While not a publicly traded company, Univision Communications has long been transparent in sharing its quarterly earnings results with the public. On Thursday (8/12), the nation’s largest Hispanic-focused media organization did just that.
How did Univision do in Q2? The “Media Networks,” housing its visual media offerings including Univision’s television assets, enjoyed a revenue rebound that single-handedly swung the company from a net loss to net income.
And, despite a big year-over-year revenue jump, Univision Radio‘s net loss widened from the COVID-19 impacted Q2 2020. It is due to a sizable impairment loss.
Univision’s overall net income in Q2 came in at $36.6 million, swinging from a net loss of $27.3 million in the same period of 2020, when COVID-19 concerns ravaged broadcast media’s revenue sources. The gains came as core revenue on a consolidated basis surged by 29.5% to $667.4 million, from $515.5 million. Factor in political dollars, and revenue climbed to $700.2 million from $531 million.
Consolidated operating income came in at $125.8 million, slightly above the $124.4 million seen in Q2 2020.
Why the tepid growth? “Corporate” income, and Radio, in particular, remain problem areas for Univision. While the bulk of the company’s revenue comes from its Media Networks, Radio still accounts for millions of revenue. And, for the Jesus Lara-led Univision Radio arm and its Uforia platform, the year-over-year revenue growth was tremendous, rising to $59.9 million from $28.6 million when factoring in political revenue. Political and advocacy dollars rose in Q2 to $7.7 million, from $4.4 million.
Yet, there was an increase year-over-year in Univision Radio’s net loss.
What happened in Q2 ’21? While the Univision Radio net loss widened to $48.8 million from $10.5 million, this is due to a $68.4 million impairment loss Univision took in the quarter.
Thus, the non-GAAP measure of Adjusted OIBDA is what one should look at when reviewing the slightly tricky Q2 financial report, which combines predecessor and successor company numbers in the second quarter of 2021.
In Q2, Adjusted OIBDA for Univision Radio came in at $21.5 million, compared to a loss of $7.3 million in the same period of 2020.
Meanwhile, the Q2 ’21 corporate Adjusted OIBDA net loss came in at $18.8 million, widening from $10.5 million in Q2 ’20.
On a consolidated basis, Adjusted OIBDA grew to $268.8 million from $242.8 million — when including political and advocacy dollars that grew to $27 million from $12.5 million in the second quarter.
“This quarter marks another period of strong performance and progress as Univision steadily executes on our transformation strategy,” Univision CEO Wade Davis said in prepared comments ahead of a conference call held Thursday morning. “We delivered above-market topline growth with total ad sales surpassing 2019 results for the second quarter in a row and grew our EBITDA double digits. We continued to expand and invest in our streaming capabilities and offerings with the introduction of new leadership and planned launch of our two-tiered service offering. We further strengthened our content engine with original programming and established important partnerships that will allow us to bring more leading content to more households, across more platforms.”
And, as closing of the Televisa-Univision transaction is expected in the fourth quarter, Univision has taken steps to position the combined company for continued success.
“Our transformation is well underway, and we believe we are on the fast track to becoming the preeminent global Spanish-language multi-platform media company,” Davis said.
