Peter Thompson
Thank you, Alfred. So consolidated net revenue was approximately $92.2 million, down 11.7% year-over-year. Net revenue for the Radio Broadcasting segment was $32.6 million, a decrease of 10.3% year-over-year. Excluding political, net revenue was down 7.7% year-over-year. According to Miller Kaplan, our local ad sales were down 12.8% against our markets that were down 13.2%. Our national ad sales were down 14.6% against our markets being down 11.6%. Our largest radio ad category was services, which was up 11%, driven by legal services.
Travel and transportation was up 17%, but that's our smallest category. Telecom, financial categories were up low single digits. All of the other major categories were down, including health care, entertainment, retail, government, auto, food, and beverage. Net revenue for each Media segment was $5.9 million in the first quarter, which is down 30.9% from the prior year.
And adjusted EBITDA at each was a loss of $600,000 for the quarter. A combination of client attrition and lower average unit rates drove that decline. Net revenues for the Digital segment were down 16.2% in Q1 at $10.2 million. Audio streaming revenue was down by $2.1 million in the quarter due to the renegotiation of an exclusive third-party deal, and that impacted adjusted EBITDA, which was $58,000 compared to $2.3 million in the prior year.
We recognized approximately $44.2 million of revenue from our cable television segment during the quarter, a decrease of 7.9%. Cable TV advertising revenue was down 6.3%. TV One delivery declined 18% in total day persons 25, 54, which is partially offset by an increase in CLEO TV, which was up 29% in total day persons 25, 54 delivery and also favorable AVOD and FAST revenue of $1.1 million, which resulted in a net ad revenue decline of $1.7 million.
Cable TV affiliate revenue was down by 10%, driven by subscriber churn which is about $3.3 million, partially offset by $1.3 million which is a combination of subscriber rate increases and the launch of NOW TV. Cable subscribers for TV One, as measured by Nielsen, finished Q1 at 35.6 million compared to 37.2 million at the end of Q4.
CLEO TV had 35 million Nielsen subs. Operating expenses, excluding depreciation and amortization, stock-based compensation and impairment of goodwill, intangible assets and long-lived assets, decreased to approximately $80.7 million for the quarter, a decrease of 8.6% from the prior year.
The overall decrease in operating expense was primarily due to lower third-party professional fees in the corporate segment, lower content expenses for cable television, and lower employee compensation as a result of recent cost savings measures.
Radio operating expenses were down 2.9% or approximately $0.9 million, driven by lower employee compensation costs. Reach operating expenses were down 1.7%, again, driven by lower employee compensation costs. Operating expenses in the Digital segment were up 3.2%, and that was driven by higher traffic acquisition costs, partially offset by lower employee compensation.
Operating expenses in the Cable TV segment were down 10.8% year-over-year, driven by lower programming content expense, on-air promotions, and employee compensation costs. Operating expenses in the Corporate and Eliminations segment were down by approximately $3.8 million, driven by lower third-party professional fees.
Consolidated adjusted EBITDA was approximately $12.9 million, down 42.2%. Consolidated broadcast and digital operating income was approximately $23 million, a decrease of 28.1%. Interest and investment income was approximately $1 million in the first quarter compared to $2 million last year.
The decrease was due to lower cash balances and interest-bearing investment accounts. Interest expense decreased to approximately $10.9 million for Q1, down from $13 million last year, due to the lower overall debt balances as a result of the company's debt reduction strategy.
The company made cash interest payments of approximately $21.6 million in the quarter. During the quarter, the company repurchased $28.2 million of its 2028 notes at an average price of 58% of par, bringing the balance at quarter end to $556.348 million. In April, the company repurchased an additional $60.4 million in notes at an average price of 51.9%.
And as Alfred said, that brings the current balance on the debt to $495.93 million. We recorded $6.4 million in noncash impairments in Q1 against the carrying value of our FCC licenses in five of our radio markets, which are Dallas, Indianapolis, Raleigh, Philadelphia, and Cleveland. The provision for income taxes was approximately $15.7 million for the first quarter, as we booked an additional $14.6 million valuation allowance against our NOL balances.
The company paid cash income taxes in the amount of $33,000. Capital expenditures were approximately $2.5 million. Net loss was approximately $11.7 million or $0.26 per share compared to net income of $7.5 million or $0.15 per share for the first quarter of 2024. During the three months ended March 31, 2025, the company repurchased 449,252 shares of Class A common stock in the amount of approximately $700,000 at an average price of $1.48 per share.
And we also repurchased 303,622 shares of Class D common stock in the amount of approximately $300,000 at an average price of $0.87 per share. As of March 31, total gross debt was approximately $556.3 million.
