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Morgan Stanley’s Technology, Media & Telecom Conference 2024

Mar 5, 2024

Cameron McVeigh
Equity Research Analyst, Morgan Stanley

Please note that important disclosures, including my personal holding disclosures and Morgan Stanley disclosures, all appear as a handout available in the registration area and on the Morgan Stanley public website. With that, I'd like to welcome Scott Wells, CEO, to the conference.

Scott Wells
CEO, Clear Channel Outdoor

Thanks, Cameron. Great to be here.

Cameron McVeigh
Equity Research Analyst, Morgan Stanley

Scott, great to have you. To kick us off, how would you describe the growth strategy for Clear Channel and the long-term growth outlook? What are your long-term investment priorities?

Scott Wells
CEO, Clear Channel Outdoor

So I'm definitely optimistic on this business in the long term. You know, you think about our growth, there's obviously the ad market that we're tied to, so you have a base load of growth from that. Our core kind of business as usual strategy is the digital conversions, all of the kind of base level, local and national marketing that we do, kind of sales execution. That gets you to kind of the GDP plus zip code. And then we're constantly looking for discontinuities, things that are gonna cause spikes in growth, whether that's channels, like programmatic, verticals, like pharma, that we're working on, new sales approaches, like going direct to client.

But it's all of those pieces working in conjunction, and it's all part of the ultimate digital transformation of the total business.

Cameron McVeigh
Equity Research Analyst, Morgan Stanley

Got it. I guess next, yeah, there have been a couple announcements recently, surrounding your refinancing, in which you priced in your secured notes and also expect to begin refinancing your CCIBV notes. Can you provide any more color, and why now?

Scott Wells
CEO, Clear Channel Outdoor

Yeah. So, we were real happy with the execution on the bond and term loan that took out the 2026. I mean, it's priced, it's not closed at this point. But we came in at 7 7/8 on the bond, and the term loan, we came in at SOFR plus 400 basis points. So, felt good about where those landed. As for the BV, that actually... It's kind of two pieces working in conjunction. One was just the conversations we had with people around the bond and term loan.

There was interest in going ahead and doing it, and we thought that it was prudent, in light of it rolling current this summer, to go ahead and take care of that. And so that transaction is just in the process of getting going. I can't give you a lot more detail than what we disclosed in the 8-K, but it was something we definitely had conversations with people about while we were working on the bond and the term loan, and it seemed like a good thing to do to create flexibility for us as we negotiate in the exit of Europe.

Cameron McVeigh
Equity Research Analyst, Morgan Stanley

Scott, if we look at your guidance and the guidance implicit from your public peers, generally, there's an expectation that growth accelerates over the year, and long term is, you know, higher than what we've seen, many years in the prior cycle. Looking at your industry broadly, do you think out-of-home is better positioned today than five years ago in terms of advertiser budget share?

Scott Wells
CEO, Clear Channel Outdoor

I think we are better positioned than five years ago, and there's a few things that add to that. You know, first and foremost, we're the last mass visual medium. So if you're looking for maximum reach, and particularly maximum reach efficiently, we're it. Linear TV can't deliver that, you know, other than a few events each year, that it's just not possible with Linear TV anymore. I think a second thing is data and analytics are coming our way.

We've both been getting more sophisticated over the last five years, but the capability of the digital space has been constrained by privacy laws and by different tactics by various parties in those data chains, such that what we offer is very compatible and very comparable now, from a data and analytics perspective, to what people can get with other kinds of media. Of course, we're still a mass medium, so I go back to my last mass visual medium. We're not gonna have the one-to-one marketing capability, but that's very challenged for a lot of the people that rely on, you know, cookies or mobile IDs or things along those lines. So that market's coming to us.

I think the last part of it is that we, as an industry, have gotten better at telling our story. We still have a lot of ways to go on this, but we have made real progress, and I think, I think programmatic has actually been a pretty central part of that, of helping advertisers understand that we're able to meet them, where they are in terms of how they wanna buy. We're a lot more flexible now than we were five years ago.

Cameron McVeigh
Equity Research Analyst, Morgan Stanley

Got it. And on that point, you know, in the past, we've spoken to a share shift from some of the traditional mediums, like Linear TV and radio, and then, as you said, some of these IDFA concerns. You know, is that still a share shift that you're continuing to gain from these mediums, and do you expect that to be a long-term tailwind?

