URBAN ONE, INC. (UONE) Stock Analysis
URBAN ONE, INC.
▾ What's in the 66/100 risk score? (higher = riskier)
Contributions (weight × component score) sum to the total. This near-term score now includes fundamental health (leverage, FCF trend). It excludes the the Altman Z score, whose retained-earnings input this filer does not report separately, which relies on a proxied (estimated) input. See the Financial Health section for the full balance-sheet read.
How to read UONE (speculative micro-cap)
No model can pin a precise fair value on a company this small — but that does not mean there is nothing to learn. The useful questions are what the price is betting on, and whether the company can survive long enough to deliver it.
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1
Reverse-DCF — what growth the price assumes ↓
The single most useful number here: it backs out the growth the market is paying for. If that figure is "historically unprecedented," the price is running on hype, not fundamentals.
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2
Cash runway ↓
A pre-profit micro-cap lives or dies on whether it can fund itself to profitability before running out of money and diluting you.
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3
The raw financial statements + the 10-K ↓
At this scale, the actual numbers, insider ownership, and share-count trend tell you more than any ratio.
UONE looks like a foreign company (ADR) whose SEC filings are denominated in its home currency, while the share price is in U.S. dollars. Mixing the two would produce a meaningless dollar fair-value, so we suppress the single intrinsic-value number rather than show a wrong one.
What to use instead: the growth trends, margins and ratios below (which are currency-independent), the peer comparison, and the company's own filings. A currency-converted valuation is on our roadmap.
How to read a company this small
UONE is too small and/or too volatile for the valuation lenses we use on larger, more stable companies. The numbers shown below should be taken as rough orientation only.
- Market cap $22.5M — nano-cap territory (below $50M)
Growth percentages on tiny revenue bases (1000% going from $200K to $2M is not predictive). P/E and ROE swing wildly with small earnings changes. Peer comparisons fail because there often aren't comparable companies at this scale.
Start with the Reverse-DCF above — it backs out the growth the price is betting on; if that figure is "historically unprecedented," the price is running on hype, not fundamentals. Then the cash runway (can it fund itself to profitability before diluting you?). Then the raw Financials table and the 10-K on SEC EDGAR — at this scale, insider ownership and the share-count trend often matter more than any ratio.
Classified as Speculative Nano / Micro-cap (confidence 80%). Disagree? An admin can override via the post edit screen.
⚠ Genuine comparables are scarce at this size, so peer multiples are unreliable here. Treat as rough context only — see 📍 What to focus on above.
How does UONE stack up against its closest peers?
We take the 4 same-industry companies most similar to UONE (similar size) and check what investors are paying for each dollar of their revenue (or profits). If UONE is much more expensive on the same yardstick, that's a red flag — unless you have a specific reason it deserves a premium. For a leveraged business, FCF yield (in the table) is usually more reliable than EV/Sales, because revenue multiples ignore differences in margins and debt.
▾ What's "EV / Sales" in plain English?
EV (Enterprise Value) = market cap + total debt − cash. It's "what you'd pay to buy the entire company outright" — you pay the market cap to shareholders and take over their debt, but you keep their cash. EV is fairer than market cap alone because it includes the debt the new owner inherits.
EV / Sales = EV ÷ annual revenue. So "2.5×" means investors pay $2.50 of enterprise value per $1 of yearly sales. Higher = market is paying more per dollar of sales (usually because they expect future growth or fat margins).
p25 / median / p75 are the 25th, 50th (middle), and 75th percentile of the peers' multiples. Half the peers fall between p25 and p75. The median (p50) is the typical peer — that's the benchmark we compare to.
| EV / SalesEV / Sales — For every $1 of yearly revenue, this is how many dollars investors pay to own the whole business (including debt). Why it matters: Works for pre-profit growth companies where P/E and FCF don't apply. The most apples-to-apples cross-company multiple because it ignores accounting choices. Reference: 1–3x for mature companies · 4–10x for software/SaaS · 10–20x for hypergrowth · >20x is rare and demanding Full explanation → |
0.6x / 1.1x / 1.3x |
Bold middle number = median peer. Half the peers trade above it, half below. Computed over 4 same-industry peers; implausible multiples excluded.
