Clear Channel Outdoor - Q3 2023

Transcript

Moderator (participant)

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to Clear Channel Outdoor Holdings' 2023 Q3 earnings conference call. During the presentation, you can register to ask a question by pressing star followed by one on your telephone keypad. I will now turn the conference call over to your host, Eileen McLaughlin, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Eileen McLaughlin (VP of Investor Relations)

Good morning, and thank you for joining our call. On the call today are Scott Wells, our CEO, and Brian Coleman, our CFO. They will provide an overview of the 2023 Q3 operating performance of Clear Channel Outdoor Holdings, Inc., and Clear Channel International BV. We recommend you download the earnings presentation located in the financial section in our investor website and review this presentation during this call. After an introduction and a review of our results, we'll open the line for questions, and Justin Cochrane, CEO of Clear Channel UK and Europe, and Dave Sailer, CFO of Clear Channel Outdoor Americas, will join Scott and Brian during the Q&A portion of the call. Before we begin, I'd like to remind everyone that during this call, we may make forward-looking statements regarding the company, including statements about its future financial performance and its strategic goals.

All forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties, and there could be no assurance that management's expectations, beliefs, or projections will be achieved or that actual results will not differ from expectations. Please review the statements of risk contained in our earnings press release and our filings with the SEC. During today's call, we will also refer to certain measures that do not conform to generally accepted accounting principles. We provide schedules that reconcile these non-GAAP measures with our reported results on a GAAP basis as part of the earnings presentation. Also, please note that the information provided on this call speaks only to management's views as of today, November 8, 2023, and may no longer be accurate at the time of a replay. Please turn to slide 4 in the earnings presentation, and I will now turn the call over to Scott.

Scott Wells (CEO)

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for taking the time to join us today. We're pleased to report we delivered consolidated revenue of $517 million for the Q3, excluding movements in foreign exchange rates, reflecting a 2.7% increase as compared to the prior year. This revenue is within our guidance after excluding Europe South, which was moved to discontinued operations. Airports in Europe North stood out, with the America segment lagging, as anticipated when we provided Q3 guidance in August. Brian will go deeper on the drivers in America, but the combination of soft national sales and our market mix drove the challenge. We are seeing improving trends domestically and believe we'll have a better performance in the U.S. in the Q4.

While we knew 2023 would be a challenging year for several reasons, including unwinding COVID rent abatements and absorbing higher costs on a large roadside contract, as previously described, we expect our full year 2023 results to be within the guidance we provided in February, excluding Europe South, and are excited about the trajectory we are on as we head into 2024. As we've discussed previously, our management team and board are focused on driving meaningful deleveraging over the near to medium term. There are two key levers to affect this. One, continuing to execute our operating plan to organically grow Adjusted EBITDA and improve free cash flow, including taking action to further optimize our cost structure. And two, methodically working to monetize our European assets while we focus on our higher-margin markets.

With our recently completed sale of our business in France, we have made significant progress on our portfolio this year, selling or agreeing to sell all of the businesses in our Europe South segment. In addition, we have commenced the process to sell the businesses in our Europe North segment, and potential buyers are reviewing preliminary information. We have also initiated a strategic review of our businesses in Latin America and have hired an advisor to explore options for these businesses. While we can't guarantee the outcome of either process, we are confident that upon the sale of these assets, we will be a more focused U.S.-centric out-of-home operator with less debt and enhanced optionality to become a REIT. We also know that we must increase our Adjusted EBITDA in order to meaningfully reduce our leverage multiples.

So while we are executing our international divestiture processes, we are simultaneously continuing to focus our energies on executing our operating plan, including growing Adjusted EBITDA organically, expanding our advertiser base, optimizing our deployment of capital, and reducing corporate expenses. These actions include things like growing key verticals in the U.S., developing multiple channels to advertisers, turning around challenged markets, conducting a zero-based budget review of corporate expenses as our portfolio simplifies, and the deployment of proceeds from our divestitures to improve our liquidity position, reducing debt. We believe these actions provide the roadmap to achieve meaningfully lower leverage multiples over the next few years, which in turn should enable us to generate stronger free cash flow to support further deleveraging and to unlock shareholder value. Let me share a few proof points that support our belief in our ability to deliver.

In the Q2 of 2022, I stated that we were pivoting on our plan to sell all of Europe with the intention to sell the lower margin, lower priority European assets first, with the remaining businesses expected to have substantially higher adjusted EBITDA minus CapEx margins. As you can see from slide 5, which compares fiscal year 2022 actual results for the combined Europe North and Europe South segments to the Europe North segment guidance for fiscal year 2023. We now have a business that is more digitized, with higher segment-adjusted EBITDA minus CapEx margins as compared to our combined European businesses in 2022. These results demonstrate our team's ability to execute our strategy, including expanding our digital footprint and programmatic platform, and underscore the strength of the out-of-home industry.

We believe we now have a much more valuable and attractive Europe North business, and while we are committed to selling these assets, we will be disciplined in doing so to maximize value. Second, let me share some insight on the Q4. We expect two of our fastest-growing verticals in the U.S. will be pharma and packaged goods. These are verticals we've called out as opportunities for several quarters, and our sales teams are making good inroads in building business in both areas. In addition, we continue to see success in building our programmatic platform. Following a strong September, October has been our best month to date. Finally, let me return to where I started and call out that we believe our 2023 results will be within the guidance range we provided in February, after excluding the Europe South segment.

Looking forward, we believe we are poised for significant organic Adjusted EBITDA growth in 2024, and we will provide an in-depth outlook for 2024 on our Q4 call in February. So we know we have a lot of work ahead of us, but we believe we have the right team and strategy in place to deliver the full value we believe is inherent in our business. And on this score, I would like to share our appreciation for all the work our global team is doing as we focus on achieving our objectives. With that, let me hand the call over to Brian.

Brian Coleman (EVP and CFO)

Thank you, Scott. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining our call. Please turn to slide 6. As Scott mentioned, Europe South is now included in discontinued operations, as announced on October 31st, 2023. During the Q3 of 2023, our plan to sell the businesses comprising the Europe South segment met the criteria to be reported as discontinued operations. As a result, each of the Europe South segment businesses has been reclassified to discontinued operations in our financial statements for all periods presented, resulting in changes in presentation of certain amounts from prior periods. As a reminder, during our discussion of GAAP results, I'll also talk about our results excluding movements in foreign exchange rates, a non-GAAP measure. We believe this provides greater comparability when evaluating our performance.

Direct operating expenses and SG&A expenses include restructuring and other costs that are excluded from Adjusted EBITDA and segment Adjusted EBITDA. The amounts I refer to are for the Q3 of 2023, and the % changes are Q3 2023 compared to Q3 2022, unless otherwise noted. Now, on to the Q3 reported results. Consolidated revenue for the quarter was $527 million, a 4.7% increase. Excluding movements in the foreign exchange rates, consolidated revenue for the quarter was up 2.7% to $517 million. The Q3 consolidated revenue guidance we provided in August included a range of $70-80 million for France and Spain in the Europe South segment.

Excluding the Europe South segment, our Q3 consolidated revenue was within the adjusted guidance range of $500-520 million. If we had included the Europe South segment, consolidated revenue, excluding movements in foreign exchange rates, would have been $596 million, also in line with the guidance we provided in August of $570-600 million. The loss from continuing operations was $51 million, an increase over the prior year's loss from continuing operations of $19 million. The consolidated net loss of $263 million included a $201 million net loss on disposal of assets related to the sale of France. Adjusted EBITDA was $139 million, up 0.9%. Excluding movements in foreign exchange rates, adjusted EBITDA was down slightly.

As you will see in our results, rent abatements, which were down $11 million this quarter, continued to create a headwind. AFFO was $25 million in the Q3, down 27.3%. Excluding movements in foreign exchange rates, AFFO was down 33.5%. On to slide seven for the America segment Q3 results. America revenue was $279 million, down 1.9%, driven by weakness in our media entertainment vertical and the San Francisco Bay Area market. Digital revenue, which accounted for 35% of America revenue, was up slightly to $98 million. National sales, which accounted for 32.7% of America revenue, were down 14.9%. Local sales showed strength and accounted for 67.3% of America revenue, rising 6%.

Direct operating and FC&A expenses were up 1.7% to $157 million. The increase is primarily due to a 10.4% increase in site lease expense to $90 million, driven by lease renewals and amendments, as well as lower rent abatements, partially offset by lower property taxes related to a legal settlement and lower credit loss expense. Segment Adjusted EBITDA was $121 million, down 6.4%, with a segment Adjusted EBITDA margin of 43.5%, down from Q3 of 2022. Please turn to slide 8 for a review of the Q3 results for airports. Airports revenue was $76 million, up 21.2%. The robust increase in revenue was driven by increased demand due to the continued recovery of air travel after COVID-19 and investment in digital infrastructure....

Digital revenue, which accounted for 55.3% of Airports revenue, was up 15.6% to $42 million. National sales, which accounted for 56.8% of Airports revenue, were up 25.1%, and local sales accounted for 43.2% of Airports revenue and were up 16.6%. Direct operating and SC&A expenses were up 27% to $60 million. The increase is primarily due to a 47.9% increase in site lease expense to $47 million, driven by lower rent abatements and higher revenue. Segment adjusted EBITDA was $16 million, up 3.1%, with a segment adjusted EBITDA margin of 20.5%, which remains a bit elevated compared to normalized levels due to rent abatement. Next, please turn to slide 9 for a review of our performance in Europe North.

My commentary on Europe North is on results that have been adjusted to exclude movements in foreign exchange rates. Europe North revenue increased 4.5% to $142 million, driven primarily by higher revenues in the UK, Belgium, and Denmark, partially offset by lower revenues in Sweden and Norway. Digital accounted for 55.8% of Europe North total revenue and was up 8.5% to $79 million. Europe North direct operating and SC&A expenses were up 3.7% to $115 million. The increase is due to higher electricity prices, rental costs for additional digital displays, and higher property taxes. Site lease expense was down 0.7% to $53 million, driven by a contract renegotiation.

Europe North segment Adjusted EBITDA was up 9.2% to $26 million, and the segment Adjusted EBITDA margin was 18.7%, up from the prior year. Moving on to CCIBV on slide 10. Clear Channel International BV, referred to as CCIBV, is an indirect, fully-owned subsidiary of the company and the issuer of our 6 5/8 senior secured notes due 2025. It includes the operations of our Europe North and Europe South segments, as well as Singapore, which, following the changes to our reporting segments in the Q4 of 2022, is included in other. As the businesses in our Europe South segment are considered discontinued operations, results of these businesses are now reported as a separate component of consolidated net loss in the CCIBV consolidated statement of loss for all periods presented and are excluded from the discussion below.

