Media

Is Viggle Taking Over Media?

Viggle Inc. (NASDAQ: VGGL) may not be a household name, but you would not know that if you saw how much this stock is rallying after earnings. Its rally is also already approaching 20 times normal trading volume as well. The company reported that revenue rose by 52% from the same period a year ago, and its net registered users increased by 116%. The gain has been so great that it is truly a bit puzzling. The yearly numbers were off the charts, but they are mixed sequentially.

For those who do not know Viggle, the company calls itself an entertainment marketing and rewards platform. Its apps reward Viggle members for watching TV shows and discovering new music. Viggle also claims that its platform had an average monthly total reach of 25.7 million during the first three months of 2015, including nearly 9 million Viggle registered users. Viggle has further claimed that its members have redeemed over $24 million in rewards for watching their favorite TV programs and listening to music since its launch.

Also, Viggle’s chairman and chief executive is Robert F.X. Sillerman. He has been behind SFX Entertainment, which was bought by Clear Channel. His CKX bought the rights to Elvis Presley’s Graceland, and he was also an asset owner of “American Idol” and other media and entertainment ventures.

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Revenue for its third quarter of fiscal 2015 rose by 52% to $5.0 million, versus $3.3 million a year ago. Still, despite the rally seen, Viggle’s sequential quarterly revenue decreased $2.2 million or 30.1% — said to reflect seasonality of the advertising industry. A more focused end result was as follows:

Adjusted EBITDA loss for F3Q 2015 was $8.7 million compared with an Adjusted EBITDA loss of $7.9 million in F3Q 2014 and $6.9 million in F2Q 2015. Although revenue increased, adjusted EBITDA loss grew compared with a year ago primarily due to an increase in marketing costs, which was partially offset by a decrease in personnel-related costs… Non-marketing operating costs fell by $1.8 million in F3Q 2015 compared with F3Q 2014, and marketing spend increased by $3.4 million compared with F3Q 2014. Sequentially, non-marketing operating costs decreased by $1.4 million compared with F2Q 2015.

Viggle reported that its average active reach for the fiscal third quarter was 10.59 million, versus 6.51 million year over year and 10.46 million from the prior quarter. The average monthly total reach for the quarter was 25.66 million, versus 19.35 million a year ago and 26.04 million for the prior quarter.

The company’s quarterly release said:

Almost one million new users registered on the Viggle platform during the quarter, bringing net registered users to more than 8.95 million, compared with 4.14 million net registered users as of the end of the year-ago quarter, an increase of 116 percent. … As of the end of F3Q 2015, Viggle users have checked into more than 478 million TV programs and matched more than 146 million songs using the Viggle Music service. Overall, users’ average time in the Viggle app has been nearly 62 minutes per session. … As of the end of F3Q 2015, Viggle users have checked into more than 478 million TV programs and matched more than 146 million songs using the Viggle Music service. Overall, users’ average time in the Viggle app has been nearly 62 minutes per session… As of March 31, 2015, users have redeemed more than 57 billion points for approximately 4.7 million rewards, an average of 12,182 points per reward redemption. The total retail value of rewards redeemed through March 31, 2015 is approximately $24.3 million.

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Greg Consiglio, president and chief operating officer of Viggle, said:

As we celebrate our three-year milestone of operations this quarter, the Viggle experience has become more rewarding for our users and advertising partners. During this quarter, we spent a lot of time and energy preparing for our upgrade of Wetpaint, which took place this past week with celebrity enthusiasm and support. Now fully optimized for mobile, Wetpaint delivers timely celebrity news and entertainment and the best part is that it’s now fully integrated with the Viggle platform.

Viggle shares were up a whopping 58% at $3.75 in late morning trading on Monday. The stock’s 52-week range is $1.27 to $6.10. Investors, traders and speculators may also be keying off the notion that Viggle’s market cap is just over $62 million, which means it was not even quite a $40 million market cap last week. More than 19 million shares had traded hands after two hours since the market opened, versus an average volume of about a million shares per day.

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