Cumulus Stock Tanks After Earnings Report

UPDATE Friday 11/6/15...

Cumulus Media tock fell off the table Thursday night, down 18.6% after a market-hours decline of 8.1%, as it posted a Q3 report where revenues slipped and missed expectations.

After 30 days trading under $1/share, Cumulus Media has gotten a deficiency notice from Nasdaq saying it's not in compliance with its minimum bid price rule for Global Select Market.

The move means the company has until May 2 to regain compliance with 10 straight days of a bid price closing at $1 or more, or risk delisting.

Thursday posting...

Cumulus Media Inc. today announced operating results for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2015.

For the quarter ended September 30, 2015:

• The Company reported net revenue of $289.4 million, down 7.8% vs.2014
• Adjusted EBITDA of $70.6 million, down 11.5%

For the nine months ended September 30, 2015:

• Net revenue and Adjusted EBITDA were $859.9 million and $196.1 million, down 8.0% and 18.0%, respectively, from the comparable measures a year ago.

New CEO Mary G. Berner commented, "Despite Cumulus' recent challenges, my early experiences have reinforced my appreciation for the strength of the Company's aggregate assets, including its people. I was hired by the Company's Board of Directors to maximize the value of those assets and I believe that, through focused execution, we will be able to capitalize on the operational leverage that appears to exist in the Company. While such efforts will not be easy nor, in many cases, immediate, I intend to institute a relentless commitment to improvement over the coming months to drive results for all stakeholders."

Takeaways from analysts conference call:

• Ratings: Berner noted the company's management structure hindered collaboration between the corporate and local levels where programming was concerned, "resulting in detrimental outcomes driven in large part by that very lack [of] collaboration." The company will address these issues with a realignment of its programming structure "to take advantage of local programming and expertise, particularly in major markets."
• Sales Execution: The current sales platform was imposing an unnecessary burden on sales staffs and "was not producing benefits for them, their managers and assuredly not the top line." Berner says the company is developing "a more steamlined overlay to our current system, which we expect to have implemented shortly."
• Culture: Cumulus experienced 48% turnover (more than 2,000 people) in the last 18 months, "the vast majority of which was voluntary." Berner estimated expenses related to "lost opportunity, recruitment, training, lost productivity and reputational issues" in the millions of dollars annually.
• Nash: "I wholeheartedly believe in and, driven by personal experience, am excited by the potential of lifestyle and affinity brand businesses in general and Nash in particular as they're a powerful way to provide unique and deeply engaging offerings to consumers at a differentiated and highly sought-after value proposition for advertisers."