to highlight that we're just scratching the surface, we're approaching 60% of our customer base outside of our local market footprint and obviously 40.
A percent in our local market footprint. So we continue to accelerate that investment in town square interactive, we're really pleased with our continued strength there we set a record for our Q1 most number of net adds in Q1, obviously continued strength almost adding $3 million in revenue in Q1 to Q1 plus 15% so.
We're excited to open this location I would I would focus on that and then is there potential for a Midwest location down below down the road definitely but our current focus is Phoenix.
Got you and then.
Another differentiator of yours from other radio companies is that you concentrate in smaller markets and for that reason you may have very little national advertising and they know that a lot of radio companies have indicated that national advertising is weak but for the record how much of your business is national advertising.
Yes, you're exactly right. The fact that we operate a.
Principally outside the top 50 cities in the United States not only for our local media, where we have presence, but also when we utilize our you know what I would call World Class call Center, our inside sales team in Charlotte, where we're calling like sized markets outside the top 50 markets. So.
To your point there are national advertising is a.
Very very different than larger.
Top 50 players who are principally driven revenue and profit from those top 50 markets. So our national advertising is roughly 7% of our total net revenue.
Quite honestly national performed quite well in Q1. It was up from a broadcast perspective was up over 2019 levels as was our local direct was up over 2019 levels. So pretty much our our broadcast business I would call back through 2019 levels outside of.
Auto and some retail, particularly.
Appliances, and furniture, where there's either chip supply or supply chain issues, but.
But we've done quite well to your point, we've had the benefit of hearing other local media.
<unk> broadcast companies talk about their their Q2 and national for US definitely has stalled in Q2 versus Q1.
But thankfully for us, it's such a small piece of our business that our continued strength in local direct in local broadcasting our Q2 outlook.
Continues to be solid for broadcasting and quite honestly, our digital advertising outlook in Q2.
Believe it will be higher than Q1, so we see an acceleration of digital advertising in Q2, after having a very strong plus 17%.
Order in Q1, and digital revenue being up 16% in Q1, and digital profit being up 11%, which brought us to for the first time ever over 50% of our revenue and 50% of our profit was from digital solutions was 51% of our revenue and 55% of our profit now are coming from digital solutions, So having a to your point operator.
In smaller markets.
Having transform to a digital first company, having different differentiated ourselves and really being focused on digital is our growth engine.
Has set us up quite well and as we noted we we reaffirmed our guidance for the full year and we gave strong Q2 guidance revenue range, plus 90, plus 13 and profit range plus six to plus nine which I think just reaffirms our confidence not only in the year, but as we sit here in early may for Q2.
And Bill you touched on this in your comments is there anything in the guidance for Q2 that may reflect different maybe deferring revenue trends, whether it be advertising categories or regions in the U S.
Anything different than what we saw in the first quarter outside of what you've just indicated in terms of digital.
Sounds like it's accelerating in the second quarter.
Yeah, No I think from that from an advertising standpoint as I. Just noted we see a nice tailwind for digital advertising I think that's gonna be above our Q1 growth rate of 17% I think we could be in the 20%, 20% plus range for digital advertising in Q2.
There were seeing strength in real estate commercial and residential health services like doctors hospitals clinics financial services Entertainment services like builders contractors HVAC.
So we're feeling quite good there as it relates to broadcast I. Just noted obviously for Q2 national has.
Definitely slowed down, but thankfully that's a small part of our business local direct continues to be up above 2019 levels and well above 2021 levels. We.
We do still see weakness in auto.
Auto is down from 2019, it's actually down from 2021 and.
And we expect that to continue in 2023, as we get into Q2, and even Q3, you know auto and appliance stores and furniture stores have larger comps, meaning we got more revenue in Q2 and Q3 in those categories. So that'll be a slight drag but overall we.
Still have very solid broadcast expectations for Q2, and an overall as I just noted our revenue guidance for Q2 is a plus nine plus 13.
Great. Thanks, that's all I have thank you.
Thank you Michael.
The next question is from Jim Goss from Barrington Research. Please go ahead.
Good morning.
I'll start out with one for Stuart you.
You mentioned the political was a somewhat of a slow start but you still had a $10 million for your insights I was just wondering if you had an idea of why that might have happened and oh, what what the issues were and whether that could that can impede your progress towards you.
Michael.
Good morning, Jim Thanks.
Quite honestly no it's kind of hard to tell when political comes in.
It comes in quickly and unexpectedly and sometimes it comes in a little slower or people are out there doing everything they need to do for this year.
The mid terms of coming up with starting you know, we're hoping to see some improvement coming into the summer months and we're hopeful that we'll see everything that we're going to get everything that we hope to get in.
Last you know get back to 2018 levels.
Okay another involving the.
Cherry Creek Broadcasting acquisition.
I gather you're targeting all three of the.
Digital.
Aspects you have to your business and I Wonder if you might talk about how you might.
Involve the local Influencer and plan and how that how you might execute on their transition to make it more like the other times square stations and do you see more such options that might make sense.
Are there any geographies you would be.
Uh huh.