⚠️ Important caveat: peer multiples only work if the peers are genuinely comparable. Always check the peer list below — if the auto-picker grabbed micro-caps or unrelated businesses, the comparison is noise. A medical-device giant priced against tiny biotech startups won't produce a useful signal.
▾ View peer list (8)
| Ticker | Company | Industry | Mcap | EV/Sales | EV/GP | EV/EBIT | FCF Yield |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UONEK | URBAN ONE, INC. | Radio Broadcasting Station | $23M | 1.2x | — | — | 390.9% |
| BBGI | BEASLEY BROADCAST GROUP INC | Radio Broadcasting Station | $27M | 1.3x | — | — | 46.5% |
| SGA | SAGA COMMUNICATIONS INC | Radio Broadcasting Station | $60M | 0.6x | — | — | 4.2% |
| MDIA | Mediaco Holding Inc. | Radio Broadcasting Station | $67M | 1.0x | — | — | 1.8% |
| RDI | READING INTERNATIONAL INC | Motion Picture Theaters ·fallback | $26M | 0.3x | — | — | 285.7% |
| SURG | SurgePays, Inc. | Telecommunications ·fallback | $15M | 0.5x | — | — | 40.7% |
| XPOF | Xponential Fitness, Inc. | Entertainment & Recreation ·fallback | $39M | 1.8x | — | 28.4x | 30.3% |
| TOON | Kartoon Studios, Inc. | Film & Video ·fallback | $42M | 1.1x | — | — | 74.2% |
Quality & solvency checks
Cheap stocks can be cheap for a reason. These screens warn when a low valuation comes paired with structural fragility.
Why it matters: Cheap-looking stocks (low P/E or P/B) often have low Z-scores because the market knows the company is dying. Z-score warns you before you fall into a value trap.
Reference: > 3.0 = safe zone · 1.81–3.0 = grey zone · < 1.81 = distress zone
Full explanation →
We can't produce a trustworthy Altman Z here: retained earnings weren't separately reported in our data, so a core input would have to be fabricated. Rather than show a categorical "distress" verdict from an invented number, we mark it unavailable. The classic manufacturing-calibrated model also fits asset-light businesses like this one poorly. Judge financial health from the leverage, cash position, and the measurable Piotroski checks instead.
▾ The checks — what passed, what didn't (and what we couldn't measure)
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✗ Positive net incomeNet income -$146.9M in the latest year.Why this matters: Does the company actually earn a profit? Sustained losses eventually force it to raise money — diluting you — or take on debt.
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✓ Positive operating cash flowOperating cash flow $4.2M (was $37.5M the prior year).
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✓ Cash flow backs up reported profitOperating cash flow $4.2M vs net income -$146.9M.
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✗ Return on assets improvingReturn on assets -24.8% vs -11.2% a year ago.Why this matters: Is the company squeezing more profit out of each dollar of assets than last year? Rising = getting more efficient; falling = the opposite.
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✗ Debt load (vs assets)Long-term debt is 72.5% of assets vs 61.3% a year ago ($429.7M now).Why this matters: Rising debt relative to assets means more risk and more cash going to interest instead of shareholders. Falling debt is a sign of strengthening.
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✗ Short-term liquidity (current ratio)Current ratio 2.10x vs 2.67x a year ago.Why this matters: The current ratio compares assets it can turn to cash within a year against bills due within a year. Below 1.0 means it may struggle to cover near-term obligations.
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✓ Share count (dilution)Share count declined 5.9% (4.7M → 4.5M year-over-year), so the no-dilution check passed. (This 1-year change differs from the ~4%/yr multi-year buyback CAGR the DCF cites.)
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· Pricing power (gross margin) (n/a — data not reported; not scored)
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✓ Sales per asset (asset turnover)Asset turnover 0.63x vs 0.48x a year ago.
Missing data is never counted as a pass or a fail — it's shown as n/a and excluded from the denominator. Each check compares the company against its own prior year.
What if you assume different inputs?
Here's where we land — and what happens if you change the assumptions. Drag the sliders to set your own Discount RateDiscount Rate — The annual return you demand for taking single-stock risk instead of buying a safe Treasury or index fund.
Why it matters: Higher discount rate = stricter valuation (a stock has to produce more cash to be worth holding). Lower = more generous.
