Greetings. Welcome to Entravision Communications Corporation Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2021 Earnings Conference Call. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Kimberly Esterkin of Investor Relations. Thank you. You may begin.

Thank you, operator. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to Entravision's Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2021 Earnings Conference Call. I hope everyone is staying healthy and safe. Joining me on the call today are Walter Ulloa, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer; and Chris Young, Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin, I must inform you that this conference call will contain forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ. Please refer to Entravision's SEC filings for a list of risks and uncertainties that could impact actual results. This call is the property of Entravision Communications Corporation. Any redistribution, retransmission or rebroadcast of this call in any form without the express written consent of Entravision Communications Corporation is strictly prohibited. Also, this call will include non-GAAP financial measures. The company has provided a reconciliation of these non-GAAP financial measures to their most comparable GAAP measures in today's press release. The press release is available on the company's website and was filed with the SEC on Form 8-K. In addition, all pro forma figures, including revenue, operating expenses and consolidated adjusted EBITDA noted throughout the prepared remarks, include contribution of Entravision to Cisneros Interactive, MediaDonuts and 365 Digital in the prior year period. I will now turn the call over to Walter Ulloa, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer.

Thank you, Kimberly, and good afternoon, everyone. We appreciate you joining us for Entravision's Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2021 Earnings Call. 2021 was a transformational year for Entravision. Through organic growth, strategic partnerships and acquisitions, we continued to develop our business beyond traditional television and radio broadcasting. We have become a leading global media marketing services and technology company, serving technology and media platforms and advertising clients around the world. We have a talented, experienced and energetic team of professionals in over 30 countries with the expertise and resources to continue to grow Entravision's business into the future. I'm also pleased to announce that our Board of Directors has approved a new share repurchase program of up to $20 million of our common stock. The Board also approved a cash dividend for the first quarter of 2022 of $0.025 per share payable to shareholders on March 31, 2022. Now let's review Entravision's consolidated results for the fourth quarter 2021. Net revenue for the fourth quarter totaled $233.9 million, up 36% year-over-year. On a pro forma basis, revenue increased 21% over the fourth quarter of 2020. Growth during the fourth quarter was largely driven by our digital segment as well as from improvements in our core television and audio businesses. Consolidated adjusted EBITDA totaled $32.9 million for the fourth quarter, up 1% year-over-year. Excluding $12.8 million in net political ad-related cash flow in the fourth quarter 2020, adjusted EBITDA increased 65% year-over-year in the fourth quarter 2021. Moving beyond the quarter, our full year results were even more impressive. For the year, consolidated net revenue reached an all-time record and totaled $760.2 million, up 121% over 2020. Free cash flow also reached an all-time record and totaled $78.7 million, up 83% over 2020. Consolidated adjusted EBITDA totaled $88 million in…

Thanks, Walter, and good afternoon, everyone. As Walter discussed, revenue for Q4 2021 totaled $233.9 million, an increase of 36% from the fourth quarter of 2020. For the year, revenue totaled a record $762.2 million and represented a 121% increase over the $344 million we generated in 2020. For our digital segment, revenue totaled $177.5 million in the fourth quarter, up 69% year-over-year and up 40% on a pro forma basis as compared to Q4 2020. For the year, digital revenue totaled $555.3 million and represented a 288% increase over the $143.3 million in digital revenue generated in 2020. On a pro forma basis, for our various acquisitions, digital revenue for the year grew 80%. For our TV segment, total revenue was $40.2 million in the fourth quarter, down 20% year-over-year. Excluding political, core ad revenue was up 2% year-over-year. Retransmission revenue for the quarter totaled $9 million, which was up 2% year-over-year. For the year, TV revenue was up $146.8 million, which represented a 5% decline over the prior year. Excluding $22.6 million of political advertising in the prior year, core TV revenue increased by 11% over the prior year. Lastly, for our audio segment, revenue totaled $16.1 million in the fourth quarter, consistent with the prior year period. Excluding political, core audio revenue was up 22% over Q4 of last year. For the year, audio revenue totaled $58 million, which represented a 25% increase over 2020. Now let's turn to expenses. Direct operating expenses totaled $33 million for Q4 2021, up 3% from $31.9 million in Q4 2020. Excluding Entravision Cisneros Interactive, MediaDonuts and 365 Digital, direct expenses were flat year-over-year. SG&A expenses were $15.1 million for the quarter, an increase of 8% compared to $14 million in the year ago period. Excluding Entravision Cisneros Interactive, MediaDonuts and…

