The Billboard Insider Podcast
00:07:29 · Dave Westburg, Paul Wright
[00:07:29] S0: There is a knee jerk response to digital that says, we don't want digital because we don't want our city to look like Las Vegas. Well, the flip side of that is, do you want smart car charging stations? If you do and you don't wanna have to pay for them, maybe you should put allow a digital screen on the smart car charging station where someone can charge advertising and use the ad revenue to support the service. Do you want kiosks available at your transit stops? Maybe if you do, you need to allow a digital screen so that the advertising can help support the information that you're driving through the digital kiosk. It seems like it's a way of of creating revenue that can help support smart city initiatives. [00:08:15] S1: Absolutely. And municipalities especially are understanding that if they want these kinds of added value services in their communities, somebody's gotta pay for it. And advertising dollars are an easy way to cover those costs and and to generate just additional tax revenue. And I think that there was an initial reservation about digital and the safety concerns and things like that. But now that there have been enough deployed, they understand that these aren't something that are dangerous, something that are garish. They're actually something that can be incorporated into a community and and enhance the community.
00:08:15 · Paul Wright, Dave Westburg
[00:08:15] S1: Absolutely. And municipalities especially are understanding that if they want these kinds of added value services in their communities, somebody's gotta pay for it. And advertising dollars are an easy way to cover those costs and and to generate just additional tax revenue. And I think that there was an initial reservation about digital and the safety concerns and things like that. But now that there have been enough deployed, they understand that these aren't something that are dangerous, something that are garish. They're actually something that can be incorporated into a community and and enhance the community. [00:08:57] S0: Let's stop here for a word from our sponsor. Adomni increases your billboard revenue by selling unsold ad space at top dollar. Whether you have Watchfire from Medco or Daktronics billboards that Adomni easily integrates. Get started selling in as little as one business day on the fastest growing network of over 60,000 digital screens. Visit adomni.com or call 844ADOMNI to speak with an Adomni billboard specialist. Mention this Billboard Insider Podcast to receive one free year of Adomni's white labeled booking engine on your website. Paul, let's talk about out of home values. Where's the market right now?
00:09:39 · Paul Wright
[00:09:39] S1: Well, the market is increasing in terms of values. We're seeing values rise, and it's primarily based on three things. There's really strong revenue growth. That's a little bit unusual that in the fourth quarter, had strong growth, and we're really watching this first quarter to see if that continues. Traditionally, the first quarter is pretty soft. It's winter, and people aren't out and about on vacations and things like that. So we're watching the first quarter really closely to see if the strong revenue growth continues. But I suspect that it is continuing. And it's likely because of the number two item, which is a shift in ad spend. We've always kind of suspected that advertisers were moving dollars from other media. But I think this is the first really clear sign that those dollars are coming from radio and television and newspaper pretty clearly coming from those other media types. And so we're really excited about what's going on and and we think it will continue. And this general enthusiasm will continue at least for this year and maybe into next year. There are a couple of things that are kind of lurking out there, and they're negatives that could impact values or slow down value growth. And one of those things is taxation issues that may start to creep up. There was a recent case in Pennsylvania that concluded that the value of billboard lease income to the landowner can be considered in assessing the value of that property owner's land.
00:11:27 · Dave Westburg, Paul Wright
[00:11:27] S0: Let's just hope, Paul, that that gets overturned on appeal at the next level because to the extent that suddenly a landlord's property tax is going up because of a billboard lease, gonna make that billboard lease more expensive to the billboard company. It's gonna make property owners more reluctant to engage in billboard leases. [00:11:47] S1: That's possible. And so landowners are watching that, sign owners are watching that, we're watching that obviously. I think that there's a tendency to overreact to that, and so we're not concerned too much. We think that it'll be a slow evolution and prices might rise marginally in terms of lease costs because of taxes, but we're watching that. And then the other thing is a recession looming. I think everyone knows that that's likely to happen in the next couple of years. There was a study just that came out of CEOs, and they all generally agreed that the fourth quarter of twenty twenty was probably the time when they would start to see a softening in the economy. So, you know, that's another year and a half out, and we don't think that's gonna be a really strong recession like we had last time. I think it'll be pretty mild. [00:12:46] S0: Let's talk a little bit about multiples and what they might do at a recession. It seems multiples are at, oh, 10 to 12 times cash flow or EBITDA? And what do multiples do in a recession?
00:12:46 · Dave Westburg, Paul Wright
[00:12:46] S0: Let's talk a little bit about multiples and what they might do at a recession. It seems multiples are at, oh, 10 to 12 times cash flow or EBITDA? And what do multiples do in a recession? [00:13:01] S1: Yeah. You are right. I think that our average is 10 and a half or 11. And in terms of revenue multiples, I think we're probably in the five to five and a half times range on average. There's a lot of things that affect that. But generally speaking, multiples will fluctuate during a recession. During the last recession, we actually saw a spike in multiples. We were looking at lower revenues, lower cash flows, and buyers were anticipating that to be a temporary thing. And so multiples looked high relative to revenue and cash flow. [00:13:43] S0: In other words, I may pay 15 times cash flow trailing twelve months because I know that based on recovering out of the recession, I'm really only gonna be at a nine or 10 times once the revenue's recovered and I'm coming out of recession. [00:13:57] S1: Exactly. And so it's a it's a little bit counterintuitive. Our clients come to us and say, well, you know, won't multiples go down? Actually, they go up, but that's... It's because there... There's a relationship there between cash flows and revenues. [00:14:12] S0: Mhmm. Paul, talk about the top drivers of an out of home company's value. In other words, you you say that values do vary quite a bit and various... Based on various factors. What are the drivers that may influence value?
00:14:12 · Dave Westburg, Paul Wright
[00:14:12] S0: Mhmm. Paul, talk about the top drivers of an out of home company's value. In other words, you you say that values do vary quite a bit and various... Based on various factors. What are the drivers that may influence value? [00:14:27] S1: One of the original staples of analysis or valuation has always been looking at lease costs, and that's still one of the primary drivers that we look at when we start to talk about what the value of a plant might be. We wanna know how much of that revenue is going to landowners in the form of lease payments. So that's a big issue. We're also looking at market size and whether you're in a major market or a top ranked market. There's 200 markets, generally speaking, that are ranked every year. If you're not in one of those top 200 media markets, then you're probably in what we consider a smaller or mid sized market. So we're looking at market size. [00:15:16] S0: Are those markets worth a turn or two less of cash flow? [00:15:19] S1: They can be. [00:15:21] S0: Yeah. [00:15:21] S1: They can be, but the caveat is that if you have a smaller market that's growing rapidly, then that can offset any size issue because there's a lot of growth and activity and development and changes going on that might create higher traffic volumes, opportunities for development because properties are being rezoned, new advertisers coming into the market. So growth can kind of offset that size issue. [00:15:54] S0: Paul, what about wood versus steel? Is a wood plant worth less than a steel monopole plant?