Latest news with #StingrayGroup
The Market Online
2 days ago
- Business
- The Market Online
Stingray stock keeps singing with a 3rd year of growth
Stingray Group (TSX:RAY) released its financial results for Q4 and fiscal year ended March 31, 2025, highlighted by strong organic growth, improved profitability, and share repurchases In Q4 Stingray posted a 14.8 per cent year-over-year increase in revenues, reaching C$96.0 million, up from C$83.7 million in the same period last year This growth was driven by a 16.1 per cent organic increase in broadcast and recurring commercial music revenues Stingray stock (TSX:RAY) opened trading at C$9.70 Stingray Group (TSX:RAY) released its financial results for Q4 and fiscal year ended March 31, 2025, highlighted by strong organic growth, improved profitability, and share repurchases. In the fourth quarter, Stingray posted a 14.8 per cent year-over-year increase in revenues, reaching C$96.0 million, up from C$83.7 million in the same period last year. This growth was driven by a 16.1 per cent organic increase in broadcast and recurring commercial music revenues. The company reported a net income of C$7.7 million, or $0.11 per share, a significant turnaround from a net loss of C$46.3 million, or $0.67 per share, in Q4 2024. Adjusted EBITDA rose 19.0 per cent to C$35.0 million, with broadcasting and commercial music contributing C$28.1 million (43.6 per cent margin), Radio C$8.6 million (27.3 per cent margin), and corporate operations posting a loss of C$1.7 million. Adjusted net income for the quarter improved to C$18.6 million, or $0.27 per share, compared to C$15.4 million, or $0.22 per share, a year earlier. While cash flow from operating activities declined 10.3 per cent to C$39.7 million, adjusted free cash flow rose 17.8 per cent to C$18.4 million. Stingray also reduced its net debt to Pro Forma Adjusted EBITDA ratio to 2.28x, down from 2.76x, and repurchased 275,000 shares for C$2.3 million during the quarter. Full-year performance For the full fiscal year 2025, Stingray reported revenues of C$386.9 million, a 12.0 per cent increase from C$345.4 million in 2024. Organic growth in broadcast and recurring commercial music revenues reached 12.3 per cent. Net income for the year totalled C$36.4 million, or $0.53 per share, reversing a net loss of C$13.7 million, or $0.20 per share, in 2024. Adjusted EBITDA rose 13.0 per cent to C$142.2 million, with Broadcasting and Commercial Music contributing C$107.6 million (42.3 per cent margin), Radio C$42.1 million (31.8 per cent margin), and corporate operations showing a loss of C$7.5 million. Adjusted net income climbed to C$72.7 million, or C$1.05 per share, from C$60.3 million, or $0.87 per share, in the prior year. Although cash flow from operations declined 11.4 per cent to C$105.0 million, adjusted free cash flow increased 3.5 per cent to C$83.6 million. The company also ramped up its share buyback program, repurchasing and cancelling 1,186,800 shares for C$9.1 million in fiscal 2025, compared to 557,500 shares for C$2.9 million in 2024. Notes from the lead 'Fiscal 2025 was a highly successful year that checked many boxes in our profitable growth strategy. First, advertising revenues for our Broadcast and Recurring Commercial Music segment, which comprises our FAST channel and retail media advertising units, increased by more than 45 per cent for a second consecutive year as advertisers increasingly relied on connected TVs to maximize their advertising dollars,' co-founder, president and CEO Eric Boyko stated in a media release. 'Accordingly, we invested in our FAST channel platform in 2025, including the recent launch of channels like Cozy Café, Movie Music, Stargaze and Cityscapes, to position Stingray as the No. 1 supplier of musical and ambient channels for connected TVs. To take advantage of growing listening hours on FAST channels worldwide, we also introduced Stingray's Premium Connected TV Ad Inventory Network to enable alternative vendors to sell unsold inventory.' Stingray Group Inc. is a leading global music, media and technology company. Stingray stock (TSX:RAY) opened more than 8 per cent higher on Wednesday at C$9.70 and has risen 25 per cent since the beginning of the year and is up 23 per cent since June 2024. The material provided in this article is for information only and should not be treated as investment advice. For full disclaimer information, please click here.