Thanks, Chris. As you can see from our pacings for the first quarter, Entravision's business remains on an upward track. We are a leading global advertising media and adtech solutions organization that connects brands and advertisers on platforms like Facebook, Spotify, TikTok, Twitter and Univision with audiences and consumers in growth economies around the world. We are excited about the enormous opportunities these connected consumers bring to thousands of global companies, and we are investing in the future of mobile-connected consumers. At the same time, we've expanded our digital services and offerings. We've also expanded our geographic footprint in Latin America, Southeast Asia and Africa. These are massive addressable markets where the digital consumer has yet to be fully engaged and where Entravision has a strong early-mover advantage. With the transformation of our business and overall go-to-market strategy, we believe that our value proposition for both our advertising clients and our investors has grown even stronger. Linear television and audio remain core contributors to Entravision's overall performance, while our digital businesses will drive strong growth going forward. We have positioned ourselves to partner with some of the largest, most innovative digital companies today. That concludes our prepared remarks. I want to thank you again for your continued support of Entravision. Chris and I would like to open up the call to your questions. Operator?

[Operator Instructions] Our first question is from Michael Kupinski with NOBLE Financial.

Well, first off, congratulations on your quarter. And quite frankly, you beat almost -- well, every segment that -- expectation that I had. So great job. A couple of questions regarding your loss of your affiliate agreements. Just can you talk a little bit about the mitigating factors? Is -- your pacing data for TV is actually better than what I was looking for in my estimate for Q1. So I was just wondering were there offsetting items in -- that you had in terms of mitigating those revenues losses that you can talk about, first of all.

Michael, thanks for your remarks, by the way. So mitigating factors, we do have programming up and running. We still have the stations in the market. We just lost the affiliation. So right now, we've got some independent programming that's running on those stations, and that's going to generate right now about $1.5 million in cash flow on an annual rate. Those are somewhat temporary arrangements. We are still looking for something that's a bit more attractive. But that's the mitigating factor to that stance.

Got you. And Chris, can you give us a sense of what the expense outlook is going to look like, particularly for television and maybe your digital businesses as well? I know that you're showing very strong revenue growth for digital, but can you kind of give us a sense of what -- how we should think about margins and so forth?

Sure. So for TV, you should think about total operating expenses for Q1 to be down low to mid-single digits. Radio expenses should be around flat. And for digital all-in, this is before COGS, mind you, COGS is a big-ticket item. But before COGS, you should look for digital to be right around a high single digit to maybe 10%. It's obviously a higher-growth business.

Yes. And got you. And can you also talk a little bit about -- obviously, there's a lot of geopolitical issues. Have you seen any advertising impact from what's going on out there? Or any advertisers talk about being a little concerned? What are you seeing just in the sense of what you're hearing from the advertisers?

Michael, it's Walter. And by the way, thank you again for the comments you made earlier in the call. We haven't seen any impact on our business as a result of the international conflict. That's basically the summary. Very little, I would say no impact so far. And we'll continue to monitor and see how things develop, but so far, it all looks pretty stable on our end.

It's terrific that you guys are generating such large free cash flow as well. And now you have this building cash balance. Can you give us a sense of uses of cash or appetite for acquisitions, the current market environment for acquisitions? Obviously, you have a share repurchase authorization as well, but just kind of like what your thoughts are in terms of allocation of capital?

Well, we continue to seek strategic, accretive businesses that complement what we already own and operate. So that will be the -- certainly, the guidance or strategy going forward. But other than that, that's really all I can tell you. You mentioned the stock purchase program, our buyback program and also our dividend, which we announced. But that really summarizes my comments. Chris, maybe...

No. Yes, you've got the new buyback program that shows that we see nothing but the strength in green lights for the upcoming year. We've got a lot of confidence in the business. And to the extent that we've continued to look for opportunities on the acquisition front, that's where most of our work is focused on.

And you guys have to be immensely frustrated with the stock price trading at 6.5x [ interparty's ] value to cash flow. Obviously, trading below radio companies, trading below that of TV companies and significantly below that of digital companies. What do you think investors are missing here at this point? Do you think that they just haven't caught up to the story of your digital transition? Or what are your thoughts about the current stock price?

Well, I think if you -- by the way, we agree with your comments on the stock price. It sounds like a good idea for buyback, right, so -- hence, the stock buyback program. But -- I lost my train of thought. Sorry, what was the question?

