At the tail end of his Thursday morning earnings call, Emmis CEO Jeff Smulyan said now that his company’s debt is “close to zero,” and he’ll be looking at a lot of different things, and not necessarily radio. So what’s in Smulyan’s future?
After selling off Los Angeles, Terre Haute, and most recently, St. Louis, Emmis is down to three markets (New York, Indianapolis, and Austin). And in the last 12 months the company has paid down over $120 million of senior debt. Emmis now has less than $20 million of debt.
So with a clean balance sheet, what is Smulyan thinking about doing, and is he done buying and selling radio stations? “We’re going to look at a lot of different things,” Smulyan said on his earnings call. “We’re excited about the future of NextRadio, even outside the United States. We’re going to look at a lot of areas, not just traditional radio. We’re going to try new things in areas we think will serve us well and having more flexibility serves us well.”
As far as Emmis’ quarter goes, which includes December, January, and February, pro-forma revenue was down 1%, December was up 1%, January was down 2%, and February was down 1%. The healthcare category jumped 7% while automotive declined 9%. Cellular was a strong category with retail and auto being the weakest.
