Longtime chief Ron Frankel says he will give up his post after 13 years as the multiscreen video specialist reports big drops in net income, revenue, and other key numbers.

Alan Breznick, Cable/Video Practice Leader, Light Reading

March 6, 2014

3 Min Read
Synacor CEO Quits as Financials Plunge

Synacor's stock price sank as much as 10% Thursday before recovering a bit. The company reported disappointing earnings for the fourth quarter and the full year, and its longtime chief executive, Ron Frankel, abruptly announced that he would resign.

Synacor Inc. -- which provides TV Everywhere authentication technology and web portals to a such large and midsized cable operators and telcos as Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ), Charter Communications Inc. , CenturyLink Inc. (NYSE: CTL), Suddenlink Communications , and WideOpenWest Holdings LLC (WOW) -- reported that its net income for the quarter dropped 75% from a year earlier to $200,000. The vendor's revenue fell 8.7% to $29.4 million as its main sector, search and display advertising, came in $3.1 million lower than it did a year earlier. (See Synacor & Mediacom Extend Deal.)

The Buffalo, N.Y., company took an even bigger financial hit on its annual results. It reported a net loss of $1.4 million for the year, versus a profit of $3.8 million in 2012. Revenue slipped 8.4% to $111.8 million, due to an $11 million shortfall in search and display ad revenue.

Curiously, on an earnings call with financial analysts late Wednesday, Synacor executives did not provide much insight into the causes of the disappointing financial results beyond a little discussion about how changes in Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT)'s Windows 8 operating system affected its search business. Nor, surprisingly, did analysts press the executives all that much on the reasons for the quarterly and yearly declines.

Instead, Synacor officials highlighted metrics where the company did make progress, such as subscription-based products. They also spelled out some initiatives meant to boost the company's fortunes in 2014 and beyond, including a next-gen TV Everywhere search and discovery platform, an enhanced Cloud ID authentication program, a personalized service for Android devices, and more personalized web portal start pages.

"I think we have some fantastic new products, and our customers are demanding those products," Frankel said on the call. "And we just need to launch them, get them out in the marketplace… Our pace of launching the new products is a key question."

However, in a telling note, the CEO announced his resignation several minutes later. Frankel, who has run Synacor since 2001 and has steered it through several acquisitions (along with an IPO two years ago), said he will step down once the company finds a successor. He did not say why he was resigning.

Frankel, who will remain on the Synacor board of directors and become an adviser to the company, said he expects the search for his replacement to take at least 4-6 months. "It's a little hard to say" how long it will take. "I mean, we just kicked it off."

Analysts questioned whether Synacor, which has been bulking up through acquisitions over the past few years, might now put itself up for sale. Executives said that, even though a sale could always be an option, it's far more likely that Synacor will remain a buyer. (See Synacor Acquires Teknision.)

"We continue to regularly look at acquisitions," said CFO Bill Stuart. "You will probably see some activity on our part over the course of this year as a buyer," assuming the right opportunities are available.

— Alan Breznick, Cable/Video Practice Leader, Light Reading

About the Author(s)

Alan Breznick

Cable/Video Practice Leader, Light Reading

Alan Breznick is a business editor and research analyst who has tracked the cable, broadband and video markets like an over-bred bloodhound for more than 20 years.

As a senior analyst at Light Reading's research arm, Heavy Reading, for six years, Alan authored numerous reports, columns, white papers and case studies, moderated dozens of webinars, and organized and hosted more than 15 -- count 'em --regional conferences on cable, broadband and IPTV technology topics. And all this while maintaining a summer job as an ostrich wrangler.

Before that, he was the founding editor of Light Reading Cable, transforming a monthly newsletter into a daily website. Prior to joining Light Reading, Alan was a broadband analyst for Kinetic Strategies and a contributing analyst for One Touch Intelligence.

He is based in the Toronto area, though is New York born and bred. Just ask, and he will take you on a power-walking tour of Manhattan, pointing out the tourist hotspots and the places that make up his personal timeline: The bench where he smoked his first pipe; the alley where he won his first fist fight. That kind of thing.

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