Ending unrestricted cash was $115.1 million, resulting in net debt of approximately $441.3 million compared to $94.1 million of LTM reported adjusted EBITDA for a total net leverage ratio of 4.69 times. And finally, we recast the comparable periods for 2024 to reflect the move of $7.9 million of CTV revenue from digital to TV and also the reapportionment of cross-platform sales and marketing expenses. We talked about that on the last earnings call.
A number of questions came up, so we thought we'd just give you the comps from prior quarters with those recast numbers. And with that, I'll hand back to Alfred.
Alfred Liggins
Thank you very much. Operator, we can go to the lines for Q&A.
Operator
Ben Briggs, StoneX Financial Inc.
Ben Briggs
Hey, good morning guys. Thank you for taking the call. Absolutely. Yeah, so a couple here. So first of all, I do notice that you guys did some cost cutting during the quarter, the, both the programming and technical expense line and the SGNA and corporate line, I think we're down a little bit. What other levers do you have, that that you can pull to kind of control costs as the year goes on and in the future?
Alfred Liggins
Yeah I mean I said last conference call that we we we we did a bunch of year end last year, cost cutting measures and I think it saved us about $5 million we are focused on taking another look at that, for this year we haven't.
Got there, that you know probably will focus on that so that it it's done by the middle of the year so you know really focused on kind of like an end of June, you know. Execution date on that and and so look I don't want to go into the specifics quite frankly I don't have all of the opportunities you know off the top of my head and even if I did I certainly wouldn't want to announce them on a conference call you know.
Yeah, let, let's say we do believe that there are, our other opportunities, and plan to take advantage of them, but we're really manage. To our guidance, and then looking to see if we're we're doing better. Our guidance of 75 not include any back half cost cuts that we might find.
Ben Briggs
Got it. Got it. That's helpful. Thank you. So, that's a great segue into my next question, which is, I feel like you had indicated that we should expect the majority of EBITDA to come in the second half of 2025. Am I.
Alfred Liggins
Remembering I, hey, hang on.
Peter Thompson
Yeah, we're.
Alfred Liggins
We're getting repeat that.
Ben Briggs
Sorry, I apologize. I said I feel like you had indicated that you're expecting the majority of either of this year to come in the second half of the year. Is that, do I remember correctly? Is that accurate?
Peter Thompson
Yeah, so more than half for sure.
Ben Briggs
Right, can you give any guidance for what you think the 2nd quarter has in store as far as. As far as you better expectations.
Peter Thompson
I don't think we're going to give specific guidance. I think from the pacing you, Alfred said that radio is weak and dry or relative to where we were last time, so, we should expect that to be down.
Digital digital almost all of our profit is forecast to be in the back half of the year, so we're not going to be strongly profitable in the second quarter and then TV.
TV ratings down a little bit down a bit, being compensated for by Clio. We, we're hitting our budget of numbers in terms of delivery and so there might be some upside in the back half of the year, but looking at where radio is at, that might need to wash against radio. So I think Q2 will be. A little bit better than one, but similarly weak and then we got to deliver in the back half of the year then.
Ben Briggs
Got it. Got it. And then finally, obviously there have been additional debt repurchases, I know that the market likes to see those. Should we expect, further debt repurchases as the year goes on, or or is it more?
Alfred Liggins
As I've been told many times before, the best predictor of the future is our actions of the past. You've heard that too? I have.
Yeah I mean look I mean we we try not try we deliberately, are opportunistic, right? Like, we don't like it when. We announced hey we're going to go in the market and then everybody looks at that as an opportunity for, our debt to trade up and expects us to pay more, right? And so we're in, we're out, we got a price that we want to try to get it at it's nothing personal to debt holders but at the end of the day buying.
Back debt at a discount for those funds that want to sell, and you know ultimately helps the company and so yeah you know we'll we'll we'll we'll we'll continue to do that almost always though any time we go into the market, the price goes up right just because you know you got.
You, we're the most motivated buyer, right? You know what I mean, and, I think at the end of the last conference call, the debt had been trading at like 49.5. And then when we got to the market, literally that same day or shortly thereafter, I think our cumulative purchases during that period of time were kind of like almost at 52, right, so you know.
Yeah, we're okay with that, like, I mean that's, we had some big trades of people who, wanted to exit and wanted to see, some sort of uplift, and it's good for everybody, but as you can see the, vast vast vast majority of our capital is is is going to that, so I mean.
We took out tens of millions of dollars of debt since the last call.
And look unfortunately I think we're we're we're continuing to still be in a position, to be impactful, you know with that so.
Ben Briggs
Okay, if you were to draw the revolver, that wouldn't, I don't think that would restrict you at all in debt buybacks, would it?
Alfred Liggins
No. Yeah, I mean they're, yeah, look, it's not most of most of the people on this call are investors and smart investors and so you know it shouldn't be lost on anybody that we do have an undrawn revolver, right? So you know. That you know that capital is, available for, all things including if we used all of our cash to buy back debt and we needed operating funds, right, to do that so our liquidity position is, it remains. Very soft and gives us some options.