CCIBV results from continuing operations for the Q3 of 2023, as compared to the same period of 2022, are as follows: CCIBV revenue increased 10.3% to $154 million from $140 million. Excluding the $8 million impact of movements in FX, CCIBV revenue increased 4.6%, primarily driven by higher revenue in our Europe North segment, as I just mentioned. Singapore represented less than 3% of CCIBV revenue from continuing operations for the three months ended September 30, 2023. CCIBV operating income was $9 million, compared to $3 million in the same period of 2022. Now moving on to slide 11 and a review of capital expenditures. CapEx totaled $33 million in the Q3, a decrease of $5 million over the prior year due to a reduction in Airports and Europe North CapEx.

Airports CapEx was down due to large investments in the digital network in the prior year. Now on to slide 12. In June, we amended and extended our revolving credit lines, and in August, we issued $750 million aggregate principal amount of 9% senior secured notes due 2028. We used a portion of the net proceeds from the note offering to prepay $665 million of outstanding principal on the term loan facility, which we repurchased at a 1% discount. We incurred debt issuance costs of $12 million related to these transactions, and we intend to use the remaining proceeds of approximately $76 million for general corporate purposes.

Additionally, our next debt maturity, the CCIBV notes, in the amount of $375 million, is in August 2025, with our next debt maturity, the term loan, in August 2026. Our liquidity was $531 million as of September 30, 2023, up $80 million compared to liquidity at the end of the Q2, due to the increase in cash and cash equivalents. During the Q3, cash and cash equivalents increased by $85 million to $313 million, and our debt was $5.6 billion as of September 30, 2023, a $71 million increase since June 30. These increases were driven in large part by the note offering I just mentioned.

In September, we repurchased in the open market $5 million of the CCOH 7.75% senior notes and $10 million of the CCOH 7.5% senior notes at a discount, resulting in a gain on extinguishment of $3 million. The repurchased notes remain outstanding. Cash paid for interest on debt was $81 million during the Q3, a $25 million increase compared to the same period in the prior year, primarily due to higher interest rates on our term loan facility and the timing of accrued interest payments. Our weighted average cost of debt was 7.5%, slightly above the weighted average cost of debt as of June 30, 2023. As of September 30, 2023, our first lien leverage ratio was 5.59x, calculated based on continuing operations, a slight increase as compared to June 30, 2023....

The credit agreement covenant threshold is 7.1 times. Moving on to Slide 13 and our guidance for the Q4 and the full year of 2023. All consolidated guidance and Europe North guidance exclude movements in foreign exchange rates, with the exception of capital expenditures and cash interest payments. Please note, our consolidated guidance has been adjusted to exclude the Europe South segment. For the Q4, we believe our consolidated revenue will be between $591 million and $618 million. We expect America revenue to be between $293 million and $305 million, and Airport's revenue is expected to be between $100 million and $105 million, another really strong quarter as compared to the prior year.

Europe North revenue is expected to be between $170 million and $180 million, an increase over the prior year. Moving on to our full-year guidance. Given the change as a result of the Europe South segment moving to discontinued operations, we thought it would be helpful to show the detail of how we adjusted the guidance we provided in August. As you can see on the slide, now that we are close to the end of the year, we have tightened the range for consolidated revenue. We expect consolidated revenue to be between $2.091 billion and $2.118 billion. As Scott mentioned, this is also still within the guidance range provided in February, excluding discontinued operations. America revenue is expected to be between $1.095 billion and $1.107 billion.

Airports is ending the year stronger than expected, with revenue expected to be between $300 million and $305 million. Europe North revenue is expected to be between $604 million and $614 million, also an improvement over the August guidance. On a consolidated basis, we expect Adjusted EBITDA to be between $520 million and $542 million, a slight improvement over the guidance we provided in August, excluding discontinued operations. AFFO guidance is $67-80 million. Capital expenditures are expected to be in the range of $143 million and $161 million, with a continued focus on investing in our digital footprint in the U.S.

Additionally, our cash interest payment obligations for 2023 are expected to be approximately $405 million, up over the prior year due to higher floating rate interest on our Term Loan B facility, but down versus the August guidance due to timing of interest payments related to the transactions I described earlier. We expect $121 million of cash interest expense to be paid in the Q4. This guidance assumes that we do not refinance or incur additional debt. And now, let me turn the call back to Scott for his closing remarks.

Scott Wells (CEO)

Thanks, Brian. Looking ahead, we remain confident in our annual guidance. We continue to execute on our plan to streamline our business, concentrate on our domestic assets, and position our organization for growth and improved profitability. We believe the steps we are taking to modernize our organization and elevate our position as a visual media powerhouse will only strengthen our ability to drive revenue and Adjusted EBITDA growth. As we progress in the sale of our Europe North businesses and the strategic review of our businesses in Latin America and work on organically growing Adjusted EBITDA, we believe we will ultimately begin to reduce our indebtedness and deliver improved free cash flow and drive material equity value creation. And now let me turn over the call to the operator for the Q&A session, and Justin Cochrane and Dave Sailer will join us on the call.

