Urban One, Inc. (NASDAQ:UONEK) Q4 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Urban One, Inc. (NASDAQ:UONEK) Q4 2025 Earnings Call Transcript March 12, 2026

Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Urban One, Inc. 2025 Fourth Quarter Earnings Call. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. We will begin this call with the following Safe Harbor statement. During this call, Urban One, Inc. will be sharing with you certain projections or other forward-looking statements regarding future events or its future performance. Urban One, Inc. cautions you that certain factors, including risks and uncertainties referred to in the 10-Ks, 10-Qs, and other reports it periodically files with the Securities and Exchange Commission, could cause the company’s actual results to differ materially from those indicated by its projections or forward-looking statements.

This call will present information as of 03/12/2026. Please note that Urban One, Inc. disclaims any duty to update any forward-looking statements made in the presentation. In this call, Urban One, Inc. may also discuss some non-GAAP financial measures in talking about its performance. These measures will be reconciled to GAAP either during the course of this call or in the company’s press release, which can be found on its website at https://www.urban1.com. A replay of the conference call will be available from 2:00 PM Eastern Time, 03/12/2026, until 11:59 PM Eastern Time, 03/19/2026. Callers may access the replay by calling 1807702030. International callers may dial direct 1609809909. The replay access code is 907-7729. Access to live audio and a replay of the conference will also be available on Urban One, Inc.’s corporate website at https://www.urban1.com.

The replay will be made available on the website for seven days after the call. No other recordings or copies of this call are authorized or may be relied upon. I will now turn the call over to Alfred C. Liggins, Chief Executive Officer of Urban One, Inc., who is joined by Peter Thompson, Chief Financial Officer. Mr. Liggins, please go ahead.

Alfred C. Liggins: Thank you very much, operator. Also joining us today are Chris Simpson, our General Counsel; Ken Wishart, our Chief Administrative Officer; and Jody Druer, who is CFO of our cable television unit, TV One and Clio. Thank you all very much for joining us for the fourth quarter results 2025 year-end conference call. As the press release has stated, we actually finished the year just inside our guidance at $56,700,000 of EBITDA. We had previously also given guidance for 2026 of $70,000,000 of EBITDA. We are just getting through first quarter bottom parts. We are going to wait until we get to the end of first quarter, into the conference call, to update any information on that. So we are holding that for the moment.

Q1 started off a bit slower than what we had hoped. Current radio pacings are down about 5%, but we are still positive about a number of our operational changes that we have made and also political that is going to be coming in this year. We are also starting to see some significant improvements in our ratings at our cable television unit. A number of these factors are playing into our decision to hold on any sort of 2026 guidance update. We are very pleased that by the end of last year, we were able to do a significant capital market transaction where we repurchased a significant amount of our 2028 notes at a discount. We extended out our maturities in an exchange into 2031 and upsized our ABL credit facility. We put the company in a much more stabilized position in terms of its capital structure to allow us to continue to focus on delevering the business and to try to take advantage of any offensive opportunities, particularly as it relates to deregulation in the radio business.

Q&A Session

We feel very good about that, and we continue to maintain our focus on delevering, including that any transactions that we would look to do would be transactions that are also delevering. With that, I am going to turn it over to Peter, who is going to give you details on the numbers, and then we will open it up to Q&A.

Peter Thompson: Thank you, Alfred. Consolidated net revenue for the three months ended 12/31/2025 was approximately $97,800,000, down 16.5% year-over-year. Net revenue for the radio broadcasting segment was $35,100,000, which was a decrease of 26.5% year-over-year. Excluding political, net revenue was down 10.1% year-over-year. According to Miller Kaplan, our local ad sales were down 19% against our markets that were down 12.6%, and our national ad sales were down 40.1% against the market that was down 29.2%. Our largest ad category for the quarter was services, which was up 0.1%, primarily due to legal services. Healthcare was up 3.5%, and financial was up 15.7%. All of the other major categories were down. Net revenue for the Reach Media segment was $13,800,000 in the fourth quarter, up 43.9% from the prior year, and adjusted EBITDA was approximately $900,000 for the quarter.

The increase was primarily driven by an increase in event revenue due to the timing of the Fantastic Voyage Cruise, which was in fourth quarter 2025 compared to 2024, so there is a timing difference there, and the increased revenue and expense was offset by a decrease in political revenue and a decrease in network advertising revenue. Net revenues for the Digital segment were down 19.6% in the quarter at $14,700,000. The decline was driven by a decrease in direct revenue streams as a result of decreased DEI money, lower political, and lower client spending in general. Direct digital sales were down by $2,700,000 for the quarter. Adjusted EBITDA was $1,800,000 compared to $2,700,000 last year. We recognized approximately $34,900,000 of revenue from our cable television segment during the quarter, a decrease of 16.8%.

Television advertising revenue was down 21.8%. Our prime delivery declined approximately 20% from the third quarter for persons 25–54. Cable TV affiliate revenue was down 9%, which was driven by subscriber churn, partially offset by an increase in subscriber rates and the launch of Now TV. Cable subscribers for TV One, as measured by Nielsen, finished the fourth quarter at 30,200,000 compared to 34,100,000 at the end of Q3. The decline is a result of the combination of churn and also a conversion of virtual MVPDs that has been sold as connected television and therefore pulled out of the Nielsen numbers. Clio TV had 33,000,000 Nielsen subscribers at the end of the period. Operating expenses, excluding depreciation, amortization, stock-based compensation, impairment, and goodwill and intangible assets, were approximately $90,200,000 for the three months, compared to approximately $91,100,000 for the comparable period in 2024.