Scott Wells
CEO, Clear Channel Outdoor

Yeah, I think, you know, we compete in a lot of different markets. So at the local market level, there's no question that there's opportunity and there's shift going on in that degree. The ad market has grown quite a lot in the last few years. I'm thinking of retail media as, like, one particular manifestation of this, but it's grown in some different directions than where it was before. A lot of what is in that space, you know, kind of broadly known as performance marketing, is money that, to a degree, was used in promotion before, and so the market definition is kind of bigger.

So if you actually looked at our percentage of the ad market, I think it's actually flat to down over that time frame, even though I think we have been gaining in different segments. And so I do think one of the big opportunities for us is helping, particularly other digital media, understand how much we amplify—helping advertisers understand how much we amplify the other digital media. You actually have digital media participants highlighting the impact of out-of-home on campaigns being run in digital media because we are a great complement to it. And I think the potential is there for us. We work very nicely with digital media as a complement, and I think that's an opportunity for us.

Cameron McVeigh
Equity Research Analyst, Morgan Stanley

Great. Let's shift to Europe. Clear Channel is in the process of selling the Europe-North segment, recently initiated a sale as well as the Latin American business. How broadly have negotiations been going with prospective buyers, and how are you feeling generally about European M&A?

Scott Wells
CEO, Clear Channel Outdoor

So, I think we're headed in the right direction. We cast a wide net and are talking to a pretty broad array of potential buyers. It is a really critical time in that process right now. I can't go into a lot of detail because we are very much in the process of sorting out, are we looking at kind of a platform sale, or are we looking at something less than the platform, you know, moving it in chunks? And there are good arguments to do either direction. But I feel like it's headed in a good direction. We have a good process going, and you know, on LatAm, I'd characterize it similarly.

We're probably a little earlier in that process, but it's going well.

Cameron McVeigh
Equity Research Analyst, Morgan Stanley

In the fourth quarter, Europe-North had strong growth, 18%, and, you know, margins in the mid-twenties. What's driving that strength? And, you know, would it make sense to keep Europe-North assets?

Scott Wells
CEO, Clear Channel Outdoor

So, they have performed really, really well. I'm very proud of what the team has accomplished. The drivers of performance on it, there are a few things. I think it's fundamentally the UK that is the biggest driver. It's the biggest market of Europe-North, and they have performed ahead of their marketplace and have done very well. That is partly programmatic. It's partly just really good execution of the core sales effort. We've had some good momentum in other countries, as well.

It really, outside of some pockets, overall, the geographies have performed well, and it's modernization of the go-to-market strategy, it's programmatic in the markets where we've been able to move that direction, and it's just some really good sales execution by the teams. As to whether it makes sense, you know, it... I do very much think our long-term future is as a U.S.-focused business, and so, I don't think that, there's necessarily a long-term role for the business in our portfolio. But at the same time, you know, we very much appreciate the excellent performance, and I think it gives us flexibility as we negotiate with the different parties, and that's something we'll certainly take advantage of.

Cameron McVeigh
Equity Research Analyst, Morgan Stanley

Got it. As you look to make that exit, how much corporate expense is associated with the European and LatAm segments?

Scott Wells
CEO, Clear Channel Outdoor

So, we are gonna be doing a full kind of bottom-up budget build, but what we've been talking about directionally is, on the order of $30 million. That as we simplify the portfolio, about $30 million would come out, much of that directly in those countries, some of it at the corporate center. But we, you know, need to sharpen the pencil and work on that, you know, more extensively as we get closer. Any exit, there's gonna be a tail to it as we work our way through, you know, transition services, which we will get paid for, presumably, and then ultimately an unwind. You know, you're gonna have tax filings still to do and things along those lines.

It's not a flick of a switch, but about $30 million is the right way to think about at a high level.

Cameron McVeigh
Equity Research Analyst, Morgan Stanley

That's helpful. Thank you. Do you see Clear Channel in a position to participate in domestic M&A this year? And at what point would Clear Channel consider selling some U.S. assets?

Scott Wells
CEO, Clear Channel Outdoor

So I think we always are open-minded about M&A participation, but we're also very realistic about our balance sheet, and that doesn't give us a lot of flexibility to be on the buy side. As for the sell side, you know, we've talked about this a fair bit. Our tax basis in the U.S. is pretty low, and our leverage level is pretty high. And so when you're in a situation, you know, unless you could get really, really elevated multiples, there's probably not. You know, you'd kind of be descaling the business and kind of exposing your corporate cost even more without actually deleveraging, which I don't know is the trade we're looking to do. So, it's always a possibility.

