Beasley Broadcast Group has reported its financial results for the first quarter of 2021, with net revenue of $48.2 million, down from $57.5 million a year ago. The company notes that this “reflects a year-over-year decrease in commercial advertising revenue and a lack of non-traditional revenue and event revenue primarily related to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, in addition to lower cyclical political advertising revenue, partially offset by a year-over-year increase in digital revenue.”
Beasley took an operating loss of $2.5 million during the quarter, compared to an operating loss of $7.1 million in Q1 of 2020. That loss included a $6.8 million non-cash impairment charge resulting from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
CEO Caroline Beasley commented, “Beasley reported 2021 first quarter financial results consistent with the expectations we outlined when we reported the 2020 fourth quarter, as our strong revenue growth in the first two months of the comparable 2020 period, prior to the onset of the pandemic, created a difficult year-over-year comparison. Though we continued to experience challenges related to the COVID-19 pandemic during the first quarter, I am pleased to report that we began to see a strong recovery. As a result, we expect Beasley to return to top-line revenue growth beginning in the second quarter of 2021.
“During the first quarter, we continued to advance our digital transformation and revenue diversification initiatives across the company. In this regard, Beasley generated digital revenue growth of approximately 10% on a year-over-year basis, with digital accounting for approximately 12% of total first quarter revenue, compared to 9.3% of total revenue in the prior year period. Consumer demand for digital audio content remains strong and with our ongoing emphasis on digital innovation, Beasley continues attracting new business by successfully targeting the sale of non-radio products to non-radio advertisers. With the continued strong growth of our digital business, Beasley will report digital revenue as a separate segment going forward. We believe this milestone represents an important inflection point in the ongoing evolution of our operating model and clearly highlights the value of our revenue diversification strategies.”