Our operating expenses in the period included $7,700,000 of debt refinancing costs, as well as $6,700,000 of expenses related to the Fantastic Voyage Cruise. Excluding those two items, operating expenses were actually down by approximately 17%. That was driven mainly by revenue-related variable expenses such as commissions, sales rep fees, traffic acquisition costs in Digital, as well as headcount and related third-party professional fees. Radio operating expenses were down 17.8%, or $5,700,000, driven primarily by a decrease in commissions and headcount-related expenses. Reach operating expenses were up 86.1% due to the timing of the Fantastic Voyage. Excluding the event expenses, expenses at Reach were down 12.1%, which was driven by talent and headcount-related expense reductions.

Operating expenses in the Digital segment were down 18.5%, driven by the decrease in traffic acquisition costs, commissions, headcount-related savings, and video production costs. Operating expenses in the Cable Television segment were down 8.3%, driven by lower headcount costs, commission, bad debt, and a reduction in program development write-offs. Operating expenses in Corporate were up by approximately $4,000,000, driven by an increase in the debt refinancing costs that was recorded in Q4 of $7,700,000, offset by lower third-party legal and professional fees, software license fees, and other expense reductions at Corporate. Consolidated adjusted EBITDA was $15,600,000 for the fourth quarter, which was down 41.8%. Consolidated broadcast and digital operating income was $23,800,000, a decrease of 38.3%.

On 12/18/2025, the company closed a private tender and exchange offer with the holders of the 2028 senior secured notes representing more than 97% of the aggregate principal amount outstanding. The company tendered for $185,000,000 in the 2028 notes at 60¢. We issued $60,600,000 aggregate principal amount of 10.5% first-lien senior secured notes due 2030, and we issued $291,000,000 aggregate principal amount of 7.625% second-lien secured notes due 2031. Following the transaction, $11,800,000 of the 2028 notes remained outstanding. We had to account for the transaction under the troubled debt restructuring rules, which means that we do not recognize the gain on the tender in P&L and instead we effectively capitalize that on the balance sheet as a premium, and that will have a knock-on effect in future periods of reducing the P&L interest expense, and the difference between the cash interest expense and the P&L interest expense will go to reduce the premium over time.

Interest and investment income was approximately $400,000 in the fourth quarter compared to $1,100,000 last year. The decrease was due to lower cash balances in interest-bearing accounts. Interest expense decreased to approximately $8,700,000 in Q4, down from $7,500,000 last year, due to lower overall debt balances. The company made cash interest payments of approximately $13,400,000 in the quarter. During the first three quarters, the company repurchased $96,700,000 in its 2028 notes at an average price of 53.6% of par, bringing the balance to $487,800,000 as of September 30, and then the debt transaction in the fourth quarter further reduced the outstanding long-term debt balance to $363,400,000 at year-end. At the same time as the debt transaction happened, we drew down $10,000,000 from our new ABL credit facility, and in 2026 we paid the $10,000,000 draw on the ABL, and we also purchased an additional $4,300,000 in the 2028 notes at 51% of par, bringing the current outstanding total debt balance to $359,100,000.

$55,300,000 of noncash impairment charges were recorded, and that was made up of $500,000 at Reach Media, $53,100,000 at Cable Television, and $1,700,000 within the Digital reporting unit. We recorded amortization expense of approximately $400 for the radio broadcast license and TV One trade name for the three months. Benefit from income taxes was approximately $9,200,000 for the fourth quarter. The company received cash income tax refunds in the amount of approximately $200,000. Capital expenditures were approximately $3,200,000 in the quarter and $10,400,000 for the year. Net loss was approximately $54,400,000, or $12.24 per share, compared to a net loss of $35,700,000, or $7.81 per share, for 2024. During the three months ended 12/31/2025, the company did not repurchase any shares of Class A common stock.

We did repurchase 13,773 shares of Class D common stock for approximately $100,000 at an average price of $8.20 per share on a post-split basis. In January 2026, the company did a one-for-ten reverse stock split and thereby regained compliance with the Nasdaq listing requirements. As of 12/31/2025, the current outstanding debt balance was approximately $373,400,000, and ending unrestricted cash was $25,500,000, resulting in net debt of approximately $347,900,000, which compares to $56,700,000 of LTM reported adjusted EBITDA for a total net leverage ratio of 6.14x. With that, I will hand it back to Alfred to help you.

Alfred C. Liggins: Operator, can we open the lines up for Q&A?

Operator: We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, press star then the number 1 on your telephone keypad. Again, for questions, please press star followed by the number 1. We will pause for just a moment to compile the Q&A roster. Once again, for questions, simply press star 1 on your telephone keypad. We have no questions at this time. Mr. Liggins, I will hand the call back to you.

Alfred C. Liggins: Thank you very much. We appreciate your support, and as always, we are available offline to answer any questions that you may think of after the fact. Thank you very much, and we will see you next quarter.

Operator: This will conclude today’s call. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect.