Survey Results Reveal Earnings Announcement Trends

I've been managing investor relations services for…much longer than I care to think about. If my career at PR Newswire/MultiVu were a human they could legally vote, be drafted into the military and legally buy alcohol (in Canada, but still!). Yikes.

Because I'm a bit of a data hoarder, I have lots of history on our services. I know how many events we produced with viewer controlled slides for the last decade. But there's always been a bit of background I've wondered about. What are the transcripts being used for? Why did you wait until the week before to order your earnings event? Was there a vote at a NIRI gathering to determine how to pronounce 'EBITDA'?

Every couple of years National Investor Relations Institute(NIRI) produces a report on 'earnings process and practice'. It's really great! There's a lot of 10K this and non-GAAP that, that flies over my head. But, there's also a lot of great detail: things like preferred day and time for earnings announcements, availability of archives, webcast and supporting materials.

It still doesn't answer my questions, so last Autumn I worked with our MultiVu Survey team to get some of them answered.

What did we learn?

Are you ordering a transcript, what are you using it for?
78% of respondents are ordering transcripts, more than 90% are just using them for history

When do you typically have your earnings date confirmed?
These numbers were pretty equal across the board. Some companies know 90 days out, some have the date confirmed less than 30 days out.

Are you interested in prerecording?
While we're seeing an increase in prerecording activity, only 35% are currently prerecording. The primary reason keeping them from prerecording is availability of executive teams and/or edits being made to the script in the last 24 hours before the call.

Are you webcasting internal events?
86% of people are not webcasting internal events.

What additional services would you like to see?
The primary request for expanded services was easier video integration. We've been working on that, actually! We can now embed video clips into slides, just ask us.

If you are interested, the survey is still open. We'd love to hear from you! Fear not, all responses are anonymous.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/multivuwebcastfeedback

ABOUT THE EXPERT: Shana Ferriby

Shana has 10 years of experience in webcasting. She has worked with clients worldwide on large scale projects. Shana manages the Webcast team and all aspects of the service to make the customer experience seamless. Before joining MultiVu, she worked with the client services team at PR Newswire.