The advertising backdrop for legacy media remains challenging, says Cumulus Media President/CEO Mary Berner. Yet, the owner of broadcast radio stations and the Westwood One national radio unit “continued to outperform” its radio peers in the quarter, gaining market share across all broadcast spot revenue channels.
Did that translate to net income growth for a fiscally strained company whose Over-the-Counter stock is trading at $0.17 per share?
The answer is yes … sort of. For Q2 2025, adjusted EBITDA declined by 11.3% as net revenue was down by 9.2%. Yet, Cumulus was able to lower it net loss by 53.7%.
While one may be pleased that Cumulus trimmed its losses despite the net revenue decline, which beat analysts’ forecasts that came in between $183.9 million and $184.15 million, Berner offered pre-earnings call comments that placed a spotlight on Cumulus’ digital assets, and how the company “significantly outperformed in digital, delivering double the growth rate of our radio peers.” This, Berner noted, was driven by a 38% year-over-year increase in our digital marketing services business.
Still, digital revenue of $38.8 million marked a decrease of 1.4% year-over-year when factoring in the end of Cumulus’ relationships with The Daily Wire and popular politically conservative talk host and podcaster Dan Bongino. Excluding those notable losses, a $6.8 million impact, digital revenue increased by 20%.
That said, the Cumulus CEO opened Thursday morning’s quarterly earnings call for shareholders and analysts by again blaming macroeconomic concerns and “secular headwinds” that aren’t expected to abate in the short-term. “The backdrop remained frustratingly difficult,” Berner said. Translation: Q3 will be no different, as Cumulus does not expect near-term relief from business disruptors it cannot control.
Yet, within that context, Cumulus’ outperformance against its peers should be lauded, as it reflects disciplined and strategic investments “in a capital-constrained environment.”
To help reduce the net loss as the net revenue was in decline, Cumulus in Q2 executed $5 million of annualized cost reductions, bringing total annualized cost reductions to $175 million over the last 5 years, Berner noted in her pre-earnings call comments.
Thus, Berner said, “We are confident in our ability to position the business for long-term success through strong execution and by capitalizing on the Company’s valuable underlying assets.”
Pacings are down by low double-digits and mid double-digits, ex-political, CFO Frank López-Balboa added on the call, and the digital growth isn’t offsetting the bigger broadcast radio advertising woes. To help bring in revenue, Berner said small land sales are in the Letter of Intent phase; they are expected to close by the end of 2025.
López-Balboa also responded to an analyst request for details on national advertising, trends aren’t changing, he said. Regarding key categories, Automotive remains a challenge while other category performances is in line with previous sequential quarters.
