Beasley Media Reports Q4 Profit

Beasley Broadcast Group Inc. is beginning to show the financial benefits from its swap of stations with CBS Radio.

The Naple, FL Daily News reports Beasley reported fourth quarter profits of $3.3 million, or 14 cents a share, up from $1.8 million, or 8 cents a share a year ago, from its continuing operations.

On a combined basis, the company's revenues grew to $28.4 million, up from $26.7 million a year ago. Those increases were largely attributed to revenue improvements seen at its stations in the Naples-Fort Myers and St. Petersburg-Tampa markets.

On Dec. 1, 2014, Beasley exchanged five of its stations in the Philadelphia and Miami-Fort Lauderdale markets for 14 CBS Radio stations in Florida, Pennsylvania and North Carolina.

In the fourth quarter, the company reported $9 million in station operating income, up from $6.3 million a year ago, from its continuing operations.

Caroline Beasley

In the quarter, Beasley continued to cut operating expenses at its new stations. In St. Petersburg-Tampa and Charlotte, North Carolina, the company trimmed station expenses by more than 6 percent, leading to an almost $500,000 increase in station operating income in these markets, marking the first quarterly increase in these clusters since Beasley implemented its operating and expense management strategies. The results were particularly meaningful because those stations had almost $1 million in political revenue in the fourth quarter of 2014 that they didn't have in 2015, said Caroline Beasley, the company's chief financial officer, in a webcast Friday.

In December, Beasley achieved its goal for its stations to outperform the markets that report to accounting firm Miller Kaplan for the first time, which it expected to be a trend through 2016. The company has stations in seven markets that report to Miller Kaplan and those stations account for about 92 percent of Beasley's total revenue.

The company still faces challenges in several of its markets, including Charlotte and Las Vegas, where it's seeing increased competition from other station operators, hurting ratings and revenues at some of its stations. While revenue in the overall market in Charlotte was down 7.2 percent, Beasley's stations saw a 16 percent dip. In Las Vegas, the market declined by 3.5 percent, compared to Beasley's stations being down 7 percent.

In Tampa-St. Petersburg, Beasley now operates three of the four top stations. It also has three of the top five in Charlotte.

For the year ending Dec. 31, Beasley reported $105.9 million in revenues, up from $58.7 million in 2014, from its continuing operations. Profits rose to $6.4 million, or 28 cents a share, compared to $1 million, or 4 cents a year ago.

Founded in 1961, Beasley Broadcast owns and operates 52 stations in 12 large and mid-size markets in the U.S.