I was talking about the disconnect with the stock price. And what do you think investors are [indiscernible]

So I think, historically, when you say Entravision, everyone thinks TV/radio broadcast. And I think that's what we're stuck with as far as a reputation. And we're pivoting the business as we speak. You see that in the numbers. We're attracting a different investor base. But we're right smack in the middle of that transition, and I think that transition is going to take time with investors. And that's what we're doing. We're going to be much more proactive on the stock circuit with presentations, getting the word out, getting on the road, non-deal roadshows, just to kind of get the message out that we are a completely different company than we were 3 years ago.

Just to add to Chris' comments, Michael. I mean we're transforming the business as we've commented in our remarks. And it's a transitionary period, so it's going to take little more time for investors to understand our strategy and certainly our growth story. But we continue to post the kind of growth that we did last year, and we had a very strong fourth quarter. All of our businesses performed well. Our digital business is exceptionally well. Radio is -- couldn't have performed -- I mean it's performing better than ever. So we're really pleased with the work we're doing there. It's a result of maintaining or retaining the costs and cutbacks that we made in 2020. And also we have Chris Munoz, who oversees national sales, leading that unit for us. And he's done a terrific job with his team of growing national sales and network sales for our radio business. So -- and then you heard Chris' pacing report, and we're pleased with the way our first quarter is shaping up, and we think it's going to be a great year.

Well, congratulations again. Good luck to you, guys.

Thanks, Michael.

Thanks, Michael.

Our next question is from James Dix with Industry Capital Research.

I just want to talk first about some big-picture stuff on digital. Been going through the S-1 that [ Ali Group ] filed over the past quarter, and it raised a couple just bigger-picture questions I thought you might address on the call. First of which, when you look at the overall digital segment, I mean, do you have any rough -- I think you've indicated that, that group is your biggest partner, certainly for Cisneros as is, but now you've made some other acquisitions. Any rough sense of what the revenue mix is by your major partners for your biggest partners for that segment? And are there any big expectations for that mix to change over the next year? What would be the dynamics for that?

Well, I'll address the -- I think the first part of the question, which is who is our biggest partner, and that would be in our commercial digital partnership business, and that would be Facebook of all the partners that we associate with, including Twitter, TikTok, Spotify, et cetera. And do we think anything will change? I mean, like I said, we're certainly pleased with the way the year has started. Every quarter will be different. But right now, we're very positive about not only our fourth quarter, which gave us considerable momentum into Q1, but also what we see ahead in the rest of the year. So I hope I answered your question.

Yes.

James, We're also working on partnerships -- broadening out those partnerships in different regions, and that's a work in progress. So that will also change the mix a little bit as we go forward.

Good point. As you know, we just announced our partnership with Roku with Mexico. We think that's going to be certainly a growth story for our digital business.

And we've got another partnership that's been inked, but we're not at a point to announce it yet. But -- so that's also work in progress.

Okay. I mean, I think [ Ali ], for example, indicates that Facebook is their biggest partner, but it's not quite 50% of their revenue. I mean is it safe to say that it's more for you, that Facebook is more than 50% for you?

Yes. Definitely.

Okay. Great. And then...

I just want to -- James, I just want to add that we have 3 digital businesses in our suite of digital products, and the first is our U.S. digital business, provide digital solutions to primarily medium and small businesses in our broadcast markets. That division had a great [ base year ]. Smadex, which is the core of our whole lab performance business, our proprietary DSP technology, another fantastic year for -- or I should say, a fantastic quarter, fourth quarter for Smadex. And it's off to a great, great start in Q1. So we expect great results from Smadex this year. And then, of course, our commercial partnership business with Facebook, Spotify, TikTok and others. So that's performed well in -- throughout 2021 and Q4 and now into 2022.

Okay. Great. And just shifting a bit, following up on the geopolitical issues. I mean is it safe to say that, at least internationally, the bulk of your revenue comes from Latin America once you're outside of the U.S. as opposed to Europe? I know 365 Digital is your newest one, and then you have MediaDonuts, but just it might be helpful for investors to have a little bit better sense of your revenue mix in terms of the major regions, Asia, Europe, if there is any Latin America just as we kind of go through this year.

The majority of our digital business does come from Latin America. Like I said, our other -- MediaDonuts, 365 Digital are all growing at a great pace as well as Smadex. So we just want to make sure that everything is going on an upward track, and that's what we see right now.

