Cumulus Media released its Q1 2020 financial results on Monday, which RBR+TVBR was first to report. Did the audio media company’s first three months of the year meet the expectations of analysts polled by Zacks?
Unfortunately, no.
The company led by CEO Mary Berner reported a Q1 net loss of $0.36 per share.
Analysts contributing to the Zacks Consensus Estimate expected a loss of $0.14 on a per-share basis.
It shows just how big the loss of March Madness coverage on its Westwood One national radio arm was, financially, for Atlanta-based Cumulus.
Over the last four quarters, the company has surpassed consensus EPS estimates three times, Zacks notes. In Q3 2019, it was expected that Cumulus would post earnings of $0.41 per share when it actually produced earnings of $0.69, delivering a surprise of 68.29%.
The first-quarter EPS wasn’t the only thing that missed the mark for Zacks.
Cumulus’ net revenue of $227.91 million in Q1 missed the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 2.18%, or just shy of $4.97 million.
The EPS and earnings miss could be reasons why Cumulus shares were down significantly on Tuesday. As of 2:30pm Eastern, CMLS was trading at $3.3450, off 14.9% from Monday on volume of 317,700; average volume is 125,470.
At the Closing Bell, the damage was even more severe, as Cumulus finished Tuesday’s trading off 20.1% to land at $3.14 per share.
With the dip, Cumulus is now at a fresh post-bankruptcy low.
Since returning to Nasdaq as CMLS, Cumulus shares peaked at $20.90 on Aug. 31, 2018.