It's certainly not something that we're, you know, adamant that no, under no circumstances would we sell U.S. markets. But I don't think that's the likeliest direction we'll focus as we put Europe and LatAm divestitures, you know, in the taillights.

Cameron McVeigh
Equity Research Analyst, Morgan Stanley

Sure. That makes sense. On the recent earnings call, you spoke to improving business trends. I guess broadly, could you speak to how current discussions with advertisers are going, now that we're, you know, into March?

Scott Wells
CEO, Clear Channel Outdoor

Sure. Well, it really has been interesting because from kind of Labor Day last year on, the quality of the dialogue has gone up, and it really does feel, as we've come out of the gates this year, that we're in a much better place across, and that's true with the national advertisers as well as the local advertisers. I don't know whether it's all of the current speculation of a soft landing or if it's... I'm not sure what is behind it. Some of it is stuff that we've generated ourselves. Like, I look at the work we've done in packaged goods and in pharma, you know, where we've created opportunities for ourselves. But a lot of it is just also people starting to come back to the segment.

In the case of insurance, that's something we think this year we'll see auto insurance come back, which they were a massive advertiser in the out-of-home space, you know, kinda pre-COVID. And I don't think they'll get back to kinda 2019 levels, but I think they're gonna come back, and I think they're gonna be happy as they come back with the impact that that drives for them. You know, I think that business services just continues to be really, really strong all across the country. A lot of different home improvement things are strong right now. So the dialogue with advertisers is going well, and of course, it's wonderful to have the actors and the writers back, you know, bringing that kind of entertainment vertical back.

I don't know that that'll help us a lot here in Q1, but I think it'll help us a lot as the year builds.

Cameron McVeigh
Equity Research Analyst, Morgan Stanley

That's helpful. That leads me to my next question. Where you called out some weakness in Northern California, where we are now, San Francisco. You know, with an M&E, somewhat of an M&E recovery, is that enough to turn around growth in this geography?

Scott Wells
CEO, Clear Channel Outdoor

So, California, if you look at our 10-K, you can see that, kinda universally in California, we had softness last year. So Sacramento, San Diego, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, with San Francisco being the most pronounced. M&E really only impacted L.A. in that mix. So, media and entertainment is not... it's not what caused California to be soft last year, and it's not gonna cause California to come roaring back, by itself, although it will certainly- it'll certainly help in Los Angeles, and there were definitely knock-on effects in Los Angeles as well, in terms of restaurants and retail and other... 'cause there were a lot of people out of work for a long time, last year, in that market.

There are some technical things or idiosyncratic things where in 2022, California had a lot of money coming from the government promoting COVID vaccines and other COVID stuff, and that washed out over the course of 2023. So that's out of the comps at this point. And then San Francisco, at its core, it's a national advertiser story, and it's a tech story. It's really those two pieces that caused it to be as soft as it was last year. And we're definitely seeing things moving in a better direction as we come out of the gates. So I think we will...

You know, it did shrink in Q4 a bit, but the degree of shrinkage was less and, you know, we're optimistic we're gonna see growth as that builds. So, media and entertainment will help, but it's gonna be these other factors. I do think tech is coming back in a pretty nice way as the year gets started. You know, touch wood, we'll see that continue to build.

Cameron McVeigh
Equity Research Analyst, Morgan Stanley

Right. Definitely. And just to wrap up the point, you know, national, the national ad market had seen pockets of softness throughout last year. In the fourth quarter, both local and national sales were relatively similar. National was up, I think, 30 basis points, local up 60. I know you've mentioned that national is more channel-specific, but would you expect the growth to diverge between the two into 2024?

Scott Wells
CEO, Clear Channel Outdoor

Well, I think in Q4, it was actually kind of a weak print for local in Q4 for us in the America business. I mean, airports is a whole different story, and the national part of airports was on fire. So, it's not just the national advertisers not wanting to do out-of-home. They just weren't all that keen on billboards necessarily at that particular part. But I think you're gonna see, I think you're gonna see local get back, you know, into that kind of low- to mid-single-digit growth cadence. And, you know, touch wood, national will be a little less moody. I think last year we had two up quarters and two down quarters with national. We'd like to see-...

good four quarters stable, but I can't, I can't promise we'll get that. But the leading indicators are encouraging on that front.

