Good morning, welcome to the Spanish Broadcasting System's 3rd quarter 2022 earnings conference call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Brad Edwards of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Before we begin, please recognize that certain statements on this conference call are not historical fact. They may be deemed therefore to be forward-looking statements under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. In particular, statements about future results expected to be obtained from the company's current strategic initiatives are forward-looking statements. Many important factors may cause the company's actual results to differ materially from those discussed in any such forward-looking statements. Spanish Broadcasting System undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise its forward-looking statements. Please also note that we will be discussing non-GAAP financial measures.
The company believes that operating income before depreciation and amortization, gain on the disposal of assets, recapitalization costs, and other operating income or expense, excluding non-cash stock-based compensation or Adjusted OIBDA, is useful in evaluating its performance because it reflects a measure of performance for the company's stations before considering costs and expenses related to capital structure and dispositions. This information is not intended to be considered in isolation or as a substitute for operating income, net income or loss, cash flows from operating activities, or any other measure used in determining the company's operating performance or liquidity that is calculated in accordance with U.S. GAAP. A reconciliation of the company's U.S. GAAP information to Adjusted OIBDA is provided in the tables attached to the company's 2022 third quarter earnings release, which is available on the investor relations section of the company's website at www.spanishbroadcasting.com.
I will now turn the conference over to Mr. Albert Rodriguez.
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the SBS 2022 third quarter earnings conference call. On today's call, we'll provide an overview of recent operating developments and review our financial results. Joining me today are Jose Molina, our Chief Financial Officer, and Richard Lara, our General Counsel. Our third quarter results reflect continued solid performance by our multimedia assets as our audio, digital and video assets all meaningfully grew their top line compared to the same period last year. Our multi-platform audience continues to grow. We've never been in a better position to connect brands with the rapidly growing Latino population. Earlier this week, we announced the release of a comprehensive report and marketer's guide to investing in premium Hispanic-owned and targeted audio content.
The Nielsen report showed that brands who consistently advertise on Hispanic-owned and Hispanic-targeted audio stations on between 2017 and 2021 showed an average return of advertising spend, ROAS, that was 12% higher than brands that did not invest. This report, in collaboration with Nielsen, marks the first ever analysis demonstrating the outsized value of investing in Hispanic-owned media and delivers targeted and authentic Latino content. A bit of history. In 2020, major agencies, holding companies, and major media brands committed to increasing their investment in diverse-owned media. The opportunity there would be an increase in investment in both. Since then, we've seen an increase in investment in Hispanic-owned and targeted media. The Latino population in the U.S. continues to grow rapidly in size, influence, cultural impact, and purchasing power.
Latino collective buying power rose by nearly 90% between 2010 and 2020, and is currently estimated at almost $2 trillion. More importantly, it is projected to rise at $2.6 trillion in just the next few years. With this growing influence, Latinos have higher expectations of brands who want to engage with the Latino community, including intentional investment in Latino-owned media companies. According to Nielsen, Hispanics are not only more likely to seek out a culturally relevant content, but they're 24% more likely to seek out diverse-owned media outlets. True return on investment comes from an authentic connections with the Latino audience via media publishers who sit at the intersection of Hispanic ownership, culturally relevant Hispanic content and scale.
SBS sits at that very intersection, being the largest diverse-owned and operated and National Minority Supplier Development Council certified media company in the United States. We are wholly committed to the Hispanic community which we serve, and since our founding nearly 4 decades ago. Our sole purpose has always been to provide Latinos with premium and trusted content. What began as 1 radio station in New York has grown into a national footprint with 360 degree media capabilities, including audio, digital, video, and live music events. Embracing Hispanic culture has been seamlessly built into every part of our business from day 1. At SBS, we have always been committed to operating the best diverse minority-owned Spanish language audio and digital entertainment platform in the nation. The targeted investments we are making will build on our market leadership and history of industry outperformance.
Now let's review our operations, and we'll start with our AIRE Radio Networks. For the third quarter of 2022, AIRE Radio Networks outpaced the marketplace by 37%. Miller Kaplan reported network spot down by 10%, while AIRE Radio Networks delivered an outstanding performance of 47% growth. The key categories during the period were pharmaceuticals at +890%, home products at +38%, insurance and mortgages +28%, QSR +34%, and general services +11%. AIRE Radio Network, the largest minority-owned Hispanic audio network, delivering 42% of all Spanish language listeners across the country, continues its commitment to super serving Hispanics. AIRE Radio Network reaches nearly 22% of all Hispanic consumers each month across more than 300 affiliates. NMSDC certified with presence in the top 50 U.S. Hispanic markets.