Ben Briggs
Okay, alright, I think that's going to be all from me right now. I'll give some other people the chance to ask questions. Thanks again thank.
Alfred Liggins
You, thank you very much. Next question, operator.
Operator
Aaron Watts, Deutsche Bank.
Aaron Watts
Hey guys, thank you for having me on. A couple questions around the ad environment on the radio side. I think you noted additional weakness crept in between your last call and today. To the extent we continue to get positive headlines out of DC like what happened this week. Do you think advertising can flip back positive as quickly as it softened? What do you think your ad partners need to see or hear to start ramping spend back up?
Alfred Liggins
I mean, I think they need to know what their expense profile is going to look like going forward, right? And with the tariff picture moving, weekly, right, changing weekly difficult to. Difficult to forecast that, so, unfortunately, Procter and Gamble and General Motors don't share, their ad strategies, with us. Yeah, I mean they'll tell, they'll they'll, yeah, actually it's really interesting. I've had a couple high level conversations with some monstrous advertisers and you know most of these big guys, they don't want to.
Disclose what their ad budgets are, right? Like, those that you know that's proprietary information, right? How much you're you're spending, to compete in the marketplace, so, strategy, really core strategy that would result in how much money is going into the ad market into what. Into which verticals, is not readily available and I get it you know it's really kind of a trade secret for them right you know and so I we just don't have visibility into that but I can tell you we do know when their ad budgets are getting cut or put on hold and then they will tell you it's because of uncertainty.
I mean it's no secret that you've seen you know reports that the consumer is cool. Down cooling off or whatever spend is slowing down uncertainty and I mean at the end of the day regardless of where the tariff land tariffs land, they're going to land at, some higher level than they were before, right? And that's, and I saw something this morning on CNBC where you know they were talking about the forecast of some of these companies out there which assume.
That they're going to take all of the additional tariff expense and roll it into pass ons you know to price increases. Which ultimately is inflationary, which you know one would think, there's a knock-on effect, on the recession, but I'm not an economist. I don't know this economy has been, chopping down, trees and plowing through all kinds of headwinds so far bit for me to predict, you know what's truly going to cause a recession. And what its ultimate impact on the ad market now, is, it's not positive at this point in time.
So I guess in a roundabout way this is just Alfred Liggin's opinion period period in the story. I do not think you're going to see a positive ad rebound this year, because I think a lot of these guys have already, once you take expense off the table in a corporate environment, it generally stays off the table for the remainder of that of of of of that budget cycle.
Aaron Watts
Yeah, no, that all makes sense, so more a hope of stabilization than any real positive significant bounce this year. Yeah, okay, and I did hear you talk about National being a driver of the weakness right now. How have your more local SMBs you work with been behaving comparatively and if you have it, I don't, what's your split between national and local these days? .
Alfred Liggins
What is it, Peter, is it 75, 25 or.
Peter Thompson
It's more 75, 25, that's sort of excluding the digital.
Alfred Liggins
Piece. I went through with the radio guys and and I have a, weekly call with them now. And look they were crowing, locals actually not doing that bad, right? Like I think they were, telling me that our local, was only down it was like less than 2%, like 1.5% we were looking at pacings, about, a week ago, two weeks ago, the driver for us is national and also we're having.
Digital issues, for a couple of reasons and I articulate them, about, changes, in our podcast and streaming deals, that were, are out there and also the fact that we're under penetrated in our local. Or digital efforts and so the answer to your question is, local in the radio business is down but it's not down you know it's not down double digits not down as dramatically it's down.
Low single digits, so I would say that that's a positive sign. We're going we're going to lap our digital issues, and and we're looking to improve our digital efforts and so one would think that I mean you've got two things that drive national ads. Right, you got, yeah, the market sentiment, okay, and when I say market, consumer sentiment, what advertisers think about, consumer activity and their prospects for business, but you also have the continued digital transition away from analog, into in Digital platforms and so.
National definitely is the negative spot, right now, and I hope that abates at at some point in time after, stability, comes into play.
Peter Thompson
And just to clarify, just in terms of national dollars and radio dollars for for radio, it's 2 to 1. So for every $1 a national we we do roughly $2 of local. And the difference in the 75, 25 years old is digital or other, right?
So as a percentage of the total it's a different number, but relative to each other it's 2 for 1.
Aaron Watts
Okay, I got it. And Alfred, just one last one on what you were saying there at the end around digital once you iron out your kind of issues that you highlighted, do you still see growth opportunity across podcasts and I know digital means different things to different radio groups, but, what podcast, local digital whatever it means for you, market services.