Reference: 8–12% is standard · 9–10% matches S&P 500 historical return · Below 7% is illogical for single-stock risk
Full explanation → (the annual return you demand for single-stock risk) and terminal growth; the value updates live so you can see whether the stock looks cheaper or richer. The discount rate starts at 10.0%, the figure our model used for UONE. Open Advanced to also change beta, growth and the rate path.
Note: no headline intrinsic value is published for this stock (the valuation is held for a data-quality reason — see the notes above). The calculator below is a what-if tool: the values it produces are your assumptions played out, not our estimate.
A full intrinsic value isn't shown for UONE because the valuation is currently held for a data-quality reason (see the guardrail notes above). The reverse-DCF reading still works — it needs only the price and cash flow — but we won't publish a forward value until the underlying data passes our checks.
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⚙ Advanced — tinker with every input (beta, growth, rate path, margin → full intrinsic value)
Urban One, Inc. is deeply undervalued by the model, showing a 91% discount to its intrinsic valueIntrinsic Value — Our DCF model's estimate of what each share is mathematically worth based on projected cash flows.
Why it matters: Compare to current price. Below IV = potentially undervalued. Above IV = priced for growth that must actually happen.
Reference: Model-derived; quality depends on data and assumptions.
Full explanation → of $73.34. The market likely discounts the stock due to its declining revenue, which has fallen by 4% annually over the last four years, and its recent negative net income. The primary quantifiable risk is the continued revenue decline from $440M to $374M.
As of 2 months ago
Anatomy of a share
What you're buying per share. Bars are at the same scale so you can see the relative size of revenue, costs, cash flow, and debt — not just read them in a table.
What's free cash flow / what do these mean?
Revenue per share — how much the business earns from customers, divided by the number of shares outstanding. Top of the income statement.
Earnings per share — profit left after operating costs, interest, and taxes, per share. Two versions appear on this page and are not interchangeable: GAAP diluted EPS uses the company's weighted-average diluted share count during the reporting period (this is the "earnings" in "price-to-earnings"); net income per current share divides annual net income by today's share count. They differ whenever the share count has changed.
Owner-earnings free cash flow per share — the cash the business produces for shareholders. Savng's owner-earnings FCF subtracts capital expenditures and stock-based compensation from operating cash flow (SBC is a real dilution cost even though it's non-cash). This is deliberately more conservative than "standard" FCF, which subtracts only capital expenditures — so our figure is lower than the headline FCF you'll see elsewhere. FCF funds dividends, buybacks, debt repayment, and acquisitions; a company can report positive earnings yet negative FCF.
Debt per share — total interest-bearing borrowings divided by shares. High debt-per-share next to thin FCF-per-share is a fragility signal.
What you actually need to decide
Every stock price is a disagreement. Here's the single thing that must go right for the bulls, the single thing that breaks the thesis, and the concrete signposts to watch so you can update your view as real results arrive.
- Reversal of the revenue decline in upcoming quarters
- Improvement in net income profitability
- Further reduction in long-term debt
The trend, in plain numbers (2024 → 2025)
Straight from the financial statements — no model, no opinion. For a small or unprofitable company, the direction of these numbers usually tells you more than any single valuation.
Nothing clearly improving year-over-year.
- Revenue fell -17% to $374.4M.
- Free cash flow is negative at -$7.8M — the cash burn widened vs last year.
- Still unprofitable at -$146.9M — loss widening.
Management & Leadership
Alfred C. Liggins III serves as the Chief Executive Officer and President of Urban One, Inc., a company founded by his mother, Cathy Hughes, who remains the Chairperson. Liggins has been instrumental in guiding the company's evolution in media. Limited executive data beyond these key figures is available.
What They Make
Urban One, Inc. is a diversified media company primarily focused on the African-American market, operating radio broadcasting stations and various digital platforms. They sell advertising time and content subscriptions to consumers and businesses.
End Markets
Revenue Drivers
Why Is It Priced Like This?
Why Customers Pay
What we use instead: earnings (P/E, EV/EBIT), book value (P/B) — computed from the figures this company does report, shown in the sections below. Those numbers are unaffected by the missing cash-flow data.
The market prices UONE at a 91% discount to the model's intrinsic valueIntrinsic Value — Our DCF model's estimate of what each share is mathematically worth based on projected cash flows.
Why it matters: Compare to current price. Below IV = potentially undervalued. Above IV = priced for growth that must actually happen.