Yes. First and foremost, you've got the Latin America; secondarily, you got the Southern Asia Pacific Rim and then everywhere else, particularly in the U.S.

Is it safe to say you have minimal revenue exposure in Europe?

Yes.

Yes. And we have our -- that's where our Smadex business is based, in Barcelona. But that's pretty far from the...

Western Europe.

The conflict in Western Europe.

Yes. Okay. And then one last one on digital. Just looking at the -- what [ Ali ] has disclosed, I mean, they seem to be getting a fair amount of margin expansion, EBITDA margin expansion at least, even though they are, but you seem to be a larger business than you. I mean what type of margin expansion or just margin trajectory do you think we should be seeing? Now that you have all your units under the same -- under the fold, how should we be thinking about that kind of over the course of a year or 2? What are the dynamics in the margins, do you think?

Sure. Well, we finished up for 2021, digital margins were right on 7%. And as revenue scales, you should see that 7% move into the 8%, 8.5% and maybe even 9% range, depending on how revenues scale.

And do you think that could happen over the next year or 2?

I do. Yes.

Okay. Great. And then just on the rest of the business, one thing, Chris, do the pacing numbers that you gave for TV, they included the loss of the affiliations?

They do. That's right. They do.

Any rough sense as to what the pacings would be if you kind of excluded those affiliation changes and just look at the rest of the group?

Excluding the lost stations, we were looking at a plus 4%. So the core business is healthy. It's just the loss of those stations creates that hole that you...

For television.

For television, yes. Yes.

Yes. Okay. Great. And then for retransmission revenue, any outlook we should be looking at for the year just as the whole pay TV industry continues to work through pressure on subscribers and things like that?

Yes. Retransmission revenue for the year finished out at $37 million. For '22, for the year, that will probably drop by $1 million or $2 million, mainly being driven by the loss of subs. That's just what's happening today.

Okay. Great. And then one last one. Just in terms of your corporate expense, how should we be thinking about kind of the steady-state corporate? Is it going to be kind of slightly up from last year, and then the timing of noncash comp will once again be kind of a fourth quarter item? Or how should we be thinking about that?

Yes. Corporate expense for the year, you should think about it up low single digits. And really the driver there, again, you're talking about -- had -- noncash comp in the fourth quarter, had that not been there, corporate expense would have been down 3 points. So -- but yes, think about the growth in the low single digits.

Okay. So low single digits of what you printed for the year?

Yes.

Our final question is from Chris Sakai with Singular Research.

I'm in for Lisa Springer. I just had 2 or 3 questions. Could you comment on which platform partners are currently the most important contributors to digital ad revenues and what you see as the opportunities to both add new partners and grow revenues from existing partners?

Well, I commented earlier, Chris?

Chris.

That -- Chris, that our #1 partner in terms of revenue growth is Facebook. But that said, we have partnerships with Spotify, with TikTok, with Twitter, and those are all -- those partnerships are also growing quite nicely. But Facebook is the biggest.

Okay. Great. And then do you have any opportunities for new partners?

We do. I mentioned Roku earlier, and we're working on another partnership that we should be able to announce probably in the second quarter. But we're continuing to develop new partnerships and find ways to continue our revenue growth and momentum.

Okay. Great. With 2022 being an election year, what size impact on political ad spending have you seen in the past midterm elections? And do you have any sense of ad spending during this cycle be higher than in the past?

We think it's going to be higher. Internally, we have a goal of $11 million of political. But I think there's a good chance we could go past that. One of the key markets of California -- as you may know, California is in the process of deciding whether to legalize gambling. That's going to be on the online gambling. That's going to be on the ballot this November. So we expect a lot of resources invested into that particular political measure in California.

Okay. Great. And then I know you sort of mentioned about acquisitions. Are we like -- and you guys are looking for additional acquisitions. But are these new acquisitions going to target new geographic markets? Or are they going to focus more on expanding your footprint in existing markets?

Probably both, new geographic markets and then adding to our existing market coverage.

We have reached the end of our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Walter Ulloa for closing comments.

Thank you, operator. Thank you again for joining us today and for your support, everyone. We look forward to sharing our progress with you at the upcoming Deutsche Bank, Guggenheim and NOBLE Capital Markets investor conferences in March and April and then again on our first quarter call -- earnings call in May. Thank you.

Thank you. This does conclude today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time, and thank you for your participation.