Some of the key highlights for Idea initiatives include El Terrible Morning Show, La Mezcla con Alex Sensation, the Influencer Network, delivering campaign messaging through a national platform while penetrating local markets, and Artistas 360, where brands are aligned with Latin artists. We look to our audio division, where we continue to rank the number one spot in top markets across the nation, with increasing listener engagement across all our audio stations. Here's a snapshot where we are. Number one in New York with WSKQ-FM Mega 97.9. Number one in Miami with WXDJ-FM El Zol 106. Number one in Orlando, WPYO FM El Zol 95.3. Number one Puerto Rico, WODA FM La Nueva 94. Hispanic listeners love our content, which shows in the ratings results.
We dominate the Hispanic audio market and total market. It is the fastest growing format in any language. Our digital stream ratings for WSKQ Mega 97.9 FM, again, is number one Nielsen most streamed audio station in the nation at a 48 PPM markets and the rest of the DMAs nationwide. We're adding chat and messaging capabilities for our audio stations on LaMusica app to advance our strongholds further online, with our daily content podcasts from our top shows are now available exclusively on LaMusica app. As mentioned earlier, WXDJ El Zol 106.7 has been the rating leader in Miami all year along among all persons.
I wanna say again and proudly, that El Zol 106.7 has the only Hispanic female leading morning host with El Vacilón de La Gatita, and it has continued to be a number one rating format in the morning. WRMA Ritmo 95.7 just celebrated sixth anniversary and hosted a 100% sold out Cubatonazo concert, the yearly station event with the participation of the hottest Cuban artists such as Gente de Zona and Chacal. The Nielsen October 2020 book is out, WPYO El Nuevo Zol 95.3 is the official number one most listened to station in all of Orlando, beating all other Spanish stations in the market. Our morning show, El Despelote with Rocky The Kid, is number one in the entire market, beating all stations with 25 shares per Nielsen.
Let's go to Los Angeles. Last year, we brought back home DJ Eddie One, the most sought after DJ at clubs and venues on the West Coast, and we're very excited to announce that he is number 1 rated afternoon show among Hispanics 18-34 on KXOL Mega 96.3 FM, and that show airs from 3:00 P.M. to 7:00 P.M. Pacific Standard Time. We just launched a new campaign for Armando and Argelia with their youthful and fun image. This talented married couple continues to grow and be a favorite Mega 96.3 FM KXOL Los Angeles. KLAX La Raza 97.9 is the number 1 regional Mexican station with El Chiquilín middays from 10:00 A.M. to 3:00 P.M. El Chiquilín is also on our San Francisco station and across our AIRE Radio Networks.
In Puerto Rico, we have a station with the number one in each demographic. With adults 18- 34, WODA FM La Nueva 94.7 is number one with a 16 share, and WMEG La Mega 106.9 is number two with a 13 share. With adults 18- 49, Mega continues to be number one. We are ready to start the new year with strong local community outreach. Now to Mega, where our national footprint reaches millions of homes via our cable and satellite broadcast partners. MegaTV has continued to serve its local and captive audience through our cable and satellite partners, as well as active engagement with our digital audience via social media.
Our primetime content strategy to entertains and informs Latino viewers throughout the U.S. and Puerto Rico with MegaTV's unique original content continues to be successful while driving growth among critical demographic groups. Our primetime content remains an area of focus, we are making progress driving audience growth among critical demographic groups. Let's turn to our live events division. Our Spanish Broadcasting, the entertainment division, entered into a new market by producing its first-ever L'ATTITUDE live concert event in San Diego. L'ATTITUDE is the only event of its kind in the nation focused on how U.S. Latinos are sustaining the economic growth of America. The conference is attended by many of America's most influential leaders across all sectors of the economy, gathering in San Diego to better understand how economy is being driven by U.S. Latinos.
