Outfront Media Inc. (NYSE:OUT) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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Jeremy Male: Thanks, Jim. Yes, the — when we look back to Q4, the numbers are digital was 36% of our revenues, and that’s very much weighted towards billboard rather than transit. So 36% of our revenues versus 30% the previous Q4. So you can see that’s a big step up. That’s — and we think that, that number is when you’re going to go one way. We continue to opportunistically convert board. And this year, we would expect to be in that 150 to 200 new board range. So you have essentially more assets in the field and then we also have this swing towards automation. And that’s an exciting trend our automated revenues to be 16% in the final quarter the size of the digital business. And that’s starting to become needle with everything.

And as time goes on, as we said before, we believe that digitally in general, will be margin and enhancing for our billboard business. So it’s not necessarily a linear thing. But if we look over time, we think it’s certainly going to be positive to the global business.

Jim Goss: Are you generally feeling that it’s a plus because now things are improving in terms of ad revenue trends because I think in a slower period, it could be a disadvantage, but it is being helped by the rebounding ad market in terms of price?

Jeremy Male: Yes, obviously, yes, thanks, Jim. Yes. Look, obviously, whenever you digitize your state, you are adding on supply. And it’s always helpful when you’re adding on supply until you have a tailwind in the ad market. But I say last year, actually, there were a bunch of headwinds and those digital revenue is still lows to grow significantly. So net-net, we’re still very confident in the investments that we’re making in our business to further digitize. One of the big factors last year that we started seeing just the late money that we were able to take as a company that we wouldn’t have been able to take in years before. Someone wants to get an add up today, if we had pull through in the next hour. Yes, we can have that out of one. This is in an industry where previously in flexibility, it really looks or the keyword. So to have that flexibility, we think there’s a real bonus for the industry of the whole.

Jim Goss: All right. And just one other one. You called out a number of markets where you thought there were particularly notable strength in your billboard business. Is there any commonality among the markets you called out that you can draw any conclusions from and what might those be?

Jeremy Male: Look, a number of the markets were in the south. So we — obviously, Texas has been strong as a state, Florida generally is good. So obviously included in that was Poland and Nashville, and up saying, I think, with Tennessee also speaks for itself. The only markets that so difficult for us really in particular, with some of the West Coast markets, and we talked about San Francisco being difficult for us last year. And I think some of the reasons that and maybe self-evident from what we will be in the first. And then on in particular, as noted were so actually button.

Operator: Our next question today is from the line of Richard Choe of JPMorgan.

Richard Choe: I just wanted to follow up on the 1Q revenue guide of low single digits. In terms of the strength that you’re seeing between billboard and transit, where is the strength coming from? And how much is programmatic potentially contributing to that?

Jeremy Male: Okay. So going back to the guidance, Richard, thanks for the question. So we guided to low to mid-single digits. And we said that both parts of the business, we’re going to be up, which is a great side. Part of that is going to be automated revenues, which will continue to grow this year. We expect the reason why that graph should be do take it out, and that will keep creeping up, and that will be a good thing. What is also good to see right now is that both our local and national businesses, while there’s still, whatever it is, a few weeks to go in the quarter, businesses are pacing up right now. So that’s good to see strength. Look, it feels very broad-based, and it’s nice to see that acceleration from the growth rate that we had achieved in the back half of last year with some of the challenges that we’ve already talked about.

Richard Choe: And — given that, do you see that there’s been a change in your customers in wanting to do more out of home at this point and they feel more comfortable with the environment versus last year where there’s a lot of uncertainty?

Jeremy Male: So on the face of it, yes, I mean, last year, actually, there was all about really 2 or 3 categories that really didn’t do show up. So we think that’s just a bit of amounts that will be very positive for us. The same media coming back will undoubtedly be positive. And we expect that the clients that have given us support in the last years will certainly be showing the support getting in 2024.

Operator: [Operator Instructions] We have no further questions in the queue today. So I’d like to hand back to Jeremy Male for any further remarks.

Jeremy Male: Thanks. And everyone, thank you for joining us today. I’m sure we’ll be seeing many of you at conferences and events over the coming weeks. I don’t [indiscernible] — presenting our Q1 results to in — thanks very much again.

Operator: This concludes today’s call. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect your lines.

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