Reference: Model-derived; quality depends on data and assumptions.
Full explanation →, likely reflecting concerns over its declining revenue, which has fallen by 4% annually over four years, and its latest negative net income. While operating cash flow is positive, the market may be assigning value to potential future growth in its digital media segments or expansion into new content verticals, which is not in the model, but these may or may not materialize.
Business Model & Valuation
How They Make Money
The company funds itself through its positive operating cash flow, which has been positive for five consecutive years, and has been reducing its long-term debt, which fell from $833M to $430M.
Growth / Revenue DCF
Negative free cash flow: revenue/margin growth model used - standard FCF DCF is unreliable for companies still scaling.
Show advanced inputs
| RevenueGrowth | 2.0% |
What this model does NOT do: this is a consolidated owner-earnings FCF model. Standalone segment assumptions: none. It does not project retransmission fees, core & political advertising, digital — nor reverse compensation or subscriber attrition independently; their combined effect is embedded in the historical revenue and cash-flow trend the model extrapolates. The calculator above can only approximate a segment's impact through the single consolidated growth rate — it cannot model any one line separately. For a true segment-level view, build a separate model from the company's segment disclosures.
Maturity & Competitive Position
Moat Signals
Revenue has been declining at a rate of -4% per year over the last four years.
Geography & Markets
Urban One, Inc. primarily operates within the United States, focusing on major metropolitan areas with significant African-American populations. Exact geographic revenue segmentation is not available from current data sources.
Geographic Risks
Market Signals
These are timing signals, not value signals — they describe the stock's recent price behavior, not what the business is worth. Use them for the "the thesis looks good, but is now the moment?" question. Each tile below explains what it's saying.
Why it matters: Short-term contrarian indicator. Extreme readings often precede mean reversion, though not always.
Reference: 30–70 normal · >70 overbought · <30 oversold
Full explanation → (14)52.7NeutralMomentum is balanced — neither overbought nor oversold.
Why it matters: When the fast line crosses above the slow line, short-term momentum is turning up; below, turning down. A timing cue, not a value signal.
Reference: Line above signal = bullish momentum · below = bearish
Full explanation →BullishLine above signalThe fast trend is above the slow trend — short-term momentum is currently upward.
Technicals describe price, not the business. A great company can have a "bearish" tape (a buying chance) and a weak one a "bullish" tape (a trap). Pair these with the valuation and health sections above.
QUALITY
Data Quality & Risk Flags (5 notes — click to expand/collapse)
Guardrail Notes (3)
- FCF negative: revenue/margin growth model projects future cash flows from revenue trajectory.
- Terminal growth (3%) capped to 1.6% (80% of near-term growth 2%).
- Illiquidity discount 25% applied (small/micro-cap — harder to exit, demand a margin).
FINANCIALS
Financial Statements (5-year tables — click to expand)
From URBAN ONE, INC.'s SEC filings (EDGAR).
Income (5yr)
| Year | Revenue | Net Income | EPS |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 374.4M | -146.9M | $-32.94 |
| 2024 | 449.7M | -105.4M | $-22.23 |
| 2023 | 477.7M | 2.1M | $0.04 |
| 2022 | 484.6M | 34.3M | $0.66 |
| 2021 | 440.3M | 36.8M | $0.68 |
Cash Flow (5yr)
| Year | Operating CF | CapEx | − SBC & adj. | Free Cash Flow |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 4.2M | 10.1M | 1.9M | -7.8M |
| 2024 | 37.5M | 7.2M | 5.7M | 24.5M |
| 2023 | 64.6M | 7.7M | 10.0M | 47.0M |
| 2022 | 66.5M | 6.8M | 9.9M | 49.9M |
| 2021 | 80.2M | 6.3M | 565,000 | 73.3M |
How we define FCF: operating cash flow − capital expenditure − stock-based compensation (owner-earnings basis — SBC is a real cost to shareholders even though it's non-cash). Latest year: 4.2M − 10.1M − 1.9M (SBC & adj.) = -7.8M. This is the same owner-earnings FCF definition the valuation model uses, though the DCF's starting value is a projected from revenue × terminal margin, not this single year.
Balance Sheet
| Total Assets | 593.0M |
| Total Liabilities | 565.8M |
| Equity | 24.6M |
| Total Debt | 429.7M |