Meredith's CEO Discusses F3Q12 Results - Earnings Call Transcript

Steve Lacy



Thank you very much, Mike, and good morning everyone. We appreciate you joining our call. I’ll start this morning with a review of the business highlights for our third quarter and fiscal 2012 to-date and explain the special charge that we announced earlier this morning. Then I’ll detail National Media Group operating performance. Joe Ceryanec will discuss our Local Media Group performance and our guidance. Then we’ll open up the question-and-answer period.

Looking briefly at business performance highlights in the third quarter of our fiscal 2012, our Local Media Group continues to perform very well. The group delivered its 10^th straight quarter of year-over-year growth in non-political advertising revenue, and achieved record operating profit for our fiscal third quarter.

National Media Group total advertising revenues grew 2% and circulation revenues increased 15%. This growth reflects the inclusion of the recent acquisition, strong digital performance and the successful implementation of the Meredith Engagement Dividend. As some of you may recall, that’s a program guaranteeing results from advertising in Meredith Magazines, and it has been very well received in the marketplace.

Our digital initiatives across the company are flourishing with both consumers and advertisers, highlighted by the addition of Allrecipes.com to our brand portfolio. Traffic to our national websites more than doubled, to a record 40 million monthly unique visitors in March, reflecting the addition of Allrecipes.com. Digital advertising revenues grew 70% in both our national and in our local media groups.

Back at the start of fiscal 2012, I outlined a series of strategic initiatives that we planned to execute against. These included strengthening our core businesses, expanding our digital and video activities and growing our brand licensing businesses. We also told you we would pursue acquisitions and investments to grow our scale and our capabilities. Finally, we pledged to reward our shareholders by increasing the amount of cash returned to them.

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