Beasley Broadcasting Group (NASDAQ: BBGI) reported Q4 EPS of $1.57, versus $0.14 reported last year. Revenue for the quarter came in at $53.7 million, versus $28.4 million reported last year.

Commenting on the financial results, Caroline Beasley, Chief Executive Officer, said, “The fourth quarter was both productive and transitional as our revenue, SOI and net income growth reflects two months of operations of the Greater Media stations, solid industry fundamentals, including the benefit of political advertising, strength across our platform of legacy Beasley stations and high levels of operating discipline.

“On a stand-alone basis, Beasley legacy station revenue increased approximately 7.6%. Immediately following the close of the Greater Media transaction we began the integration process including the implementation of sales and cost initiatives, the elimination of redundant overhead and other strategies to derive synergies and value from the expanded scale and diversity of our portfolio. Partially reflecting, the change of ownership and related transitional concerns, on a stand-alone basis, the Greater Media stations’ revenue decreased 6.1% or approximately $2.3 million in the fourth quarter with about 60% of the decline attributable to Philadelphia. Overall, we are making continued progress with the integration of the new stations as we implement best practices, processes, and talent from both companies to optimize audience engagement and drive results. We believe we are on track to complete the integration and realize the synergies expected from this transaction within 12 to 18 months.

“In the fourth quarter, including the Greater Media stations, we again outperformed our markets in terms of revenue growth based on markets that report to Miller Kaplan. Our clusters rose approximately 2.0% compared with the overall markets, which increased 0.5%. Our outperformance was driven by our recently acquired Detroit cluster, which generated an impressive year-over-year revenue increase of over 6.9%, compared with the Detroit market, which was down 3.2%. Beyond Detroit, our outperformance was broad-based and included our clusters in Augusta, Boston, Charlotte, Fayetteville, Las Vegas, Greenville-New Bern-Jacksonville and Tampa-St. Petersburg.

“The 80.3% year-over-year increase in fourth quarter station operating income to $16.2 million is at this time perhaps the best measure of the value of our expanded scale and our fundamental performance during the quarter. Notably, we believe that as we effect our operating disciplines we will achieve station operating income margins at levels we previously achieved, though reflecting the transitional nature of the fourth quarter, station operating income margins declined approximately 150 basis points compared to the same period a year ago when we operated just the Beasley legacy stations.

“With the financing of the Greater media acquisition, our total outstanding debt as of December 31, was approximately $268 million. With our focus on actively and conservatively managing our capital structure to provide the financial flexibility to support our near- and long-term growth, we made voluntary debt repayments of $2.3 million in the fourth quarter. In January, we closed on the previously announced divestiture of four stations in Charlotte for $24 million and in February, we entered into an agreement to divest our Greenville-New Bern cluster for $11 million. We applied the net proceeds from the Charlotte transaction to debt reduction in the 2017 first quarter and intend to further reduce debt and leverage with the majority of the net proceeds from the Greenville-New Bern transaction when it closes, which is expected in the second quarter of 2017.

“In addition, with our strong operating cash flows and commitment to return capital to shareholders, we declared our thirteenth consecutive quarterly cash dividend during the fourth quarter. Reflecting the issuance of shares in the Greater Media transaction, the annual capital allocated to dividend payments at this time of approximately $5.2 million relative to the total free cash flow that Beasley now generates, provides us with ample liquidity to reduce leverage and evaluate other initiatives to enhance long-term shareholder value.

“Our strategic priorities in 2017 are focused on three key areas. First, we plan to continue to deliver strong core programming and targeted localism across our station platform as these strategies support ratings and market leadership. Second, we remain focused on improving SOI margins across our station platform through efficiencies without impacting the listener experience. Third, our capital structure allows us to allocate free cash flow from operations to reducing leverage while returning capital to shareholders through dividends which, together, we believe supports our goal of enhancing shareholder value.”

For earnings history and earnings-related data on Beasley Broadcasting Group (BBGI) click here.