Cameron McVeigh
Equity Research Analyst, Morgan Stanley

That's great. Just speak about your RADAR suite, your RADAR solutions. You know, what does RADAR offer to advertisers? What is it? And, you know, is it similar to other media?

Scott Wells
CEO, Clear Channel Outdoor

Sure. So RADAR is what we call our planning and attribution suite of tools. So we have RADAR View, that is a visualization and planning tool, so that you can go in and say, "I wanna see young women, you know, 18-36, that are intending to buy cars." And you can go in and you can visualize in a given market where those folks are from an over-indexing perspective, and use that to plan. RADAR Proof is the attribution tool, and we can do attribution on an awful lot of things. It started out just with footfall, but we can do things like app downloads. We can do script uplift, which is how we're doing the pharma progress that we've done. We can do...

We can do an awful lot of different things with RADAR Proof. RADAR Connect is our digital medium adjunct. So you can buy mobile ads, you can buy CTV by, you know, using the same characteristics that you used in that RADAR View plan to supplement your campaign. And then RADAR Sync is when we actually go in and connect through, like, a LiveRamp or a data clean room with the first-party data that an advertiser has, and that's something that with some of our largest advertisers we're doing. So it's a pretty robust tool set. Again, it's gonna be at the kind of aggregated segment level as opposed to one-to-one.

We're not gonna, not gonna be able to do things that, that say, "Okay, we're gonna go get Cameron on, on this particular..." It, it hasn't reached Minority Report status, nor do I, nor do I expect it's going to, with the, with the trends in, in privacy and things along those lines. But, but that's, that's the tool set, and it is... It's, it's pretty robust. I, I, I'm not gonna say we can outmaneuver Meta. They certainly have more, more data and more opportunities to, to aggregate data than we do. But in terms of giving people a good, robust ROI tool, it's very effective.

Cameron McVeigh
Equity Research Analyst, Morgan Stanley

At your Investor Day a little over a year ago, digital transformation was a theme that came out, and you highlighted, you know, a few different means of transformation, you digitizing order flow, integrating programmatic selling, and potentially, you know, future self-serve capabilities for SMBs. Can you discuss how these investments have been going and, you know, the potential long-term impact to the business?

Scott Wells
CEO, Clear Channel Outdoor

Yeah, I mean, this remains... Creating a digital experience across our whole business is what unifies our strategy. And getting to where, from the idea to the proposal, to the order, to the cash, and having that all flow smoothly, electronically, is a crucial thing that we're working on and have done a lot of work on. I think we're in a good place on it. If anything, in some ways, we were too productive at it because we absorbed the great demand that came out in COVID without having to add people, so that was fantastic during kind of the latter part of 2021 and the beginning of 2022.

You know, when I was on that stage talking about that, or Erika was talking about it in September of 2022, we were at a moment where the market was starting to shift, and the demand profile was getting tougher. Because we had absorbed so much business, we hadn't had the pressure on our local teams to staff up their sales teams as much as we would have liked, and that is one of the contributing factors. So maybe we were too successful in our automation efforts, but we have addressed the staffing issue on the sales team over the course of 2023 and here at the beginning of this year. So, you know, overall, I'd say we're on track with the investments.

We're in the midst of making a shift in how we actually serve digital ads, and we're doing it in airports first. We're moving off a homegrown system to a vendor-supplied system that should have some productivity benefits for us as well, as well as robustness and sort of stability benefits. So, it's ongoing, but good progress.

Cameron McVeigh
Equity Research Analyst, Morgan Stanley

Got it. That's helpful. Speaking of digital, you know, your digital revenue now accounts for roughly 46%, I think, of consolidated. You know, as you think about the business long term, what would you expect the long-term digital share of revenue to represent, and how does that differ across geographies?

Scott Wells
CEO, Clear Channel Outdoor

So, it's very different already. I think we talk about, you know, the UK is probably our farthest along big market, and they're north of 70% in terms of digital revenue as a percentage of it. Within the US, we have a handful of markets that are over 50% digital, and this is on the roadside product. Airports, it's very airport specific. Some airports are very digital, some not as much, but airports is farther into digital, but it doesn't have the kind of magic economics that many of the people in this room like, and so we don't talk about the digital transformation in that business in quite the same way.

