Audacy has reported its third quarter financial results for 2022, with revenue down 3.8 percent to $317 million. Radio revenue fell by six percent while digital revenue was up two percent to $62.7 million. Operating income fell from $29.3 million a year ago to a loss of $151.9 million. Net loss increased from $4.8 million in Q3 of last year to $141 million. The company also noted it brought in revenue from selling real estate in Houston as well as Las Vegas (as part of its recent station swap with Beasley).
Audacy also broke down its radio revenue by format, with music station revenue falling from $166 million a year ago to $157 million in Q3 of 2022. Sports station revenue slipped from $75 million in Q3 2021 to $73 million this year. News/Talk station revenue was down slightly to $49 million vs. $50 million in Q3 last year.
David J. Field, Chairman/President/CEO of Audacy, stated, “Our third quarter revenues declined 3.8% as advertising headwinds impacted company performance. Solid double digit growth in streaming audio and digital marketing solutions were offset by declining radio revenues. Our radio revenues were negatively impacted by our concentration in the country’s largest markets as small to medium market radio outperformed large market radio by 8% during the quarter.
We remain deeply focused on executing our action plan to navigate the storm and emerge healthy and strong. We completed the sale of $56 million in real estate to enhance our financial position with additional sales in the pipeline. We launched the next generation of our Audacy streaming platform with innovative features including segment chaptering of live spoken word radio shows. Since launch, digital listeners are up 25% while registrations have increased 15% and we have high expectations for the impact of the new platform on our future growth. We also continue to make progress on core strategic growth drivers such as national enterprise business development and our ad tech product roadmap to open important pools of demand and accelerate future performance.
Looking beyond the challenging current macro environment, Audacy has been transformed into a leading, scaled multi-platform audio content and entertainment company, better able to serve listeners and customers than ever before. We are excited by the opportunities ahead and are deeply focused on continuing to best position the company to compete for significant growth in the dynamic audio market.”