SBSC partnered with the organization to produce the evening concert with performances by Juanes, Farruko, SBS, DJ Alex Sensation at the exclusive Rady Shell venue. The concert attended was over 4,000 attendees. SBSC also co-produced the 30th anniversary concert of our station, La Raza 97.9 FM in Los Angeles. The station marked 30 years of serving the Hispanic community in the Los Angeles DMA. In commemoration of this historic achievement, SBSC produced the anniversary concert featuring top Mexican regional bands such as Banda El Recodo, La Adictiva, Banda Recoditos, to name a few. The event was attended by over 6,000 attendees. The division also launched its crown jewel of heritage shows, Calibash in Los Angeles. The now two-day festival at the Crypto.com Arena is highly anticipated concert in the reggaeton genre, which has over 14,000 attendees each night.
The show is headlined by the industry top reggaeton artists and serves as a leading concert to service our clients with sponsorship opportunities. SBS continues to evaluate strategic growth opportunities in all markets and has a robust schedule through 2023. Now turning to our mobile and digital platforms and strategic initiatives. Over the last several years, we've had great success transforming SBS into leading multimedia Hispanic media company. Today, we connect brands with more Hispanics than ever before, and our aggregate audience continues to expand. For our brand partners, there has never been a more important time to have Latino-focused marketing strategy and outreach program. The Latino population is growing rapidly in size, cultural influence, and purchasing power. SBS has the multimedia assets, the reach, and over four decades of experience and commitment to the Latino community across the U.S.
As such, we can deliver compelling and integrated advertising opportunities across all major platforms and offer access to coveted demographic groups. As I stated, our aggregate audience continues to grow. As of September thirtieth, our total audience was up 96% compared to Q3 the prior year. August twenty-two, we had a record of 3.1 million unique listeners to live audio compared to 1.6 million in 2021. Programmatic revenue grew by 126%. The total division grew by 42% year-over-year. Our La Música platform reaches over 3.7 million across all devices who combine for over 25 million streaming hours per month. Usage and adaptation, La Música continues to accelerate as it offers a truly unique mobile and digital experience, including original daily video content, short-form programming, millions of songs, and a personalized experience.
Overall, we have placed strategic emphasis on identifying new digital revenue streams, as well as increasing our CPMs on existing digital offerings. During the third quarter, our total streaming audience surpassed 3.1 million unique listeners per month. This audience delivered 35 million listening hours and over 75 million total sessions in the quarter. Given Hispanics are heavily over indexed on mobile phone ownership and usage, mobile remains the primary driver of our mobile digital traffic and accounted for approximately 94% of our total digital traffic in the quarter. A key driver of our growth in streaming hours and sessions has been the expansion of our LaMusica user base, as well as increasing consumption of our podcast and playlist products. With an average time spent listening of over 45 minutes in the most popular categories, we have added 22 new shows in Q3.
In summary, our audio and digital revenue trends continue to outpace the industry, and we remain the leading Spanish language multimedia company in the United States. We continue to invest in our audio and digital platforms while also expanding our aggregate audience and connecting our brands with partners with highly engaged audiences. We're focused on finishing the year strong and heading into 2023 with increased momentum across our business. We are consistently outperforming the broader industry and expect that trend to continue given our audio network and digital leadership. Per Miller Kaplan, revenues from January through September of 2022 outperformed all of our industry peers by 110 basis points. This confirms that SBS grows revenue faster than any and every audio broadcaster in the nation. Thanks for your time and attention today.
Now let me turn the call over to Jose Molina for the financial overview.
Thank you, Albert. Before turning to our results, I would like to mention that our results continue to reflect the investments that we've made in our business, beginning with our startup stations in Orlando and Tampa, our digital personnel and infrastructure, and our programming content. We expect these investments to continue in the near term, after which we should see our margins and profitability normalize. We believe that we are making the necessary and right investments to drive accelerated long-term growth while also sustaining and building on the power of our brands and market leadership positions. Turning to our third quarter results. Our consolidated revenues totaled $41.3 million compared to $39 million for the same prior year period, resulting in an increase of approximately $2.3 million or 6%.