Moderator (participant)

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. That's star one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw the question, star followed by two, and please do also remember to unmute your microphone when it's your turn to speak. You have our first question comes from Avi Steiner from JP Morgan. Avi, your line is now open. Please proceed.

Avi Steiner (Managing Director, Fixed Income Credit Research)

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. Just want to start with the ad environment, if I can, and if you could just discuss maybe ex San Fran, what you're seeing in this Q4, and any material differences in airports versus your traditional city boards, and I've got a couple of follow-ups. Thank you.

Scott Wells (CEO)

Hey, Avi, thanks for the question. You know, this has been a really strange ad market year, and so I'm a little hesitant to give you too sweeping generalizations. If you just look at what we reported nationally for our roadside business in America versus nationally for airports, you can see one of the strange dynamics that has been going on, which kind of has been going on all year, the whole focus on super premium assets. It's been a very premium market this year, and we're seeing that continue into Q4. I think, you know, big picture, we think media and entertainment, now that the writers are back working, and I know the actors aren't there yet, but we'll hopefully see some progress there. Obviously, the auto strikes have cleared up.

That's, that's not a huge vertical for us, not a huge impact. And we're starting to get to a point where we're seeing tech companies talking about investing in their brands a little more aggressively. I think there are a number of things that suggest we're headed in a good direction. You know, for us specifically, I do think the trends that we've seen year to date of some challenges in the Bay Area and, you know, frankly, California and the Midwest, more generally, have been not great markets. Whereas we've seen, you know, a lot of, a lot of goodness in Texas and Florida and along the East Coast. But it's a much more—I think I referred to this on some other calls.

It's a much more normal market in that you have normal local dynamics driving what's going on. So it's a tough market to generalize on, Avi, but I'd say that in general, I'd characterize it as firming up, and that there are indications that there's some strength in categories that had pulled back this year. And then, obviously, in the call, we referred to seeing some growth in areas we've been investing in with pharma and CPG. So hopefully that gives you a flavor.

Avi Steiner (Managing Director, Fixed Income Credit Research)

Very helpful. Appreciate it. Then if I could, turn to the-

Scott Wells (CEO)

Okay

Avi Steiner (Managing Director, Fixed Income Credit Research)

... expense side, and corporate, if I could. I believe it was down almost 14% this quarter, adjusted corporate expenses. You can correct me if I'm wrong. But as we think about this line item going forward, I know Europe South is now discontinued, there's some moving pieces, but how should we think about corporate? And then if you can remind us what corporate savings will come through once Europe North is sold. And then I've got a couple more. Thank you.

Brian Coleman (EVP and CFO)

Sure, Avi, I'll take that one. You know, a lot of the reduction you're seeing this year is unfortunately, you know, a variable compensation expense as business, you know, hasn't performed as expected, in particularly in America. But I think the bigger question about corporate expense is, we are looking to reduce it. We look at opportunities to make savings, and that's kind of regardless of activities, that are going on within the business. You pointed to divestitures. That is something that will be a catalyst for further examination of corporate expense. We've said in the past, with the divestiture of the international businesses, we would expect at least $30 million of corporate expenses to be reduced.

That doesn't include shared cost or embedded cost in the corporate center that also will need to be examined, but may take, you know, a longer period of time to extract from the business. So that's why we use the at least kind of qualifier there. But look, I think over time, we'll have a little bit of headwinds next year as we hope the business, you know, will rebound a little bit, and that variable compensation expense, which we'll be happy to pay if the business does rebound, comes back. But working the other way will be a sharp focus, both on corporate expenses, expense reduction in general, as well as capturing corporate expense that are tied or related to the divestitures.

Avi Steiner (Managing Director, Fixed Income Credit Research)

Super helpful, and I certainly agree with that last... happy to pay when the revenue's coming in. Two more for me. The first, Brian, I think you'd historically said you would only buy back bonds when you had comfort around liquidity in the outlook. Just wanna make sure I heard that right, and we should read the buyback as such. And I know it's not a big number, but $15 million is the first we've seen in a bit. And on the buyback side, I'm curious what the rationale is for keeping those bonds outstanding and not retiring them. Is that a covenant, liquidity, or other consideration? Thanks.

Brian Coleman (EVP and CFO)

So on the buyback, you know, I think you're correct in characterizing it as something that, you know, we wouldn't spend the liquidity on unless we thought it was, you know, worth the return. And buying back bonds are a function of a number of things, including, you know, what is the return, your comfort with liquidity, availability of bonds or the liquidity of bonds in the marketplace. We also have to be very mindful of the windows of opportunities for us.

With a number of strategic activities going on, you know, including the divestiture process of Europe South, and now the process that's been undertaken in Europe North, there are only a few windows where we are not in possession of MNPI and would be comfortable buying back bonds. And I think that also, you know, the disciplined approach to an acceptable return and the limited windows of opportunity kind of, you know, limit the amount of bonds you can buy back. And so that's, you know, that's part of the reason why there's only $15 million of repurchase. So with respect to not retiring, that's not a requirement. I mean, we could have the option to retire them. That's final.

