Critical Survey: Bright Mountain Media (OTCMKTS:BMTM) & Marchex (NASDAQ:MCHX)

Bright Mountain Media (OTCMKTS:BMTM) and Marchex (NASDAQ:MCHX) are both small-cap computer and technology companies, but which is the better business? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their profitability, earnings, risk, dividends, analyst recommendations, institutional ownership and valuation.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent ratings and recommmendations for Bright Mountain Media and Marchex, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Bright Mountain Media	0	0	0	0	0.00
Marchex	1	1	0	0	1.50

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Bright Mountain Media and Marchex”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Bright Mountain Media	$56.68 million	0.02	-$17.02 million	($0.08)	-0.06
Marchex	$48.12 million	1.43	-$4.95 million	($0.11)	-14.18

Marchex has lower revenue, but higher earnings than Bright Mountain Media. Marchex is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Bright Mountain Media, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

73.5% of Marchex shares are held by institutional investors. 61.6% of Bright Mountain Media shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 23.5% of Marchex shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Volatility and Risk

Bright Mountain Media has a beta of 124.25, suggesting that its share price is 12,325% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Marchex has a beta of 2.03, suggesting that its share price is 103% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares Bright Mountain Media and Marchex’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Bright Mountain Media	-23.00%	N/A	-34.88%
Marchex	-10.38%	-13.57%	-10.40%

About Bright Mountain Media

Bright Mountain Media, Inc. provides an end-to-end digital media and advertising services platform that connects brands with targeted consumer demographics in the United States and Israel. It focuses on digital publishing comprising websites, including Mom.com, Cafemom.com, LittleThings.com, and MamasLatinas.com; and advertising technology, consumer insights, creative, and media services. The company serves advertisers, advertising agencies and advertising service organizations. The company was formerly known as Bright Mountain Acquisition Corporation and changed its name to Bright Mountain Media, Inc. in December 2015. Bright Mountain Media, Inc. is based in Boca Raton, Florida.

About Marchex

Marchex, Inc., a conversation intelligence company, provides conversational analytics and related solutions in the United States, Canada, and internationally. Its products include Marketing Edge that identifies which campaigns and channels are driving inbound conversations, evaluates what happens during those conversations, and closes the sales loop by connecting converted sales to marketing driven leads; Sonar Business Text Messaging, an artificial intelligence (AI) empowered intelligent workflow enabled mobile messaging solution that enables operations, sales, and marketing teams to communicate personally with field staff, prospects, and customers; Marchex Platform Services, a robust API-based conversation intelligence product that allows executives, sales, customer engagement, and marketing teams to apply Marchex AI to most any calls, regardless of communication platform, in order to identify actionable insights from conversations with their customers; Spotlight, an AI conversation analytics product for multi-location businesses; and Engage, a solution that provides locations with applications to enhance their overall performance. The company was incorporated in 2003 and is headquartered in Seattle, Washington.