Yahoo
18-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
'Losing an icon': Long-running Lloydminster TV stations abruptly shut down
The owner of two local television stations in Lloydminster shut them down on Tuesday, abruptly terminating the jobs of 19 employees and ending more than 60 years of local broadcasting. Stingray Group, a media conglomerate with several dozen radio and television stations across the country, announced the closure of CKSA-TV and CITL-TV in a staff meeting on May 13. A former employee who lost her job on Tuesday said on social media that there was no advanced notice of the shutdowns. The stations were closed down that day, denying the workers the opportunity to send out a farewell broadcast. CKSA began broadcasting in 1960, while CITL launched in 1976. Both were affiliates for larger outlets including CBC, Global and CTV. Steve Jones, the president of Stingray Radio, said the financial situation of the outlets had been deteriorating for years and became especially dire after the COVID-19 pandemic. "It was an absolutely agonizing decision," he said. "The fragmentation of audiences across different digital and streaming platforms, and away from over-the-air television, has been a big factor. The migration of some advertisers over to digital has been a factor as well." According to Jones, the stations' revenues declined by more than 50 per cent over the last six years. Jones said Stingray spent months trying to find a buyer for the stations and that the company's regional manager for Alberta spoke to the mayor of Lloydminster about the closure. But Mayor Gerald Aalbers disputed that claim. "This was a total surprise," Aalbers said. "I would have certainly welcomed the opportunity to at least try and change their minds if that opportunity had been given to me. But it wasn't. So I was just in this much in the dark as the employees who got their news Tuesday morning." Aalbers said people in Lloydminster, which straddles the Alberta-Saskatchewan border, and the surrounding communities will now have to rely on Edmonton and Saskatoon for local news. "It was deeply, deeply saddening from the perspective that we're losing an icon in our city," Aalbers said. "It really rips the fabric of the community. "How is community information going to be shared? How are sporting events being recorded and captured for the future? It just opens up a whole bunch of things from the perspective of the city's communications." Aalbers also said the loss of the stations is indicative of the wider problem of local news decline in Canada. "There's been a lot of conversation in the country about how we try and maintain Canadian media content," he said. "Certainly CBC, CTV, Global have all provided great coverage across Canada, but who fed you that information with a major event here in Lloydminster? It was our local TV station." Lloydminster continues to have at least one local newspaper, the Meridian Source, and is still home to several local radio stations, including one owned by Stingray Radio. Jones said there were no plans to shut down any of Stingray's radio stations in the area. CKSA and CITL were known for fostering journalists at the beginning of their careers, and spawned a diaspora of prominent reporters that fanned out across the country. "I truly don't believe I would be at TSN if it wasn't for CKSA and Lloydminster," said TSN Ottawa bureau chief Claire Hanna. "I was able to sink my teeth into so many different sports, but also so many different jobs within that, that I learned that I like to report and I like to anchor." Hanna, whose first full-time job was at CKSA, said she's worried the decline of local television stations will starve young reporters of the opportunities to learn before moving on to larger stations. "Young people who are entering this industry won't have a place to put their teeth in, train, learn what it takes to be a journalist," she said. "Are we just going to start throwing them on air at TSN without a lot of experience? And that concerns me for the quality of journalism that we're going to be delivering at a national level." WATCH | TSN's Claire Hanna describes how hard she worked to get her first job at CKSA: "It was just a wonderful place," said Brian Mudryks, who now works as a SportsCentre host and play-by-play announcer for the Montreal Canadians, but did a stint at CKSA at the beginning of career. "Young people that were learning how to broadcast could do a lot, and obviously make mistakes, but get better and learn the craft." The station closures follow years of local stations shutting down across the country. According to the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, almost 2.5 million Canadians now live in a postal code with either one or zero local news outlets, double the number in 2008. Private broadcasting outlets in radio and television have gone down by nine per cent since 2008, with closures at CTV and Corus driving a particularly strong decline in 2024. For communities with fewer than 100,000 people, every province and territory except Ontario has seen an absolute decline in the number of local news outlets. "It's really sad to me for the young journalists, and it's also really disappointing for those communities because I know how much what we did meant to them too," said Carly Agro, a former Sportsnet Host who launched her sports reporting career from CKSA. "We were doing those communities and those people a really important service. We were telling them the stories and showing them the things that they really cared about," she said. "If we weren't doing it, those things wouldn't get the attention that they deserved."
CBC
18-05-2025
- Business
- CBC
'Losing an icon': Long-running Lloydminster TV stations abruptly shut down
The owner of two local television stations in Lloydminster shut them down on Tuesday, abruptly terminating the jobs of 19 employees and ending more than 60 years of local broadcasting. Stingray Group, a media conglomerate with several dozen radio and television stations across the country, announced the closure of CKSA-TV and CITL-TV in a staff meeting on May 13. A former employee who lost her job on Tuesday said on social media that there was no advanced notice of the shutdowns. The stations were closed down that day, denying the workers the opportunity to send out a farewell broadcast. CKSA began broadcasting in 1960, while CITL launched in 1976. Both were affiliates for larger outlets including CBC, Global and CTV. Steve Jones, the president of Stingray Radio, said the financial situation of the outlets had been deteriorating for years and became especially dire after the COVID-19 pandemic. "It was an absolutely agonizing decision," he said. "The fragmentation of audiences across different digital and streaming platforms, and away from over-the-air television, has been a big factor. The migration of some advertisers over to digital has been a factor as well." According to Jones, the stations' revenues declined by more than 50 per cent over the last six years. Jones said Stingray spent months trying to find a buyer for the stations and that the company's regional