Loop Media Board Shows Door To Most Of C-Suite, Starts Layoffs, In Wake Of Ops And Finances Review
March 19, 2024 by Dave Haynes
The LA-based connected TV service Loop Media – which makes free, ad-supported content channels and digital signage functionality available to businesses – has bingo’d most of its C-Suite and laid off some staff in an effort to slow its burn rate.
Jon Niermann is stepping down as CEO, but retaining a board seat, and COO/CMO Randy Greenberg, who just joined Loop last summer, is leaving the company. Bob Gruters, Chief Revenue Officer, has resigned after three years with the company.
Loop’s board has appointed Chief Content Officer Justis Kao as the company’s Interim CEO. Niermann will remain a member of the management team, “maintaining a strategic focus on revenue and distribution.”
“While I have loved leading our team since I co-founded the Company, it’s time for a change of leadership for the Company and shift in focus for my role,” says Niermann. “Going forward, I feel I can provide more support to Loop in a customer-focused revenue-generating capacity. My main goal has always been to get a return for our shareholders while growing a meaningful media-tech company that will leave a lasting footprint. Justis knows the company very well and has my and the organization’s full support and confidence. I look forward to driving growth in revenue and distribution.”
“I continue to have tremendous confidence in the future opportunities for the Company and believe in its success,” says Bruce Cassidy, the newly-named Executive Chairman of Loop Media. “We believe that we have been ahead of the curve for this industry and should be well-positioned moving forward to achieve the type of growth that we originally set out to accomplish.”
The changes – laid out in more detail in this SEC filing – were effective Sunday and came in the wake of an operational and cost-cutting review, with the long goal of getting Loop to break even and operating profitability.
As a result of the review, the Company has laid off and furloughed certain employees and has implemented salary reductions to create efficiencies and lower the Company’s overhead. These cost-cutting measures include senior management salary reductions and are expected to result in an annual aggregate cash payroll reduction of approximately $2 million.
Poking around SEC filings didn’t tell me how much staff has been cut.
Loop Media also says in its press release that it intends “to explore potential strategic alternatives to maximize shareholder value, as well as evaluate potential financing opportunities to help advance its business goals.”
The company has been very aggressively expanding its footprint as it competes for venues and eyeballs with companies like Austin-based Atmosphere. It grew its installed base by 126% in its last fiscal year, with some 79,000 Android players in bars/restaurants, office buildings, retail businesses, college campuses and airports. Most of that footprint is in the United States, but Loop is also now in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.
Loop Media’s last annual report – for a fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, 2023 – shows a loss from operations of almost $29 million, some $4 million more than the previous fiscal year.
Our revenue for the year ended September 30, 2023, was $31,642,293, an increase of $809,497, or 3%, from $30,832,796 for the year ended September 30, 2022. This increase was primarily due to (i) an increase in ad revenue as a result of a significant increase in the distribution and activation of our Loop Players, and expansion of our customer base; (ii) increased access to programmatic ad demand partners due to increase in scale of our business; and (iii) the introduction of our Partner Platforms business in May 2022, as partially offset by the macro-economic environment affecting the overall digital ad spend.
We are continuing to see headwinds in overall digital ad spend that started to emerge in the second half of our quarter ended December 31, 2022, and continued through our fiscal year ended September 30, 2023. We are not immune to the challenges the broader macro environment presents and its impact on advertising. Similar to many companies that rely on the advertising market, we continue to see industry and macro headwinds in overall digital ad spend due to general industry pressures and continued uncertainty about a potential recession. We believe these headwinds were exacerbated in recent months by the traditional seasonality of advertising. As a result, we have seen revenue and our results of operations negatively impacted.
Despite these advertising market and macro headwinds, we had over 79,000 active Loop Players and Partner Screens across the Loop Platform as of the year ended September 30, 2023, a 126% increase over 35,000 active Loop Players and Partner Screens as of the year ended September 30, 2022. This included approximately 18,000 active Loop Players across our O&O Platform and approximately 17,000 Partner Screens across our Partner Platforms. We believe performance continues to validate our distribution model and the appeal of our content and technology stack across various venue types and geographies, which we believe will positively impact our operating results when advertising spend begins to increase.
I did a podcast chat with Niermann last year.
How do you lose $29M on $31M in sales? (And what happens to the free frozen yogurt station?)
Financials are all here – https://ir.loop.tv/sec-filings/annual-reports##document-538-0001558370-23-019889-2
OpEx is almost $40M