Additionally, our consolidated revenues exceeded the same pre-pandemic period in 2019 by $5 million or 14%. Our radio revenues totaled $38 million, increasing $2.1 million or 6%. The growth was primarily due to increases in other revenues and digital and network sales. Our radio revenues also exceeded the same pre-pandemic period of 2019 by $5.6 million or 17%, which marks the 6th consecutive quarter that radio's revenues are above 2019 levels. Our television revenues totaled $3.2 million, an increase of approximately $200,000 or 7%, primarily due to an increase in other revenues and local sales. Our consolidated Adjusted OIBDA, a non-GAAP measure, totaled $10 million, remaining flat compared to the same prior year period.
Our radio Adjusted OIBDA decreased 10% primarily due to the increase in operating expenses of $3.7 million, partially offset by the growth in revenues. Radio station operating expenses increased mainly due to increases in compensation and benefits, advertising and promotions, allowance for doubtful accounts, and the lack of production tax credits, partially offset by a decrease in barter expense. Our television Adjusted OIBDA increased 77% due to lower operating expenses of $1.3 million and higher revenues. Corporate expenses remained flat and operating income totaled $9 million compared to $9.2 million for the same prior year period, representing a decrease of 2%. Capital expenditures during the third quarter were approximately $1.4 million. As per our credit agreement, our current net debt to Adjusted EBITDA leverage is 7.1 times.
As of yesterday, we had cash on hand of approximately $8 million. In addition, we have an undrawn $15 million revolver fully available if needed. This will conclude our formal remarks. With that, I would like to turn the call over to the operator for any questions. Operator?
We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. Our first question will come from Tim Daggett of RBC. Please go ahead.
Hey, guys. Thanks for taking the questions.
Good morning.
Good morning. Can you talk about the trends you're seeing so far in the fourth quarter?
We'll give you color on the fourth quarter. National right now is basically flat for October. We're seeing double-digit growth in November, December. Network is through the roof. Network is double-digit growth for fourth quarter. Local is doing well as well. We're in the positive.
Great. How about political revenue? Like, that number should be in. How does the political revenue look in the fourth quarter?
Look, political revenue in the fourth quarter looks good. We are currently transacting with political revenue, there's still an election in Georgia, we're benefiting from that. We had a decent political quarter, not a 100% of the political quarter that we expected. If for historically for two decades, if Florida has been on the top tier ranking in terms of a swing state, although Florida is still kind of a swing state, the ranking has gone down in terms of the Democrats and the Republicans battling out. Florida had a somewhat of a very strong Republican turnout in the outcome of Florida.
The Democrats held back a little bit, and they invested a little bit more in Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan. With our programmatic revenue, we did have an upside, and we benefited. In all of those states with all, you know, all the constituents in all of the states on our audio platform.
Okay, great. Can you talk about the stations in Tampa and Orlando, are those free cash flow positive now? How much of the increased expenses this quarter on the radio side were attributed to those two, you know, ramping up those two stations?
Look, our strategic imperative, and I'm glad you asked about Tampa and Orlando because those are markets that we're very, very excited about. Look, our strategic imperative obviously is managing the long-term growth and liquidity of this company. With respect to Spanish Broadcasting core values, you know, our core value is to super serve the 65 million Hispanics nationwide, with culturally relevant content. Now let's go a little bit more granular with that question. With Orlando, we are breaking all kinds of records with respect to our ratings. Right now we're basically the number 1 Hispanic operator in Orlando, beating out the other Hispanic broadcasters in that marketplace. We did it relatively quick.
In terms of billing, we are very pleased with what we're seeing in the billing in Orlando. I wanna say even in Tampa, when you look at Miller Kaplan, you look at all the data management platforms, we took a station that was ranked revenue-wise, the signal from 23 to being ranked number 7 and number 9. We've done an incredible job with revenue, and we expect that we're gonna have an incredible 23 with both Tampa and Orlando. What I want for everyone to understand in Tampa and Orlando, we couldn't just look the other way with the market like that was growing so much with Hispanics, that it grew from maybe top 30 now into the teens, both of them respectfully.
Those are very large sized markets with respect to revenue. Each one of those markets will be in the $125 million range. They're about parallel in terms of what the radio market is gonna do. We're excited about that opportunity, and it was the right investment to make. Look, I wanna take everyone in memory lane several years ago when we decided to get into the network space, and we did our due diligence, we did research, and we built an incredible infrastructure now to have the largest Hispanic network in the nation that's Hispanic owned and Hispanic targeted. We're very, very, very. We've done an incredible job with our network, and our network is on fire.
