The Townsquare CEO says that although the company is proud of its roots and DNA in local radio, Townsquare is clearly a “digital first company.” Digital revenue represents nearly half of Townsquare’s revenue and it’s the source of the company’s strongest revenue and profit lines.
Four years ago, digital revenue was under $100 million and contributed 25% of Townsquare’s total net revenue excluding political. In 2021, Wilson expects digital revenue to increase to $193 million, up more than $90 Million from 2017, and become 47% of total net revenue excluding political. Within three years, he says, digital revenue will grow to over $250 million.
Wilson says radio revenue will also grow as the digital revenue grows. “The success of our digital platform does not come at the expense of our broadcast platform. The opposite is true – the better we do digitally, the better we do in our core local business, because the digital solutions we provide to local SMB’s encourages them to trust us with their broadcast marketing budget as well. ”
Townsquare Interactive, the company’s monthly digital solutions division, which launched in 2012, had just under 26,000 monthly subscribers at the end of Q3. 3,750 new subs were added in the first 9 months of the year. Townsquare’s Digital Advertising Solutions division Ignite (programmatic) and AMPED (digital advertising) increased 23% in the quarter.
Combined the two digital divisions brought in $188 million over the twelve months ended September 30th, and contributed 47% of Townsquare’s total net revenue excluding political in the first nine months of this year. Townsquare Interactive alone contributed 20% of our total revenue excluding political.
With the digital growth Townsquare is expecting the company now projects full year 2021 net revenue to increase to at least $415 million, which is $5 million higher than guidance 3 months ago, and $20 million higher than originally forecast six months ago. New full year revenue guidance of at least $415 million represents 96% of 2019’s net revenue, and 99% excluding Live Events revenue.
