BuzzFeed, Inc. (“BuzzFeed” or the “Company”) (Nasdaq: BZFD), a premier digital media company for the most diverse, most online, and most socially engaged generations the world has ever seen, today announced financial results for the second quarter ended June 30, 2023.
“The strategic and organizational changes we discussed at our Investor Day in May have been fully executed, putting our rich library of IP and scaled, owned-and-operated properties at the center of our operating model to create innovative, audience-driven content,” said Jonah Peretti, BuzzFeed Founder & CEO.
Peretti continued, “In response to consolidation and share gains across the major platforms that continue to impact audience traffic to our content, we are laser focused on our strategy to drive traffic directly to our owned-and-operated properties. We have introduced new AI-assisted content formats to increase engagement and offer innovative advertising opportunities to our clients, rapidly expanded our creator network to participate in the rise of vertical video, and prioritized destination news content to grow our HuffPost front page audience.”
Second Quarter 2023 Financial and Operational Highlights
- BuzzFeed delivered Q2 revenues of $77.9 million, declining 27% compared to the second quarter of 2022
- Advertising revenue declined 33% year-over-year to $35.4 million
- Content revenue declined 22% year-over-year to $31.5 million
- Commerce and other revenues declined 17% year-over-year to $11.0 million
- Net loss was $27.8 million, compared to a net loss of $23.6 million in the second quarter of 2022
- Adjusted EBITDA1 loss was $0.1 million, compared to Adjusted EBITDA of $2.1 million in the second quarter of 2022
- Time Spent decreased 9% year-over-year to 96 million hours2
- BuzzFeed ended the period with cash and cash equivalents of approximately $41 million
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1 Adjusted EBITDA is a non-GAAP financial measure. Please refer to “Non-GAAP Financial Measures” below for a description of how it is calculated and the tables at the back of this earnings release for a reconciliation of our GAAP and non-GAAP results.
2 Excludes Facebook; see below.
Third Quarter 2023 Financial Outlook
For the third quarter of 2023:
- We expect overall revenues in the range of $73 to $78 million
- We expect Adjusted EBITDA in the range of $1 million in losses to $4 million in profits
These statements are forward-looking and actual results may differ materially as a result of many factors. Refer to “Forward-Looking Statements” below for information on factors that could cause our actual results to differ materially from these forward-looking statements.
Please see “Non-GAAP Financial Measures” below for a description of how Adjusted EBITDA is calculated. While Adjusted EBITDA is a non-GAAP financial measure, we have not provided guidance for the most directly comparable GAAP financial measure — net loss — due to the inherent difficulty in forecasting and quantifying certain amounts that are necessary to forecast such measure. Accordingly, a reconciliation of non-GAAP guidance for Adjusted EBITDA to the corresponding GAAP measure is not available.
Quarterly Conference Call
BuzzFeed’s management team will hold a conference call to discuss our second quarter 2023 results today, August 8, at 5PM ET. The call will be available via webcast at investors.buzzfeed.com under the heading News and Events, and parties interested in participating must register in advance by clicking on this link. Upon registration, all telephone participants will receive a confirmation email detailing how to join the conference call, including the dial-in number along with a unique PIN that can be used to access the call. While it is not required, it is recommended you join 10 minutes prior to the event start time. A replay of the call will be made available at the same URL.
We have used, and intend to continue to use, the Investor Relations section of our website at investors.buzzfeed.com as a means of disclosing material nonpublic information and for complying with our disclosure obligations under Regulation FD.
Definitions
BuzzFeed reports revenues across three primary business lines: Advertising, Content and Commerce and other. The definition of “Time Spent” is also set forth below.
- Advertising revenues are primarily generated from advertisers for ads distributed against our editorial and news content, including display, pre-roll and mid-roll video products sold directly to brands and also programmatically. We distribute these ad products across our owned and operated sites as well as third-party platforms, primarily YouTube and Apple News.
- Content revenues are primarily generated from clients for custom assets, including both long-form and short-form content, from branded quizzes to Instagram takeovers to sponsored content and content licensing. Revenues for film and TV projects are also included here.
- Commerce and other revenues consist primarily of affiliate commissions earned on transactions initiated from our editorial shopping content. Revenues from our product licensing businesses are also included here. Additionally, we generate other revenues from the production of live and virtual events such as ComplexCon and ComplexLand.
- Time Spent captures the time audiences spend engaging with our content across our owned and operated sites, as well as YouTube and Apple News, as measured by Comscore. This metric excludes time spent with our content on platforms for which we have minimal advertising capabilities that contribute to our Advertising revenues, including Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, Snapchat and Twitter. There are inherent challenges in measuring the total actual number of hours spent with our content across all platforms; however, we consider the data reported by Comscore to represent industry-standard estimates of the time actually spent on our largest distribution platforms with our most significant monetization opportunities. Effective January 1, 2023, we exclude time spent on Facebook from our measure of Time Spent as our monetization strategy is increasingly focused on advertising on our owned and operated properties, and Facebook now contributes an immaterial amount of advertising revenue. Time Spent on Facebook, as reported by Facebook, was approximately 15 million hours and 48 million hours for the three months ended June 30, 2023 and 2022, respectively, and 37 million hours and 120 million hours for the six months ended June 30, 2023 and 2022, respectively, which is not included in Time Spent discussed above.
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