I wanted to point out to everyone, Nielsen approached us some time ago, early this year, that they were looking at the Hispanic audience. Obviously, the census numbers showed the biggest growth in any group of the population in America that came from Hispanics. Hispanics had the highest growth. Hispanics are about 20% of the U.S. population. They took a specific look at SBS. They released the report yesterday. I advise everyone that's listening to us today, go to the report. We're putting it on our website. It's a study. It's the ROAS, return on ad spend, for investing in Hispanic targeted and owned radio. It definitely pays off with advertisers.
I mentioned in my comments that our brand partners that advertise with us, they see a higher return than on their own investment than the advertisers that don't advertise with Hispanic owned and Hispanic targeted media. We are very, very well positioned for the short term, but more importantly for all the investors in the long term. We have the experience to do it. Frankly, I don't think there's a creative group and a programming group in America that can do it better than our team. I'll go directly to why I'm saying that. Nielsen says that WSKQ is the number one station in America, the most listened to station in America, the most streamed station in America. It is also, and in the report, it indicates-
Mega WSKQ is the most listened to Hispanic station in the world. I wanna say factually, that I can put up our programming team against anyone else in any Silicon Valley that can do programming or content better than America. Because we own and we operate the number one station in America, the most listened to. We are taking the company, okay, to the complete next level. You will see. We're promising you're gonna see the incredible work the outcome that you're gonna have on both Tampa and Orlando. I would advise everyone to go to that Nielsen study. Just can get it to you offline as well.
That would be great. Thanks. Maybe one last question for me. I see the TV business lost a little bit of money this year. Would you consider selling the TV stations? You know, is there a potential market for people looking to buy stations like that at some point in the near future? Thank you.
Look, we've received several inquiries. If anything does take a step where it would be a serious offer, that would be seriously considered. That would be seriously considered. We are looking at our expenses on our video platforms, on our programming platforms. We're taking a hard look at expenses to make sure we hold the line and we invest prudently. That's a great question. Thank you for asking.
Great. Thank you, guys.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Matt Swope of Baird. Please go ahead.
Good morning, Matt.
Good morning, Albert. Good morning, Jose.
Good morning, Matt.
Jose, could I ask you a question sort of around the cash for 2022? There have been a couple of moving pieces on the tax side. You gave us some detail on the employee retention credit in the reporting package. I think there's another tax refund other than that. Obviously you got the business interruption payment. Can you just walk us through the cash for all of those pieces?
Sure. Sure. All right. The insurance proceeds was about $2.8 million. That came in in the third quarter. Then on the ERTC credit, the total credit was for $3.7 million. Of that, I wanna say $300 came in in the third quarter. An additional $3.8 million came in early fourth quarter.
Is there another tax credit other than that? you know, I'm just looking at what you wrote in the piece here, where it said at the start of the year, there was a $4.7 million asset on the balance sheet, and then as of September 30th, the company had received $4.1 million of such credits. Are you saying $3.8 million of something else also came in in Q4?
No.
That's all the same piece.
Correct. I think the question came about they were asking about the cash taxes, and I think that's where the confusion lies between cash taxes and the ERTC.
I see it.
I mean, just to summarize it, basically, there's $4.7 million of an ERTC tax credit, of which we've collected approximately $4.1 million of that. What's pending, and we're hoping to get it by the end of the year, is about $600,000-$700,000.
I see. Is there a cash tax refund of any kind other than that, or that's what we expect for the year?
That's what we expect for the year.
Gotcha, that's helpful.
In cash tax, just in general, just cash taxes alone, for this year, from a payment perspective, we're looking at about approximately $6 million-$6.1 million.
Gotcha. Is that about what we should expect for next year too for that?
It just depends on results really. I would say we'll be in that range. Because a lot of the $6 million that we paid this year, a good portion of that was for 2021.
Right. Then just back to the insurance proceeds for a second. That all flowed through revenue, right? You broke up for us what went into... I think it was $2.3 into radio and $0.3 into TV. That's all 100% to the bottom line, both for revenue and EBITDA, right?
Correct.
Got it.
That claim continues, so we're hoping to see additional monies. That's been long. It's a long process.
Do you have any potential forecast of what additional proceeds might come in?
The goal would be an additional $2 million. Again, it's a long process.