You know, once you retire them, you can't, you can't unretire them. So I think, I think just holding on to them for now gives us more optionality. Whether or not ultimately that leads to anything else, I think is undetermined at this point. For accounting purposes, they'll be, you know, eliminated upon consolidation, so you will see a positive benefit in that the debt will come off the balance sheet, and the interest expense associated therewith will also come out of the income statement. I think I answered all your questions, but if I didn't, feel free to-

Scott Wells (CEO)

Hey, Avi, I'd just chip in one other thing about the confidence and liquidity profile. The technical way that we paid off the term loan, we actually generated about $6.5 million of savings in that, and we also avoided payment of amortization to the tune of about $20 million a year. So that's really how to think about, you know, the kind of sources, the uses, obviously, we're doing everything Brian just described.

Avi Steiner (Managing Director, Fixed Income Credit Research)

Terrific. And my last question, and I really appreciate the time. Scott, and for you, Brian, if you'd like, but you clearly have a methodical plan here to move the chains, as it were. But as kind of I build my bridge from where Clear Channel is today to where the company would like to get to, leverage-wise, even with asset sales, EBITDA growth in the core U.S. business and the debt buybacks reported today, it seems like maybe a little bit more work needs to be done. And I'm curious, among the many options you're clearly looking at and thinking about, has the company had discussions with some of its bigger debt and equity holders around perhaps raising equity, equity-like instruments or entertaining debt for equity swaps at all? Or is it just a little too early?

And again, appreciate the time, as always. Thank you.

Brian Coleman (EVP and CFO)

Yeah, Avi, I'll take a stab at that and then, you know, have Scott or Dave weigh in if they wanna go into more detail. Look, you hit upon some of the things that we're looking at. So taking a step back, you know, our strategy, I'll put in three categories. One is, you know, EBITDA growth. You mentioned that. That's certainly something we're focused on. That's at the core of everything we do, and ultimately, you know, we need to drive growth in the businesses to change our leverage profile going forward. You mentioned M&A, so I think another category is M&A, but I would look at it in a broad way, a broad sense.

It not only includes what we've done in Europe South, the process we've launched in Europe North, the strategic review we've announced in Latin America, but you know, it could be further expanded into consideration with respect to U.S. markets, which we've talked about and are very sensitive to. Maybe the way we look at, you know, future investments. Maybe we do that in a partnership where it requires less capital. So it can have a much broader meaning than some of the things we're talking about. It's a little more difficult to talk about the third bucket, the liability management activities, because it can mean a lot of things, and maybe some of those things you don't wanna talk about before you implement them.

But you've seen some baby steps in the debt repurchases we've talked about. You know, we'll obviously have proceeds that are coming in from some of the divestitures, and what are the optimal ways to apply those proceeds to reduce debt or otherwise invest in the business? But to get to, you know, I guess the point of your question, have we had conversations with our investor base about other alternatives? I think the fair way to answer that, Avi, is we always have conversations with our investors, and some of those have been inbounds, and some of those have been just, you know, just the questions and responses and working through ideas that are out there.

Nothing is tangible enough that we would be required to make any kind of disclosure on it. Nothing really has rinsed into the point where it's worth talking about. But I think we're always in dialogue with our investors, and that's not new. That's something that, you know, the company has always been open to. And so, you know, we're happy to have that dialogue, listen to creative ideas, and, you know, if something is interesting, we'll certainly give it thought. Scott or Dave, I don't know if you have anything to add.

Scott Wells (CEO)

No, I think you captured it.

Avi Steiner (Managing Director, Fixed Income Credit Research)

I was told I said I appreciate the time too many times, so thank you for the minutes allocated. I will go back in the queue.

Brian Coleman (EVP and CFO)

Thanks, Avi.

Scott Wells (CEO)

Thanks, Avi.

Moderator (participant)

Our next question comes from Richard Choe from JP Morgan. Richard, your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Richard Choe (Analyst)

Hi, I wanted to follow up, the guidance implies ramp into Q4. Just wanted to get a sense of what you're seeing now, and I know it's a little early, but how are you feeling about the Americas and Airports business going into next year?

Scott Wells (CEO)

Okay, thanks, Richard. I'll take this, and again, if Brian, Dave, have anything to add, we can do so. You know what? We talked a lot in August about how the couple things we were looking for were we gonna see an uptick in cancellations on—that would be on the negative side, obviously, and were we gonna actually see people step back into the market post Labor Day, which is what the buzz had been. And I'm pleased to report that, we didn't see the uptick in cancellations, and we did see people step back into the market. And, it is a more constructive market right now than what we were looking at in August. So that's all to the good.

On the second part of your question, in terms of looking at 2024, we are only just now beginning our upfront process. The dialogues that we've had to date are encouraging. I referenced an obvious question that, you know, we are hearing some tech companies that have been a little more circumspect on investing coming back in. We are excited about the progress we're making in some of the categories that we've been trying to crack, and we feel good about what's happening in the programmatic marketplace. There is definitely a buzz among CMOs that programmatic out-of-home is gonna be a thing in 2024.

I'm not sure I'm gonna believe it till I see it, because we definitely have heard positive things before, but I think, in an environment where you've got an ad market that is gonna have political consuming a lot of, you know, the scatter and upfront markets and other media, I think out-of-home is gonna be positioned really well, and that we've been doing enough test and learns with brands that suggest they're getting good return on using, our out-of-home assets in that way, that could be a positive. But this is speculation at this point, Richard. We don't have enough money in the books to be declaring anything, but I would characterize the outlook for 2024 as positive. Anything you'd add, Brian or Dave?

