When it came time for questions from financial analysts who cover Townsquare Media to ask questions, the focus was on pacings and on Automotive category performance. CEO Bill Wilson and the company’s Chief Financial Officer obliged, and the situation regarding Auto dollars in 2022 isn’t a great one.
At the same time, Townsquare’s top two executives talked up their company’s underappreciated value to Wall Street.
On December 16, 2021, Townsquare Media’s Board of Directors approved a stock repurchase plan empowering the C-Suite to repurchase up to $50 million of the company’s issued and outstanding Class A common stock over a three-year period.
CFO Stu Rosenstein discussed the plan on the company’s Q4 earnings call, noting that it allows Townsquare to reacquire shares “at undervalued prices.” That includes today, with shares at $12.69 as Tuesday’s Opening Bell on NYSE awaited.
Yet, TSQ hit a record high of $14.75 on Nov. 10, 2021, and is rebounding from a $11.02 close on February 24.
Nevertheless, mid-term and long-term analysts’ forecasts for TSQ are bearish, and a 1-year target price aggressively set at $21.67 may appear to be a bit out of reach — for now.
Two analysts appeared in the Q&A session of the Townsquare Media Q4 earnings call. Michael Kupinski of Noble Financial Capital Markets in Boca Raton, Fla., asked about Q1 2022 pacings. Wilson said that they were up high-single-digits ex-political.
Jim Goss of Barrington Research was the other analyst to appear on the call, before it ended just before 9am Eastern. He asked about Automotive, and the category remains a tough one for Townsquare. For the company, 2022 will remain a challenge, and Wilson says a full category recovery isn’t likely until 2023 due to supply chain issues. Other factors including gasoline price hikes tied to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine could also hamper the automotive industry in the months ahead.
Goss closed his questions by asking about local competition on the journalism side, to which end Wilson praised his company’s local digital portals for, in some cases, providing a voice where local newspapers have shuttered over the years. He also reiterated the company’s belief that focusing on small and mid-sized markets can bear more fruit, compared to being in bigger markets where, while there may be a bigger total dollar pie, the slices going to radio may be tiny compared to places such as Oneonta, N.Y., or Lafayette, La.