I see. If we're looking at an LTM EBITDA number right now, that's somewhere in the $41 million range, as we start to think about next year, we should probably just back out the $2.6 million that came in from that and be at a number right now that's about $38 million. Would you agree with that thinking?
Again, like I said, I think, we have an additional $2 million that we're chasing after. It's, I leave that up to you guys to factor out.
We're hoping that, you know, we feel bullish on it, but again, it's a process.
Right. No, that's certainly fair. On the Orlando and Tampa losses to date, that should be a tailwind going into next year, right? Versus as the losses that you've had on the startup, hopefully are turning. I think you had said sort of a 6- 12-month period for both stations to be profitable.
Clearly, at the end of the year, we'll probably end up with, you know. I'll give you a breakout. For the third quarter, those two stations had a loss of approximately $600,000. Year to date, they're at $1.6 million. It definitely for next year, we definitely feel very comfortable that both of these stations will be profitable. That's definitely our goal. Orlando is number one-rated already. We have put a good amount of investment behind that station, and Tampa is one that we'll continue to put investments in to get it to the point where we feel very comfortable. I gotta tell you,
We're very. Look, we're very pleased in terms of the response from the community we're seeing. Orlando is close to 47, low 40% Hispanic. It's the largest minority group there. Tampa is in the 30%. In terms of the overwhelming response, I'll give you a little color. For the Nielsen book, one of the most recent Nielsen books. In our morning show, this is a total market number. This is not a Hispanic number. This is a total market number. Our share is about 24% in the morning alone. The rest of the day parts, they rank in the top 5. In the morning, in particular, when you have a 24%, the most important day part in...
I mean, they're all important, you know, you have to have a strong morning show. It is your vertical to have a successful product. When you have the strongest morning show in a marketplace that size, you're the leader in the marketplace. In particular, we're so impressed with the fast, rapid growth in terms of ratings that we're going into 2023 very, very excited for, in particular, both of these markets. There's not a lot of top markets that you see a number with a 20-something% of total market share in the morning. That's like off the charts. We're really excited about that, about what it's gonna bring to us in the future.
Right. No, that sounds great. If I could just ask one last one, just to follow on to Tim's question on the TV hypothetical. If, again, being completely hypothetical, if you were to do something with TV strategic, would Mega, would the MegaTV business have to go with it, or could those be separated? How would you think about that?
Look, the Mega's an iconic brand. It's a brand that was born in New York City, in the capital of the business world. That name alone, Mega, is, as I mentioned earlier in the call and in what I had discussed, Mega is the number one most streamed listened to station in America. It speaks Spanish. There's a lot of brand equity in the name. It just depends. Look, we've received several inquiries. If anything would come in serious with respect to an offer, we would look at it seriously. It would probably, they probably, my guess would be, okay, that everybody and anybody who wouldn't want the name, the brand Mega. The brand Mega is the iconic radio station in America.
I would probably guesstimate that Mega would probably considered to be part of an offer.
Got it. Thank you, guys. Appreciate your time.
Thank you so much.
Thank you, Matt.
The next question comes from Patrick Lang of Voya Investment. Please go ahead.
Good morning, Patrick, and great to hear from you today.
Oh, thank you. Thank you. A few questions. On the two stations in Florida, are you pretty much done with the, you know, the start-up cost, the reformatting cost and the CapEx? I noticed that $3.7 million increase in OpEx. The second quarter, there is also $2 million-$5 million increase in OpEx. CapEx, if you added everything together, in terms of timing of that investment, are you pretty much done or there's still more to go?
We're gonna continue throughout the year. Like I said, we feel very comfortable where Orlando is. Now our main investment focus will be in Tampa. Yes, look, again, at the end of the day, we're gonna do whatever we need to do to be extremely successful into these emerging markets. The opportunity is there, and we believe it's critical to the long-term future of this company to be in those markets and succeed in those markets.
Right. Are those two stations in full operation mode, and, or is it still kind of ramping up in terms of, deployment into the market?