Brian Coleman (EVP and CFO)

Great.

No, I'm good.

Richard Choe (Analyst)

Great. Is there anything on the programmatic side that you could do? Higher demand, or will that kind of take care of itself?

Scott Wells (CEO)

The beauty of programmatic is it is highly scalable. So we've done. You know, if you think back to when we first started this, there was a lot more manual intervention on our part to make it work. It's still not perfect, but we are in position to absorb demand-

Richard Choe (Analyst)

Absorb demand

Scott Wells (CEO)

As it goes. And, you know, I dream about a world where I'm so constrained on capacity that I'm having to tell, you know, programmatic people that we're not able to fulfill their demand, 'cause that'll only help us on the direct business.

Richard Choe (Analyst)

No, that would be a great position to be in. Last one for me. Europe North continues to outperform and do well. How is that impacting the strategic review and the way maybe other or bidders are looking at the process, and how you're viewing the business at this point? Because it seems like it's doing pretty well.

Scott Wells (CEO)

So it is doing pretty well. And I actually think it's worth Justin maybe saying something about the why on that, but let me answer your question first. You know, when we pivoted the middle of last year to doing the tough markets first and to cleaning up the portfolio, that was with an understanding with the Europe North team that the focus that they would have and that, you know, the continued digital conversion, the continued investment in LaunchPAD and programmatic tools, things along those lines, would help them achieve what's been achieved when you look at our page five of our slide deck.

I can't speak to what potential buyers are thinking as they see it, but the kind of basic feedback that we've gotten is that people appreciate that we have adapted our portfolio. They appreciate the work that we've done with our portfolio, and that they're impressed with how Europe North has over-delivered relative to the SIP that we published in January of 2022. And that's about all I can say on the process at this point. It is still early days. But Justin, why don't you give us just 30 seconds on drivers of the performance, 'cause it's been pretty special.

Justin Cochrane (CEO, UK and Europe)

Yeah, sure. Thanks, Scott. Well, I think, you know, the biggest driver is continued digital rollout, and that's especially across what we're doing on the roadside assets, mainly street furniture. And in markets like the UK, where we've continued with the plan and continue to see growth. Programmatic is small, but has had a quite a big impact. It's because most of the revenue we take there is incremental, and when you have that alongside a digital footprint that's growing, that really helps. That really helps the business. So I think there's a couple of things that have really helped drive that. You know, it can only be good for the process, I'm assuming. But yeah. So a strong continued digital rollout with programmatic adding a bit extra on top.

Scott Wells (CEO)

Thanks, Justin. And thank you, Richard. Appreciate the questions.

Moderator (participant)

Our next question comes from Cameron McVeigh from Morgan Stanley. Cameron, your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Cameron McVeigh (Analyst)

Hi, thanks. Just a couple. On the Europe North point, yeah, I noticed there's over 50% of revenue is from digital. Curious how you guys are thinking about digital conversions, I guess, in the U.S. going forward, and what the ideal revenue contribution is, both for the U.S. and airports. Thanks.

Scott Wells (CEO)

Thanks, Cameron. So let me start with the America business. The U.S. is really a patchwork of regulatory environments. We have a number of markets that are similar in profile to our Europe North business, in that they're producing 40%-60% of their revenue digitally. We also have markets that are zero because of the regulatory environment. The way that this has played out over years, I think that there's a long-term trend to being able to digitize. But I think, you know, the likely outcome in America is probably not as high as it is globally until you think about, you know, a very long time away from now, just because of the regulatory constraints and the challenges there. In airports, I think it's different.

You know, you've seen our digital business grow really, really rapidly. Anybody who's traveled through the New York airports, which are our most contemporary airport implementation, has seen just how much digital we use within it, and it really lends itself to the airport environment. Not to say that there's not plays for static and places where static could make sense, but it, the operational flexibility of the digital and the immediacy of it is extremely attractive in that environment. So, you know, we're already in the 50s in the airport in terms of digital penetration, and I could definitely see that going higher. And the pacing on that will be, you know, refreshes of airports, and frankly, where it makes sense because-...

You know, while digital has gotten cheaper, the kind of implementations we're doing at JFK and LaGuardia are not gonna make sense at, at regional airports, and so there's a, there's a balance to be struck. But I, I do think that, that you'll see digital as a higher proportion of, of that, airport space. Hopefully, that, that addresses your question.

Cameron McVeigh (Analyst)

Definitely. Thanks. And then last one, just on the rent abatements, how much longer do you guys expect to continue receiving these abatements? Thanks.

Brian Coleman (EVP and CFO)

So I'll take a stab, and then-

David Sailer (EVP, CFO, Americas)

Sure

Brian Coleman (EVP and CFO)

Dave, you can come in on Americas. You know, I think I think we're seeing them cycle through. You know, we haven't seen anything in Europe. I think we're done. On the Americas side, you know, we continue to pursue what we can, but we're also seeing, you know, the business cycle through that. I think most of them are largely in the airport business, but I'll turn it over to Dave Sailer, CFO of Americas, to talk about that.

