{"id":241920,"date":"2022-07-18T16:20:20","date_gmt":"2022-07-18T16:20:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/orourkemediagroup.com\/?p=241920"},"modified":"2022-07-18T16:20:20","modified_gmt":"2022-07-18T16:20:20","slug":"orourke-media-group-delivers-strong-results-in-the-1st-half-of-2022","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/devsiteomg.com\/omgsite\/2022\/07\/18\/orourke-media-group-delivers-strong-results-in-the-1st-half-of-2022\/","title":{"rendered":"O\u2019Rourke Media Group Delivers Strong Results in the 1st Half of 2022"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It\u2019s hard to believe that we\u2019re already past the mid-year point in 2022. \u00a0 I\u2019m happy to report that we continue to post game-changing results with revenue, cash flow and audience growth.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Year-To-Date Performance Highlights<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In comparison to prior year, cash flow +107%; total revenue +58% and total advertising revenue +97%.\u00a0 With our net debt leverage at .48X, this is a strong signal that our playbook to grow organically and through acquisitions is working.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Total digital revenue +102% vs. prior year, 30% of total advertising revenue and a gross margin of 72%.\u00a0 It\u2019s exciting to see our digital revenue grow as a % of our total revenue through real growth and not because of print erosion.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Total advertising revenue on a same store comparison vs. prior year is +21%.\u00a0 Results settling at +14% in May and +12% in June are strong.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Caleb Anderson, VP of Sales, Joe Mathes, VP of Digital Strategy, and everyone that plays a role on our sales, fulfillment and support teams are winning.\u00a0 The hard work and day-to-day activity to drive results and growth are quite impressive. \u00a0 Our Sales Team is 5-1 (lost January) at the mid-year point of a 12-game season and very well positioned to finish 11-1.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Earlier this year, Joe Mathes spearheaded the launch of our Preferred Business Sponsor program to grow recurring, content marketing revenue.\u00a0 Advertisers receive lots of unique value for their investment, including SEO backlinks, an online directory, excellent content about their business and exclusivity in their business segment.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In April, we launched OMGHired, a new recruitment solution in each of our markets through a technology partnership with Recruitology. \u00a0 We\u2019re excited about revamping our digital and print presence as the go-to source for local jobs.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">On April 1, we completed our 11<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">th<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> acquisition since forming O\u2019Rourke Media Group in late 2018.\u00a0 The integration of The Guide and Sussex Printing in Delaware has gone exceptionally well, and we\u2019re exceeding pre-sale proforma expectations.\u00a0 We\u2019ve welcomed and onboarded an excellent group of employees in each functional area of the business.\u00a0 In June, Michele Swain, who has worked at the Guide over the past 20+ plus years in a number of different roles, was named General Manager of the business.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In Las Vegas, we shifted our publishing frequency from Wednesday-Friday to just Friday.\u00a0 Phil Scherer, Maria Sanchez, Cynthia Fitch, April Morrell, Gabe Myers and Adrianna Crespin really nailed it with this plan.\u00a0 We were transparent with readers and advertisers on the reason for\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">the change and stayed focused on providing an improved print newspaper.\u00a0 We\u2019re now providing more local news on Friday than we were on Wed-Fri combined and the paper looks\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">fantastic.\u00a0 Early results have been very impressive\u2014advertising revenue in June was higher than before the change, reader generated paid sales and revenue was relatively unchanged (we kept HD pricing the same but increased our store price), and we have a much lower cost base. \u00a0 Just as important, our team is able to put more focus on growing an already healthy online audience.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We tell quite a different story in the Editorial segment of our business at a time when you read something negative just about every day about news deserts and local newspapers dying.\u00a0 We continue to invest and strengthen resources in our newsrooms and editors and reporters are rising to the challenge with keeping readers and communities informed with engaging, original, hyper-local news.\u00a0 We were successful in recruiting and hiring five new reporters of which three were incremental compared to how many we had on the team at this point last year.\u00a0 We also added 10 new freelance contributors in the 1<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">st<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> half of the year. \u00a0 The strength of our regular print publications, the support for niche products and the online page view growth (+70% vs. the same period prior year) demonstrate how well each team is performing. \u00a0 And, I just love this \u201cNewsletter from the Newsroom\u201d that Bridget Higdon curates with our Editors and Reporter each month.\u00a0 Here\u2019s the link to June <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/mailchi.mp\/b649ef60e8f7\/newsletter-from-the-newsroom-march-9033979\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Newsletter from the Newsroom: June 2022<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In the first part of this year, we moved forward with developing internal marketing plans and custom-written blogs to strengthen and improve the O\u2019Rourke Media Group brand and to generate advertising leads from local businesses.\u00a0 It\u2019s great to see this effort starting to gain traction.\u00a0 Joe Paul, Megan Ivey and Hey Sarah have been instrumental in making this happen.\u00a0 Here\u2019s a link to check them out <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/orourkemediagroup.com\/blog\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Blog &#8211; O&#8217;Rourke Media Group <\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In conclusion, it\u2019s been a very busy year.\u00a0 Let\u2019s keep pushing hard to continue on our growth track and, as always, to prepare for the unexpected headwinds that could always come our way.\u00a0 Enjoy the rest of the summer, and I\u2019m looking forward to seeing as many of you as possible in the 2<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">nd<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> half of 2022!\u00a0 In the meantime, feel free to reach out directly to me anytime with feedback, questions, ideas or suggestions for improvement.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Your hard work and dedication to the success of our Company is truly appreciated.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Jim<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">PS.\u00a0 No added pressure to our Sales Team to finish the 2<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">nd<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> half undefeated\u2026 <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It\u2019s hard to believe that we\u2019re already past the mid-year point in 2022. \u00a0 I\u2019m happy to report that we continue to post game-changing results with revenue, cash flow and audience growth.\u00a0\u00a0 Year-To-Date Performance Highlights In comparison to prior year, cash flow +107%; total revenue +58% and total advertising revenue +97%.\u00a0 With our net debt [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":240233,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-241920","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-company-updates"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/devsiteomg.com\/omgsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241920","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/devsiteomg.com\/omgsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/devsiteomg.com\/omgsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devsiteomg.com\/omgsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devsiteomg.com\/omgsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=241920"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/devsiteomg.com\/omgsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241920\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devsiteomg.com\/omgsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/240233"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/devsiteomg.com\/omgsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=241920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devsiteomg.com\/omgsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=241920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devsiteomg.com\/omgsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=241920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}