Look, I think we staffed up both markets appropriately. Now, keep in mind, most of our content that we're putting in those markets, they come from, like, superstars from Puerto Rico or even Alex Sensation that's syndicated in 40 markets. I think we've staffed the both the Orlando and the Tampa team appropriately. I do not foresee that we're gonna be hiring a lot more people right now. I think we're at a good place in terms of where we should be. Look, both of those stations are in a... I'll give you color for October. Both of those stations have done considerably well with respect to revenue. Tampa, with respect to the ratings, we expect it to grow even higher, which will enhance the revenues.
I think we're in good shape right now. In terms of investing as an introductory phase, we still continue to do that, but we're still in the introductory phase. We're not gonna be in the introductory phase probably next time this year.
When do you see that inflection point in terms of revenue growth?
Look, we have to.
the cost.
Our models and our research has to show that the ratings are staying matured. We've seen incredible growth in Orlando. We are looking to have the Tampa station grow at that level. We're pleased in Tampa in the sense of when we put a client on, they stay on. Our direct response clients are getting tremendous results in that Tampa station. Look, I refer everyone to go back to the Nielsen study, 'cause it highlights a lot of things nationwide on the growth of the Hispanic population and the growth of Hispanics with audio nationwide. Stay tuned, but you're gonna be very pleased with the outcome of these 2 stations. We did not go into investing into a station.
Let me phrase it to you this way. We went investing in those two markets, obviously, because of the composition of the growth of Hispanics and the long-term effect it's gonna have on, again, managing the long-term growth of SBS and the liquidity. It's putting us in a very solid position for the short term.
Right. Okay. Well, looking forward to that. What, what's the ERTC? I mean, I'm not familiar with that acronym, but could you elaborate a little bit on that? Is that a tax credit against your cash taxes you owe, or is that something else?
It's an employee retention credit. It was a program. We have a nice write-up on it in our reporting package. Long story short, it's basically we amended our payroll taxes. It was a government program. Basically, the government will credit us $4.7 million, of which we've collected, as of today, $4.1 of that.
Okay. Net of that, you still owe $6 million cash taxes for the year.
Two separate pieces. Correct. The ERTC has nothing to do with the normal federal and state taxes. Completely different.
Okay. ERTC flows you through your P&L against expenses, right? It's like a contra expense.
Correct.
Gotcha.
We've paid in cash taxes, I wanna say $4.9 million, and we estimate that by the end of the year, it'll be $6 million.
Right. Okay. Okay. You indicate that the pacing is pretty strong in November and December to date. What's driving that compared to October being flat? Do you see any verticals that are particularly strong or, are you just seeing stronger interest for Hispanic markets?
We're definitely seeing stronger interest for the Hispanic market. We are overjoyed and really excited on the momentum of Spanish Broadcasting being the leader in the space. This particular study with Nielsen, I refer for you to go to it. If you want to, we can send it to you offline. The return on ad spend for investing in Hispanic-targeted and owned media pays off for advertisers. Our advertisers are getting tremendous results. Look, I'll give you an example. We're getting a veil for, you know, some of the biggest brands in America that have not historically considered investing in Hispanic media. It's opening up an incredible opportunity, and we're seeing gains before that we haven't seen in a lot of particular space.
I mentioned in the pharmaceutical area where pharmaceutical has historically always been a strong category for video, and we're seeing it very strong in audio right now. Plus the consumer packaged goods, again, a lot of interest on Hispanic owned, Hispanic targeted media. We are look, everyone in our team is excited for 23. They can't wait for it. I'll give you color on our network business, and that is very telling. We've had the banner year for our network business. We have never had the revenue in our network in the history of this company. You can look and say, "Wow, well, how is it gonna look for next year if you had such an incredible year in network?" Our network upfronts are up double digits for 2023. It's again, network is up for us.
Our upfront negotiations are up considerably. It's up double digits for 2023. We're really excited to continue to look at the long-term growth of Spanish Broadcasting System. We're excited.
Okay. Have you foreseen any recovery in automotive advertising, either used cars or new cars?
We have, it's interesting because there's always been. That's a great question. Audio has always benefited with automotive in tier three, and I wanna say with distributors in tier two. Tier one manufacturing has always relied on video and national and network television. The opportunity for automotive, we are seeing an increase in automotive. We're seeing it in, particularly in the tier three and in the tier one, and I'll give you some color on that. Tier three, the supply chain issues was basically a burden for media properties because the car dealerships will get, let's say, 100 cars, and as soon as they unload them, they were sold. Now, with the supply chain getting better, the automotive industry is relying more on broadcasters in the audio space.