manager for Alberta spoke to the mayor of Lloydminster about the closure. But Mayor Gerald Aalbers disputed that claim. "This was a total surprise," Aalbers said. "I would have certainly welcomed the opportunity to at least try and change their minds if that opportunity had been given to me. But it wasn't. So I was just in this much in the dark as the employees who got their news Tuesday morning." Aalbers said people in Lloydminster, which straddles the Alberta-Saskatchewan border, and the surrounding communities will now have to rely on Edmonton and Saskatoon for local news. "It was deeply, deeply saddening from the perspective that we're losing an icon in our city," Aalbers said. "It really rips the fabric of the community. "How is community information going to be shared? How are sporting events being recorded and captured for the future? It just opens up a whole bunch of things from the perspective of the city's communications." Aalbers also said the loss of the stations is indicative of the wider problem of local news decline in Canada. "There's been a lot of conversation in the country about how we try and maintain Canadian media content," he said. "Certainly CBC, CTV, Global have all provided great coverage across Canada, but who fed you that information with a major event here in Lloydminster? It was our local TV station." Lloydminster continues to have at least one local newspaper, the Meridian Source, and is still home to several local radio stations, including one owned by Stingray Radio. Jones said there were no plans to shut down any of Stingray's radio stations in the area. 'Lloydlove': former reporters weigh in CKSA and CITL were known for fostering journalists at the beginning of their careers, and spawned a diaspora of prominent reporters that fanned out across the country. "I truly don't believe I would be at TSN if it wasn't for CKSA and Lloydminster," said TSN Ottawa bureau chief Claire Hanna. "I was able to sink my teeth into so many different sports, but also so many different jobs within that, that I learned that I like to report and I like to anchor." Hanna, whose first full-time job was at CKSA, said she's worried the decline of local television stations will starve young reporters of the opportunities to learn before moving on to larger stations. "Young people who are entering this industry won't have a place to put their teeth in, train, learn what it takes to be a journalist," she said. "Are we just going to start throwing them on air at TSN without a lot of experience? And that concerns me for the quality of journalism that we're going to be delivering at a national level." WATCH | TSN's Claire Hanna describes how hard she worked to get her first job at CKSA: How TSN's Claire Hanna got her first job at Lloydminster TV station, now shuttered 2 hours ago Duration 2:03 "It was just a wonderful place," said Brian Mudryks, who now works as a SportsCentre host and play-by-play announcer for the Montreal Canadians, but did a stint at CKSA at the beginning of career. "Young people that were learning how to broadcast could do a lot, and obviously make mistakes, but get better and learn the craft." The station closures follow years of local stations shutting down across the country. According to the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, almost 2.5 million Canadians now live in a postal code with either one or zero local news outlets, double the number in 2008. Private broadcasting outlets in radio and television have gone down by nine per cent since 2008, with closures at CTV and Corus driving a particularly strong decline in 2024. For communities with fewer than 100,000 people, every province and territory except Ontario has seen an absolute decline in the number of local news outlets. "It's really sad to me for the young journalists, and it's also really disappointing for those communities because I know how much what we did meant to them too," said Carly Agro, a former Sportsnet Host who launched her sports reporting career from CKSA. "We were doing those communities and those people a really important service. We were telling them the stories and showing them the things that they really cared about," she said. "If we weren't doing it, those things wouldn't get the attention that they deserved."
Yahoo
08-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Stingray Group's (TSE:RAY.A) Dividend Will Be CA$0.075
The board of Stingray Group Inc. (TSE:RAY.A) has announced that it will pay a dividend of CA$0.075 per share on the 14th of March. This payment means that the dividend yield will be 3.5%, which is around the industry average. See our latest analysis for Stingray Group We aren't too impressed by dividend yields unless they can be sustained over time. Even though Stingray Group isn't generating a profit, it is generating healthy free cash flows that easily cover the dividend. We generally think that cash flow is more important than accounting measures of profit, so we are fairly comfortable with the dividend at this level. According to analysts, EPS should be several times higher next year. If the dividend extends its recent trend, estimates say the dividend could reach 11%, which we would be comfortable to see continuing. Even though the company has been paying a consistent dividend for a while, we would like to see a few more years before we feel comfortable relying on it. Since 2016, the dividend has gone from CA$0.12 total annually to CA$0.30. This implies that the company grew its distributions at a yearly rate of about 11% over that duration. Stingray Group has been growing its dividend quite rapidly, which is exciting. However, the short payment history makes us question whether this performance will persist across a full market cycle. The company's investors will be pleased to have been receiving dividend income for some time. Let's not jump to conclusions as things might not be as good as they appear on the surface. Stingray Group's EPS has fallen by approximately 22% per year during the past five years. Such rapid declines definitely have the potential to constrain dividend payments if the trend continues into the future. On the bright side, earnings are predicted to gain some ground over the next year, but until this turns into a pattern we wouldn't be feeling too comfortable. Overall, we don't think this company makes a great dividend stock, even though the dividend wasn't cut this year. The company is generating plenty of cash, which could maintain the dividend for a while, but the track record hasn't been great. We would probably look elsewhere for an income investment. Market movements attest to how highly valued a consistent dividend policy is compared to one which is more unpredictable. At the same time, there are other factors our readers should be conscious of before pouring capital into a stock. For instance, we've picked out 3 warning signs for Stingray Group that investors should take into consideration. Looking for more high-yielding dividend ideas? Try our collection of strong dividend payers. Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned. Sign in to access your portfolio