It just doesn't work with the same uplift factor because of the revenue share dynamic in it. So how far could it go? I think, you know, getting to where at some point, at some point in the next decade, you're gonna see a bifurcation of out-of-home buys, where a part of out-of-home is going to stay firmly in the real estate buy, where everything was a decade ago. So, a decade ago, kinda everything was a real estate buy. A subset of the inventory is gonna stay as a real estate buy because it's gonna be those, like, incredible marquee locations in Times Square or Sunset Strip or certain airports or things like that, where the audience justifies a really premium product.

But the rest of it is gonna become more like other digital media, which is an impression-based buy, and the value of the impression is gonna be based on what the audience is. You know, neurosurgeons are gonna be... Well, neurosurgeons that specify equipment, you know, CIOs for hospitals are gonna be a very valuable and hard-to-reach segment. Whereas those auto intenders I was talking about before maybe are a less, and it will evolve in that direction. And I think that we're seeing the beginnings of that with the success in programmatic, 'cause that's very much how programmatic is bought and sold.

But we're starting to see it trickle in because the local markets have actually gotten very comfortable buying this way, with the work that they do with the digital players, like the Googles or Metas or so forth. And so I think we're gonna adapt to that, and so you're gonna see a shift, and as the business gets more digital, you're gonna see us creating a lot of different kind of buy cases for people. That the core real estate type of buys will still exist, but they'll be supplemented with lots of different ways of selling that inventory.

Cameron McVeigh
Equity Research Analyst, Morgan Stanley

Got it. As you think of digital conversions in the U.S., from a, you know, run rate perspective, do you have an ideal run rate in mind, as you continue to convert boards?

Scott Wells
CEO, Clear Channel Outdoor

So our pipeline management, there's an OpEx/CapEx relationship that we're in kind of a zone that works with where we are from a leverage perspective and from a size perspective. That, you know, somewhere between kind of 90-120 boards is that kind of sweet spot delivery, with the caveat that we're always working on getting the lumpy, it's what I call discontinuous on the revenue generation. It's the same thing with digital. If you think back, there was a period of time in Clear Channel's history where we had a big discontinuity in our digital revenue because we were building out LA. There was a time when we had a big discontinuity in digital revenue because we were building out Dallas.

If we can get a big city to allow scale conversion, we'll take that 90- 120, you know, to 200 in a year if we, if we need to. But it's really predicated on getting those, those lumpy kind of, kind of opportunities for the number to be a lot higher for us.

Cameron McVeigh
Equity Research Analyst, Morgan Stanley

That's helpful. Just on this digital point, to tie it up, you think about your guidance, yeah, how much of a contributor are digital boards and conversions to growth?

Scott Wells
CEO, Clear Channel Outdoor

I mean, they're always part of our... As we build our guidance up, one of the key things we're looking at is how many digitals and where and when. That's part of how we actually we build the guidance, and because it's quite predictable. It usually takes 3-6 months for a unit to ramp, but once the unit ramps, you're getting 4-5 times what revenue you were getting out of a location. And so it's something that we're able to build into our plans and our budgets pretty effectively. It's not the prevailing thing, but it's, you know, I, I'd call it somewhere in that quarter to a third of our annual growth is coming out of the new inventory.

Cameron McVeigh
Equity Research Analyst, Morgan Stanley

Got it. Shifting more to airports. Very strong growth in the quarter, about 44% year-on-year. Can you discuss some of the growth drivers for airports? And then, yeah, how much of an impact does general ridership trends have over maybe digital conversions of airport boards? And then what's an appropriate long-term growth rate to assume for airports?

Scott Wells
CEO, Clear Channel Outdoor

Sure. So, the Q4 growth was phenomenal, and it was a record quarter for that team. The New York airports were a big part of it, particularly Terminal A at Newark. That came online in January of last year, and so Q4 was the last... It's always seasonally our strongest quarter, and it was the kind of last fresh quarter for that new inventory. We'll still have a very strong performance into Q1 because we did have a slow start to last year. The airports team, you all probably don't really even remember this necessarily, but January and February, we had a advertiser shift their campaign from Q1 to the balance of the year. They kind of took a chunk of Q2, Q3, and Q4 instead...