Where you would find desirable or not so much.
Thanks, Jim I'll take that it's bill so we're quite excited about Cherry Creek.
And the.
Prepared remarks, I've already visited in the number of their markets and spend time with their team and actually at the end of this week, we'll be going to visit the rest of the team and Theyre quite excited quite out there they've done quite well from a broadcast perspective. They are back to 2019 levels if not above the 2019 levels. So it's a very well run company, but you know.
Roughly 10% 15% of their revenue is digital so we see a market leading brands great local sales team great leaders.
We can bring to the table our digital platforms. As you just noted and having spent time with the team now in person as well as through our town Hall virtual calls with all the Cherry Creek. They are quite excited to adopt this and help their local businesses grow and reach their audiences in new ways. So to your point, you'll see us do.
Employee first our digital strategy in terms of building, a digital audience and becoming if not the largest one of the largest online presences in these additional Cherry Creek market and then we'll bring our town square interactive and our towns where digital advertising ignite to these sales.
Our sales teams into these markets over the next six to 12 months once the FCC granted approval, which we're expecting in the next couple of months. So couldn't be more excited as I noted, taking a pure broadcaster, which we've had great experience with over the last 12 years in diversifying that to a digital first company. This is something we excel at.
Okay in terms of others, so it's very cool.
Potentials around the country that would make sense with some of the context you outlined.
Yeah, I think I think we've noted the suite before Jim like we are the natural acquirer of local media assets outside the top 50 markets quite honestly, we've been quite disciplined and consistent and operating even when we've had opportunities to go into the top 50 markets. Our strategy works, so well and I think we performed quite well in <unk>.
Markets, we understand that exceptionally well so there are many other opportunities are there.
Particularly given the Cherry Creek acquisition I think surprisingly it took some by surprise, even though we've been talking about.
Growing our footprint at the right price with great brands. So.
First for the rest of this year, obviously Cherry Creek with bite sized under $20 million acquisition caused great. We got it.
Attractive multiple we as still noted our focus right now is delevering getting down to four times and if the financial markets.
Cooperate being able to refinance in February of 2023 post that time period, either if we do refinance because we'll be continuing to build cash quite a bit of cash throughout next year.
Or if the markets do not cooperate and we don't refinance.
Either outcome I think there'll be greater opportunity for M&A outside the top 50 markets as we go into 2023, particularly coming off of a political year.
That's what we're focused.
<unk> focused right now on Delevering, but I think if you look at the next two to three years, where the natural acquirer of these types of assets.
Okay, and one last one regarding TSA.
You've talked about the trust and bond with local customers are able to develop and cream.
Creative aspects of your engineering staff.
Just wondering if.
If all of this as you pursue this path.
Yes, if it fosters other types of relationships that could create premium ad on Ah.
Services, I think could increase our Peru.
On the se $300 per month average monthly fee.
Or is there enough of that 300 dollar business to make it.
Makes you better off by not met.
Messing with the current plan.
Well, yeah, great Great question and I appreciate you, noting the trust in the bond and just the engineering staff as I noted.
Our remarks, and we highlight them in the Investor deck is just an incredible team.
One of our Differentiators is that our all of our growth has been organic you know are our digital growth isn't based on acquisitions. It's all building solutions, knowing the mentality and the challenges of our business as the new size markets and then we go and build solutions, having gotten their feedback that serves their needs and our engineering team.
Many of which have been with US since day. One in 2010 is just world class. So it was great to see them receive some.
Accolades at the Nab show for the pilot award just couldn't be more proud of them. So.
First and foremost.
Adding on any services clearly, there's a tremendous $32 billion market opportunity, which we outlined in the investor deck with almost 9 million target subscribers for our subscription service and we're just under 30000, we're approaching 30000, so continuing to operate our increasing investment like we're doing with our Phoenix.
<unk>, we feel quite confident that we're going to continue to be able to grow over.
Looking at I think it was in Q1 at plus 15% will get into a plus 14, plus 15 in Q2 and each year for the last six years seven years, we've added roughly 10 million minimum topline and 3 million bottomline. So continuing down that steady state of what we're doing increasing our investment we couldnt be more excited about our subscription business, but you bring.
A point that we are looking at opportunities to add on other services for these types of clients could they be human resource type AD on our accounts payable type add on.
We built our CRM customer relationship management platform, we've talked to our Smbs about that so those are all future opportunities that we could add onto our existing digital marketing solutions for greater <unk>.
And we're testing some of those but our current steady state is really just tapping what we are doing but that said Jim you bring up a good point that there are future opportunities for premium add ons to drive even greater ARPA.
Okay. Thanks.
Thanks, Bill Thanks to.
Thank you for calling in Jim always appreciate it.
This concludes the question and answer session I would like to turn the conference back over to Bill Wilson for any closing remarks.
Thank you everybody for dialing in this morning, we're quite proud of our results and really excited for the rest of the year. If you guys have any questions. Please don't hesitate to reach out and have a great day.
This concludes today's conference call you may disconnect. Your lines. Thank you for participating and have a pleasant day.
Yeah.
Yeah.