Cumulus Media Inc. (NASDAQ:CMLS) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

And as you know, we were very close to that at the end of last year. And as we continue to reduce debt, we’ll revisit to the board what that right leverage number should be going forward. I can’t give you what the number is, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s not 3.5%. It could be lower than that. But stay tuned on that. And we have a lot of wood to chop to get the recovery and reduce the debt. But again, you mentioned about the debt refinancing. Our net debt is less than $600 million. It’s half the debt that we had coming out of restructuring. But the markets are not great right now. But in terms of the quantum debt that we have to refinance when the market improves and our leverage, improve them on net leverage perspective. I think we’ll be a good position to take advantage of that.

Avi Steiner: Appreciate the time. Thank you so much.

Operator: Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Michael Kupinski with NOBLE Capital Markets. Your line is now open.

Michael Kupinski: Thank you for taking the questions. I appreciate that. I’m trying to understand the cost cutting that the company has done. I was just wondering, has the company reduced its footprint in the markets, decreased local talent, move towards more central programming? And if you have done that, was this done in smaller markets versus some of your lower margin markets? I’m just trying to understand the nature, because obviously, as Avi said, you cut cost much more than what I had expected as well.

Mary Berner: Yes, that’s a great question. We have looked at cost cutting across multiple paths. So the last several years, the first thing we look for is efficiency. So we’ve consolidated both our traffic and our business manager functions at reduced costs and at enhanced efficiencies and outcomes, actually. We are looking — it’s really right now, real estate contract costs. We focus a lot on contracts. Some consolidation of staffing, but not much of that. We have not done consolidation of programming because we believe that the local – live and local is key to our strategy. We’ve improved our programming, for sure, but that’s not an area of focus. So our fixed costs, we have a very, very disciplined process as to how we get at it.

But I would characterize it really in three buckets, which is contracts, general contracts, real estate and then efficiency, looking for areas of efficiency. Which is why we always think we’re at the end of it, and then we dig in again and we can – we’re very, very aggressive about it.

Michael Kupinski: Got you.

Frank Lopez-Balboa: And if I can jump here. Michael, I can give you just a couple additional points. We do have a slimmer workforce than we did three years ago. And so when you look at the $105 million of cost reductions, probably 40% of that has to do with slimmer workforce. And it’s not – and we emphasize this a lot. It’s reducing costs without impacting revenues with more efficiencies. And we look at large markets, small markets. We look at the network to reduce the fixed cost base. And the key thing that we focus on is impacting when we look at costs is to really avoid impacting revenue and in an industry that continuously has to be reengineered. And that’s why we keep on talking about the operating leverage.

Michael Kupinski: Got you. Thank you for that. The disparities in revenue, are there disparities between larger markets versus smaller markets, or the performance pretty evenly across your markets?