And they did it late in the year before, so we didn't get that backfilled. But they did a fantastic job recovering from that and having a really strong year. I think long run, airports should be something that people look at as also kind of a GDP plus type inventory. That's the sustainable rate on it. It does relate to the number of passengers, for sure, but it also relates just to, you know, how effectively we're bringing categories in. The team has done some really excellent work on creating the notion of sponsorship in a lot of our airports, and so that's basically a revenue stream we didn't have, you know, a few years back.

And that concept is something we're actually looking to expand and build on because it really does resonate with marketers being the, you know, healthcare partner of whatever airport or the healthcare, you know, expert on—in, in a terminal or the banking partner of a terminal, you know, that kind of thing. So that is something that we've gotten more effective at. And so I talked about the long-term rate. I think... Did I answer all the parts of your question there?

Cameron McVeigh
Equity Research Analyst, Morgan Stanley

I think so. The other was just the general digital conversions and the budget share shift, but-

Scott Wells
CEO, Clear Channel Outdoor

Yeah, I mean, that's really driven by the airport contracts. Everybody wants to have a highly digital contract, a highly digital airport now. It's just a question of how much does the traffic justify the investment? Because you can't do what we do at JFK in, you know, a small regional airport. That just would be overkill.

Cameron McVeigh
Equity Research Analyst, Morgan Stanley

Sure. It's a you know, U.S. political election year, and there's been some back and forth on the, you know, how much of an impact political has on outdoor advertising. They're curious what your thoughts are there, if it's how much of a crowding out effect, you know, it has on the industry versus just pure political advertising coming into billboards.

Scott Wells
CEO, Clear Channel Outdoor

So we don't get a lot of pure... Like, when you talk about the like national races, so the President, the Senate, the House, we don't get a lot of those dollars historically. We are trying, like the dickens, to get them. We are in a lot of swing states, so would like to think we have some opportunity there. But getting the political operatives to embrace out-of-home, it's convincing them that they can be as fast and agile on it as they can be on other digital media, which they can be, but it's a tough nut to crack. We've got to get somebody elected who's very prominent on the back of out-of-home, and then we'll have a story to tell. So stay tuned.

We'll, we'll see if we can pull that off this year. But we do get a benefit in political years from the crowding out effect you referenced. So, it's a dialogue we have, you know, particularly in swing states, where the TV schedule gets so loaded with political ads that local advertisers or even national advertisers want to get onto other media, so that they can get their products out there during election season. And so we'll see some benefit from that. It's not anything we've ever been able to, like, size, 'cause it's kind of idiosyncratic how it comes in. But that is a tailwind in an election year. And God willing, we'll get some, you know, top-line political dollars, but stay tuned.

We haven't, haven't gotten to the point that I can say for sure.

Cameron McVeigh
Equity Research Analyst, Morgan Stanley

Let's shift to your margins. Abatements should taper off over the course of the year, both the Americas and Airports segments. How are you thinking about margins and, you know, the drivers of margin expansion over time?

Scott Wells
CEO, Clear Channel Outdoor

So, yeah, abatements should—this should be our last year of abatements in airports, and there shouldn't be much of anything in roadside. If there is, it would be because of a lawsuit that has lingered, but I'm not holding my breath. So the abatements should stabilize. In terms of margin over time, the single biggest thing that we could accomplish is getting more of our business on the less super premium assets. One of the things that's a real challenge is in a super premium market like what we've had, where you're selling everything that you've got in Times Square and on Sunset Strip and things like that, those tend to be our most expensive and most likely to be revenue share leases.

So to the degree—I mean, one of the cores to our strategy of working with pharma is they really value reach, and for reach, that puts you a lot of times in neighborhoods and on secondary roads, and that is a big area. When we tend to be posting heavily in those areas, that tends to drive a lot of operating leverage because you're on fixed cost leases that are not terribly expensive. So that is a core part of why we're going after that particular vertical. It's one of the things that as we work with a variety of the other verticals, we're trying to drive more movement in that direction. You know, we're always working on reducing lease expense.

Our teams, you know, take out a meaningful amount of that every year, but we're also up against ratchets and contracts, so it's kind of a forever battle as contracts you know increase in value. We renegotiate ones that are not getting used as much, and you work your way. You know, I think you're already seeing that as we get past. We had that one big contract come up last year that kinda was $3 million or $4 million every quarter. We got past that in Q4, and you saw that our site lease was up around 2%. So we're gonna be striving to you know keep those increases as minimized. And I mean, for the company as a whole, it's also a matter of mix.

We had such a strong year in Northern Europe and airports last year, but we didn't see a lot of flow-through from it because those, those are, you know, largely rev share contract. It's just, you know, we, we need to mix toward the, the U.S. roadside, is what we're looking to do.

Cameron McVeigh
Equity Research Analyst, Morgan Stanley

Right. That's helpful. Just have a few minutes left here to open up to any audience Q&A, if there is any.

Speaker 3

Could you talk a little bit about the lease contracts that you have in place as you go to invest in upgrading these roadside boards to digital? Like, what's the term of the contract?

Scott Wells
CEO, Clear Channel Outdoor

Well, usually the first thing we do when we're gonna convert a digital sign is we lock in a long-term lease or we buy an easement. We don't buy as many easements as I wish we did. That's a function of our balance sheet. But we're always trying to lock in either ownership of the location or have a long-term, fixed-cost lease. So that's it. It's part of the process, frankly, of how we do digital conversions.

Speaker 3

What is long-term?

Scott Wells
CEO, Clear Channel Outdoor

Long-term is kinda 7+ years. I mean, it is a little bit driven by location, because the closer you get to, like, a New York City or a Los Angeles, the harder it's gonna be to get a fixed lease for that long. So you have to factor that into the mix.

Speaker 3

Is the investment off the profit?

Scott Wells
CEO, Clear Channel Outdoor

For the vast majority of our signs, we're the ones putting the CapEx out. We've historically worked with some advertisers where they actually underwrote the conversion, but that's the exception. It's almost always us.

Speaker 3

Scott, just on visibility through the year, you guys relative to other media, have a pretty good look into how, like, Q1's already shaping up. Just remind us, like, how much of sort of Q1, Q2 do you already have line of sight into, and how does that inform, you know, what seems like a pretty positive outlook on just advertiser demand right now?

Scott Wells
CEO, Clear Channel Outdoor

Yeah. So we do what we call our Upfront. We call it that for lack of a better word. I know we need to rebrand it, 'cause it's not like the Upfront TV does. But we do that between October and February. We just wrapped up this year's and that's when we do all of our Perms, and Perms kinda defined as anything six months or longer, roughly. But we exit that period, and at the time we're doing our earnings, we usually have about half of our revenue for the year on the books. And that's spread pretty uniformly. Obviously, we know more about January and February than we do about November and December.

But I think of the way to characterize, you know, in quarter, when we do an earnings call, in quarter, we're close to fully good on knowing what's gonna happen. For the next quarter, we usually have a fairly high degree of visibility, you know, call it in the mid-70s% already on the books. And then for the ensuing six months, you know, you're probably talking more like 50% on the books at those times, roughly. It is better visibility than a lot of businesses.

Speaker 3

Great. In reference to the transactions that, you referred to, any, any timeline that you can in terms of your expectations for Europe and Latin America?

Scott Wells
CEO, Clear Channel Outdoor

No, we need to keep our negotiating flexibility high at this point, but we will share concrete news just as soon as we have it. Promise you that.

Speaker 3

Correct. 4-5 times regularly.

Scott Wells
CEO, Clear Channel Outdoor

Oh, it's-

Speaker 3

Location.

Scott Wells
CEO, Clear Channel Outdoor

It's kind of shockingly consistent. It, it sorta scales up and down based on where the location is. So, you know, if it's a, if it's a less costly secondary street, you gotta make sure that your conversion is inexpensive because you're not gonna get 10 times, because it's like in a... You're gonna get roughly what that value is, you know, 4-5 times, and it's pretty, it's pretty rock solid. I think the next group is about to come in.

Cameron McVeigh
Equity Research Analyst, Morgan Stanley

Scott-

Scott Wells
CEO, Clear Channel Outdoor

So we probably need to wrap.

Cameron McVeigh
Equity Research Analyst, Morgan Stanley

Thank you so much.

Scott Wells
CEO, Clear Channel Outdoor

Thank you, Cameron.

Cameron McVeigh
Equity Research Analyst, Morgan Stanley

A lot of time.

Scott Wells
CEO, Clear Channel Outdoor

Appreciate it.

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