David Sailer (EVP, CFO, Americas)

Yeah, sure. I'll start on Amer- on the airport segment. They're definitely starting to trickle off as, you know, as we further get away from COVID. But I'd probably point out, in the Q3 of 2022, there definitely was a more significant amount of relief as we get into 2023, and that's gonna roll off over time. But the airports group, they're still trickling, some in Q4 and some into 2024, but we're definitely at the tail end of it. On the Americas front, we're definitely, you know, seeing the end of the relief from a COVID standpoint.

And when you think about our site lease, I mean, I'd probably say our biggest headwind as we got into this year, and we've mentioned this before, was really that one large contract that we kind of renegotiated, and that's gonna roll off at the end of the Q3. So as we get into next year, a little bit more left on airports, but, you know, I think we've seen the end of that rope from a Americas standpoint. Great. Appreciate the color. Thanks.

Moderator (participant)

Our next question comes from Lance Vitanza, from TD Cowen. Lance, your line's now open. Please proceed.

Lance Vitanza (Managing Director, Senior Research Analyst)

Thanks for taking the questions, and nice job on the quarter. Scott, I think you said that October was maybe the best month this year after a strong September. I'm wondering if you could just refresh what you said there, and then, you know, comment on whether that's just sort of the favorable seasonality that we'd expect as we get into the Q4, or would you say there's real improvement on... You know, if we were to sort of think about a seasonally adjusted kind of a series, would we still feel that October is kind of the best month year to date? Thanks.

Scott Wells (CEO)

So, Lance, the comment was directed at programmatic. It was our best month ever in programmatic. So that was not indicative of the overall business, so it was a little narrower, I think, than you might have interpreted.

Lance Vitanza (Managing Director, Senior Research Analyst)

Is the momentum, you know, that you're seeing, are you taking share from other out-of-home advertisers, or is the out-of-home medium taking share from other media, or are you just sensing a general improvement in ad spending than you had forecast?

Scott Wells (CEO)

So, I do think that out-of-home, certainly relative to traditional media, is gaining share relative to traditional media. You know, you've heard the digital companies report, and they've had pretty good results. So, not gonna say that we're taking a lot from that channel. But I think it's an optimization thing. We are a relatively small part of the media ecosystem, and advertisers are very much trying to figure out the optimal mix of media. And what we have is a high-reach, hardworking medium that a lot of advertisers know us well and use us in that regard, and they're seeing the synergies that we've called out with digital media, in particular, pretty regularly.

And so we're seeing ourselves get included in campaigns alongside those sort of media, and I think that's an important growth driver for us going forward. But it's very hard to generalize across the thousands and thousands of advertisers. I do think that we're well positioned as a hardworking, high-reach medium.

Lance Vitanza (Managing Director, Senior Research Analyst)

And then the last one for me, just to come back to airports, for a second. You mentioned that you're ending the year, you know, stronger than you'd expected, and I'm just wondering if we could sort of think about what the drivers are there. I see three sources of potential upside, right? You get more displays in place than you thought, more passengers passing through the airports than you thought, or advertisers just, you know, more so than perhaps you'd budgeted. So of those three, or maybe there are others that I'm missing here, but how would you sort of attribute the relative strength that you're seeing versus what you had been thinking earlier in the year? Thanks.

Scott Wells (CEO)

Thanks, Lance. Look, I think it's all three, but let me unpack it just a little bit for you. I'd add a fourth, which is just timing of inventory deployment. So we knew this year was gonna be strong for airports because we had very, very strong build-out. You just look at the CapEx that we deployed in the airports the prior periods. We've had very strong build-out, particularly in our New York franchise. And so part of it is just mainstreaming a bunch of inventory that's come online in the last 12 months.... But when I think about it, you know, airport traffic is up double digits relative to 2022. It's really left 2019 in the dust at this point. That was what we used to really fixate on.

It's really, it's really now, you know, growing in its own right. So it's up double digits. The digitization has continued, and we talked about that a minute ago. Just in terms of advertisers, it's been well suited to the advertising market. I've referred a number of times to how 2023 has been a super premium market, which means spectaculars, it means airports, it means iconic locations in iconic places, you know, whether that's in New York or Miami or L.A. or Vegas. It, that part of the market has been red-hot, and airports has benefited from that dynamic. But I think, I think those three things that you named all have contributed, along with us bringing online a lot of great inventory in New York.

Lance Vitanza (Managing Director, Senior Research Analyst)

Thanks again for the discussion.

Scott Wells (CEO)

Thanks, Lance.

Moderator (participant)

Our next question comes from Steven Cahall from Wells Fargo. Steven, your line's now open. Please go ahead.

Steven Cahall (Managing Director, Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Thank you, and sorry if I missed this earlier, but I was wondering if you could just talk a little bit to performance in your Los Angeles market. I think that's your largest market, pretty significantly and related. I know M&E has been a bit of a drag. Obviously, the reasons for that are clear with the strikes. It looks like those are gonna be solved relatively soon. So how can we think about maybe what the improvement could be in 2024, if you just see M&E and/or L.A. kinda getting back to normal?

And then maybe to follow up on some of the Europe North questions, assuming that you do get to a successful resolution of that process, excluding what you might be divesting in Europe North, do you have additional corporate or overhead costs that you might be able to also unwind once you finish that asset? Just trying to understand some of the overall impact on EBITDA. Thank you.