Alfred Liggins
Look, our growth area for us is we have not played. In the local digital area we've had all of our efforts focused on our national digital, I don't want to say all of our efforts, because we've got, we do have a local digital, business, but you know we're probably doing high single digits of revenue when our competitors are doing, having it be 20% of their revenue. And so I, yeah, I do think that there are areas of growth, for us in that area doing a better job there.
Are, we don't cross pollinate our national products into the hands of our local sellers, intentionally at this point in time, iHeart does Odyssey has started, to do it as well. And we've got a lot of national products, that would give local sellers some great tools to go out and help local advertisers so that's something that we're focused on and we'll create you know a growth opportunity as well.
Aaron Watts
Alright great appreciate all the time thanks again.
Operator
(Operator Instructions)
Ken Silver, Stifel.
Ken Silver
Oh, hey, now I'm here thanks sorry about that. Hey Alfred and Peter, thanks for the time. I guess a few questions one is. If we look at the cable TV revenue, can you break it out between, carriage fees and advertising?
Peter Thompson
True. So are you obviously for the quarter we we do that on page, I think it's page 5 of the press release so you can.
Yeah, so you can see that if we go to page 7. I don't know if you have it in front of you, but.
Ken Silver
You do. Okay, I will if you, I apologize if you broke it out I'll, I will go. No.
Peter Thompson
That's that's okay. But it's there and if you you know if you need to know roughly what we think it's going to be for the year you can just reach out and I'll and --
Ken Silver
On the carriage side do you have what like what is your renewal schedule with all the large table other MVPDs?
Alfred Liggins
Charter is up in the fourth quarter October, is it? It's in the year charter is up at the end of the year, and Verizon is up but they've got an option.
And then at NCTC which is in September so we have NCTC Verizon, and Charter, up this year.
Ken Silver
And then what about and next year is it heavy or light next year?
Alfred Liggins
Comcast comes a year later, right?
Peter Thompson
AT&T and Comcast.
Alfred Liggins
AT&T and Comcast a year later.
Ken Silver
Okay, got it. And then you mentioned in your prepared remarks that ratings were down at TV one. Can you just. Help us understand that a little better.
Alfred Liggins
I said they stabilized, right? Yeah, so they were yeah they were down a lot last year, what 20 you know 20%, and and they bounced up off of their lows of of of of fourth quarter. And we, I think we budgeted what what our ratings were in fourth quarter for all of '25 and fourth quarter was kind of our low and we're actually exceeding that, year-to-date exceeding that budgeted number, so you know we're.
Averaging higher than our fourth quarter low which you know is which is good. And Clio especially and and and and and on our second network Clio especially.
Ken Silver
Okay and then obviously you're using a lot of cash flow for bond buy back which I think you know we all think this is a good use of capital but are you. In terms of programming spend, is it sort of steady as she goes, or do you have, potential to to grow it a lot?
Alfred Liggins
No, it's actually it's actually down a bit. I wouldn't say majorly say maybe down 10%.
Programming spend, oh yeah, well, the, yeah, the biggest down, the biggest drop, quarter of a quarter was, yeah, so we have an annual, award show that we didn't do, and then for the year, 10%, about 10% for the year and.
Ken Silver
And no, I mean, obviously there's a lot of content now there are no plans to sort of try to reinvigorate the business and spend a lot of money on programming.
Alfred Liggins
Well, the problem, the, no, there's not a plan.
Look, we've got, we are thinking through now what our options are to grow our TV business because we have to get more delivery, right? But you need, you, the idea that you go spend more money just to put it on your linear networks when the universe is shrinking.
On its own means that you're just going to lose, you're not you're you're going to lose on those content investments because you're you're going to lose audience regardless of you know any way you look at it however there are multiple new ways of delivering content, we continue to expand our FAST channel, distribution we're looking at. Another, other, and you know ad supported, distribution, opportunities, and potential, business models and so, I think that is.
Critical, that we invest and move in that area so I don't you you will not send us you you not see it you will not see us just investing in content with just to put it on this existing platform you will you know potentially. See us investing in content in combination with an expansion of new distribution opportunities, yeah, in in in the FAST and AVOD environment because we need other places to be able to monetize that content and so we're formulating those strategies right now and you got and and and you got you got approach that.
At the same time you're continuing to manage your balance sheet, etc.
Right now.
Peter Thompson
And Ken, just, Ken, just going back to your original question, I'm just looking at the relative breakout for the year, a little over 50% of TV One's revenue will be ad dollars and a little under 50% will be affiliate, and that's flipped from a few years ago where we used to be like 55% affiliate, 45% ad. Obviously as attrition attrition has reduced the affiliate line.
Ken Silver
Okay great okay thanks so much appreciate it.
Operator
And that will conclude our question-and-answer session. I'll turn the call back over to Alfred Liggins for any final comments.
Alfred Liggins
Thank you, everybody, for your support and continued interest in the story, and we'll talk to you next quarter.
Operator
That concludes today's call. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect.