I do think it's a benefit for audio, in particular, tier three. We've done okay in tier two. Tier one is something I wanna particularly highlight that we're doing well in. All of the tier one manufacturers, because of the environment that we're living, the recent census numbers that were released in 2020, the incredible fastest growth of the population in America, which happens to be Hispanic, we are so pleased that all of the automotive broadcasters are on board in terms of spending money, in particular with us. We're very pleased with that. Look, if you looked at. I'll give you a little color for October. Miller Kaplan just came out and Spanish Broadcasting, okay?
When you look at the markets where we're in and the markets that we serve, we were up about 600 basis points, which is in itself, it's incredible. It's incredible. We're really pleased about it.
Okay, great. Yeah, I've, just 1 last question that, the year's almost over, how did the live event kind of transpire compared to your estimate for 2022? How's it looking for 2023? 'Cause it's $10 million, it's probably right in your ballpark, but is it outperformed or underdelivered in your view?
You're talking about SBS?
Yes.
The live events?
Live events, yes. Special events. Yeah.
Yeah. To date, from a ticket sale standpoint, we've done $9.8. We're doing quite well. Fourth quarter is a pretty robust event lineup. From a revenue standpoint, from a top-line revenue standpoint and from a sponsorship standpoint, I think we're doing quite well.
Okay. What about 23?
23, we're currently building that lineup up. Our signature stations are lined up. Now we're just filling in the filler events. We're currently working on that. Yes, we feel that that is a definitely a line of business that's on growth mode. And our crowds tell us that we're doing a good job. I mean, we sell out every single event, so definitely an opportunity.
Good. Good to hear. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Craig Carlozzi of Longfellow. Please go ahead.
Good morning, Craig.
Yeah. Hi. Good morning. Thank you for the time. I have two questions. First is regarding liquidity. Against the backdrop of the minimum liquidity you feel comfortable running the business, how do you see liquidity evolving, I'm guessing, Q4 and throughout 2023? I guess secondary, or my second question would be surrounding the balance sheet. Do you view the Tampa and Orlando assets to be the final piece that you need to have a sustainable capital structure in a business that generates, you know, true free cash flow year in, year out? Do you think there are other strategic pieces that need to be added or subtracted?
Look, it all That's an excellent question we look at with our research and data continuously. We wanna see where the Hispanic growth is, and we wanna be there at the forefront. Look, we serve the Hispanic audience very, very passionately. Let's go back into the COVID area, where before COVID, pre-COVID numbers, our audio monthly impressions were close to 60 million. During COVID, a lot of people started listening to smart devices and our platforms even more. We grew that rapidly from 60 million audio impressions to 180 million impressions. We looked at closely all the markets and all the DMAs where the Hispanic growth was at. Look, when we go into a market, we've done our analysis and our research, and we've got, I wanna say, the best team.
I'll put it up to any team in any Silicon Valley lab that once we decide to go into a market, we're gonna deliver. We're gonna deliver strong numbers. It has to do with that we are a Hispanic company that's basically run by Hispanics and delivers Hispanic content. We're gonna continue to look at any market opportunity. For right now, I think we're really in great shape.
In addition to what Albert said, I mean, we also look at the market and see where the synergies are within our content that we have in other markets. I think, you know, clearly there's Hispanics are moving. There's other markets that are attractive. Again, an opportunity is out there.
But-
As to liquidity, I think our goal would be to have at least one coupon in the bank at all times. We're working on that. That's where we are today. We're a little bit short as of today, but that would be the goal.
Are there other asset sales that you could target, land or anything else that would help bolster liquidity? Are there levers worth sharing?
I mean, we have two buildings that we can potentially look at, but the issue with that is if we move out, then we'll incur CapEx and we'll incur OpEx.
Sure. Right.
So that, I mean, those are sensitivity analysis that we need to make and make those decisions when the time is right.
Okay. Okay. Thank you.
Thanks, Craig.
Craig, thanks. Have a good day.
This concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to management for any closing remarks.
I wanna thank everyone who participated in our third quarter earnings call. A belated Happy Thanksgiving to everybody. I look forward to discussing fourth quarter and year-end. Very exciting time for our company's continued to grow. Thanks.
The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.