Scott Wells (CEO)

Thanks, Steve. The L.A. question is very specific. I'm gonna try to answer it, but I'm gonna try to answer it in a way that I can, and then I'm gonna hand it to Brian to talk about the corporate cost. You know, on L.A., the media and entertainment strikes have the writers' strike and the actors' strike have impacted not just media and entertainment, which they have impacted media and entertainment, but they've also impacted just general activity in L.A. With all of the folks impacted by those strikes, advertisers have potentially been a little less, and this is local as well as national advertisers, a little less inclined to maybe be launching campaigns into that environment.

We are seeing that abate in Q4, but I'd think about L.A. in the context of California. So California is very complicated relative to auto insurers. California is important for technology, and technology has been a down category much of this year. And then you have the media and entertainment impacts. So there have been a lot of things impacting it, and you're right, it's our largest market. San Francisco is our third largest market. So you combine the impacts of those verticals, the impacts of California dynamics, you know, that's explanatory of the vast majority of our challenges this year. And we are seeing signs that those things will be moving in a better direction going forward.

I think getting the writers back to work will really be helpful. Hopefully, the actors, you know, will get through and will be able to pick that up. But I feel like, you know, it's always hard to call a trough moment, but I think Q3 has indicators that it could be a trough moment for our challenges in California and L.A. Brian, why don't I hand it to you on the corporate cost part?

Brian Coleman (EVP and CFO)

Sure, thanks. And we talked a little bit about this earlier, but I think your question really goes to the company said that, you know, we could take out at least $30 million post-international divestitures. And I think the way to think about it is that $30 million are kind of the direct costs that are easily identifiable, that'll leave at or around the time of the divestiture. And then the at least in that statement is other opportunities that we see. And so when we drill down into that, if you think about, okay, well, there's kind of the corporate overhead that's directly related to the European business that goes, that's easy to think about, it's easy to segregate. What is the other part?

And that other part of the costs that are kind of intertwined or embedded in the top-level corporate structure. An example might be there's a corporate treasury staff, for example. They would not necessarily be needed. They would go with the business, but they're not direct corporate overhead that's associated with that business. There may be people that work, you know, on international things, but at the corporate level, and maybe after those things unwind for a period of time, they would need to go. I think it's important to point out some new language that we introduced in the script about zero-based analysis, cost-based analysis when we take a look at this. So post-divestiture, we're gonna take a hard look, we're gonna build up from the bottom.

We're gonna make sure we capture all those costs that are in that structure.

Steven Cahall (Managing Director, Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Thank you.

Moderator (participant)

... Our next question comes from Aaron Watts from Deutsche Bank. Aaron, your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Aaron Watts (Managing Director, High Yield Media & Entertainment Research)

Hi, thanks for getting me in. Just two questions for me. Covered a lot of ground today. In the U.S., what are, what are some of the key factors driving the relative softness of the print format versus digital? Is that being driven by some of the specific verticals you've called out that are soft at the moment, or the specific markets you've talked about, that are maybe weighted more towards print?

Scott Wells (CEO)

So, that's a very micro question. I'm gonna give you a macro answer because of time and also, I don't know that it'll actually help that much. The drivers of what's going on in print are the overall factors that we've got going on. The markets that are down, you know, are a little more weighted to print than other markets. You know, I think a lot of not having auto insurance come back as much as we had hoped for this year has been a drag on print. That would be the only incremental thing I'd name to the kind of overall challenges in the U.S.

But we look at this very closely market to market, and I think those macro characterizations are the big ones.

Aaron Watts (Managing Director, High Yield Media & Entertainment Research)

Okay, got it. Then secondly, as you close out 2023 and roll into 2024, and as digital continues to expand in importance, can you remind us how to think about the margin profile of digital versus the legacy static boards for the Americas platform? And at this stage of the rollout, should we think about each new digital board added as margin accretive? Or if not, you know, what are the mitigating factors there?

Scott Wells (CEO)

So yeah, I mean, digital, there, there's a lot packed into that as well. But we always do try to secure the ground underneath our digital signs and/or get a long-term lease when we convert them. They are inherently a higher margin product. But, you know, our roadside business, our America business is a high margin product overall, you know, outside of the spectaculars in a few urban locations. So you should think of it as a margin tailwind, but it's not a tsunami. I guess that's the pithy way to put that one. All right, I think we are going to shift... Oh, go ahead, operator, please.

Moderator (participant)

Yes, I was just gonna comment. We don't have any further questions, so I will hand back to you for closing remarks. Thank you.

Scott Wells (CEO)

Great, and thank you everyone for joining us today. I know that we've been able to say we're improving our guidance on the strength of airports in Northern Europe, and our investors are most interested in America. When I look at year to date in America, I just wanna remind everyone of a couple things. On the revenue side, more than half our markets have grown for the year, and one market accounts for almost twice of our total decline year to date. That's one market is accounting for twice the total decline. In addition, we're seeing double-digit growth in programmatic for the first time since early this year, and this, this is moving in the right direction.

On the EBITDA side, we're coming out of the long absorption of the large contract that we refreshed this year and have almost fully lapped the one-time abatements related to COVID. So couple that with the demonstration of our ability to get hard things done in our portfolio, the performance of our airports in Northern Europe teams, and the focus areas we shared throughout the call, we believe there's a lot of reasons to see brighter days ahead for CCO. With that, we'll wrap it up. Thank you all, and we'll talk with you again next quarter.

Moderator (participant)

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's call. Thank you for joining. You may now disconnect your lines. Thank you.