TDAY

Image source: The Motley Fool. Thursday, Aug. 6, 2026 at 8:30 a.m. ET Chairman and Chief Executive Officer - Michael Reed Chief Financial Officer - Trisha Gosser President of USA TODAY Media - Kristin Roberts Head of Investor Relations - Matthew Esposito Operator: Greetings. Welcome to the USA TODAY Company Q2 2026 Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions] Please note, this conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your host, Matt Esposito, Head of Investor Relations. You may begin. Matthew Esposito: Thank you. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining our call today to discuss USA TODAY Co's second quarter 2026 financial results. Presenting on today's call will be Mike Reed, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer; Trisha Gosser, Chief Financial Officer; and Kristin Roberts, President of USA TODAY Media. If you navigate to our website, you will find that we have posted an earnings supplement in addition to our earlier press release. We will be referencing it today on the call as it provides you with additional detail on this quarter's performance. Before we begin, please let me remind you that this call is being recorded. In addition, certain statements made during this call are or may be deemed to be forward-looking statements as defined under the U.S. Federal Securities Laws, including those with respect to future results and events and are based upon current expectations. These statements involve risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results and events to differ materially from those discussed today. We encourage you to read the cautionary statement regarding forward-looking statements in the earnings supplement as well as the risk factors described in our filings made with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Except as required by law, we undertake no obligation to publicly update or correct any of the forward-looking statements made during this call. Please keep in mind all comparisons are on a year-over-year basis unless otherwise noted. In addition, we will be discussing non-GAAP financial information during the call, including same-store revenues, free cash flow, total adjusted EBITDA, total adjusted EBITDA margin, segment adjusted EBITDA, segment adjusted EBITDA margin and adjusted net income attributable to USA TODAY Co. You can find reconciliations of our non-GAAP measures to the most comparable U.S. GAAP measures in the earnings supplement. Lastly, I would like to remind you that nothing on this call constitutes an offer to sell or solicitation of offer to purchase any USA TODAY Co. securities. The webcast and audio cast are copyrighted material of USA TODAY Co. and may not be duplicated, reproduced or rebroadcasted without our prior written consent. With that, I would like to turn the call over to Mike Reed, Chairman and CEO of USA TODAY Co. Michael Reed: Thank you, Matt. Good morning, and thanks to all of you for joining our second quarter earnings call. The second quarter reflects continued progress against our long term strategy and strengthens my confidence in reaffirming our full-year outlook. Today, we'll highlight the operational progress driving that confidence, the momentum we continue to see across our key growth areas, such as digital-only subscription revenues and digital other revenues, as well as the strategic initiatives underway to further accelerate that progress. One example I'd like to highlight is our work with Palantir, which we expect to strengthen how we collect, connect, and activate audience data to drive more effective and faster monetization across our platform. As we mentioned back in the spring, 2026 would be a year with real momentum, but also real variability, particularly in our content licensing business, where the delivery of revenue from those agreements can differ meaningfully from one quarter to the next. We saw some of that lumpiness in the second quarter, alongside the continued shift in consumer behavior away from traditional search. It's important to note, this is a shift we have been preparing for and one that has guided our investments for some time now. We have been focused on building more direct relationships with audiences through newsletters, social platforms, and producing more video content. And those investments are driving strong growth across each of those channels and position us to better offset the changes in audience behavior. At the same time, audiences are increasingly discovering content through AI systems that answer questions directly for consumers. What that means is we are now effectively serving 2 audiences, human readers and the AI platforms that surface our work to them. And it isn't only the consumer platforms that surface our work, a far broader universe of crawlers and scrapers seek to ingest our content. However, as you know, we continue to leverage technology to block those crawlers and scrapers who don't have licensing agreements with us. We are also building our products and our strategy to provide essential content for our users and machine readable formats that let us expand current licensing structures. We recognize that we have to create and format content for humans and for machines. And while we see a change in search-driven behavior, we also see entirely new ways to license, distribute, and monetize the trusted content we produce every day. Now with that framing, I'll walk through some of the key financial highlights for the second quarter. First, we generated approximately $20 million of free cash flow, an increase of 11% year-over-year. We also delivered our second consecutive quarter of positive net income. We continue to pay down debt and maintain a solid cash position. And our digital-only subscription business and digital other business, which we believe are 2 important engines for sustainable growth, continued to post strong performance in the quarter. For example, in our digital-only subscription business, volumes are stabilizing and digital-only ARPU reached another record high, driving digital-only subscription revenue to growth year-over-year for the second consecutive quarter. Digital other also grew year-over-year in the quarter, driven by continued strength in our syndication and licensing agreements as well as our commerce business. We expect this revenue stream to expand throughout the year as we broaden our portfolio of content licensing partners and further grow our commerce opportunities. And finally, some of the key metrics in our LOCALiQ segment continued to move in the right direction. We delivered sequential growth in our core platform revenue. Our core platform average customer count and core platform ARPU reached another record high, supporting more meaningful revenue opportunities in the back half of the year. We have consistently said that this transformation would not be linear, and Q2 reflects that. While quarterly results will fluctuate as we execute on our strategy, we believe our long term direction remains unchanged. As we look across the business, we see continued strategic progress, a strong operating foundation, and growing confidence that the actions we're taking are positioning us for sustainable long-term value creation. Our industry-leading scale at both the national and local levels, our highly diversified digital portfolio and vast collection of trusted real-time content that audiences value and AI platforms need, serve as strong drivers for the growth we expect to capture over time. As mentioned, we are reaffirming our full year outlook. We expect revenue trends to improve as the year goes on and believe the inflection point remains firmly in sight. We also expect to grow adjusted EBITDA, expand margins, improve net income and deliver a fourth consecutive year of free cash flow growth. And in the background, we remain optimistic about the outcomes of the pending litigation against Google, as well as the opportunity to enter into more AI licensing agreements in the future. Now with that, I'd like to discuss some of the key operational highlights from the second quarter in a little bit more detail. And I'll start with our diversified digital revenue strategy, which is rooted in having an audience at scale with improving engagement to provide a foundation for sustainable growth. In the second quarter, we continued to serve one of the largest digital audiences in the media industry. And the opportunity moving forward is to better understand that audience and put the data behind it to work. Every visit, every session, and every moment of attention creates a signal. And when we connect those signals, they become actionable intelligence that allows us to engage users more effectively and monetize those relationships faster and at much greater value. The work our team is doing with Palantir is a direct extension of this strategy. We are applying Palantir's AI-powered platform to one of the largest opportunities in front of us, converting the sheer scale of our audience into known orchestrated first-party relationships because that is what turns our reach into sustainable higher-value revenue. We believe the work to build a common intelligence layer that connects our audience, content, and first-party data to better understand our users and translate those insights into stronger engagement and monetization across our platform can be a meaningful driver of ARPU across subscriptions, advertising, and e-commerce. We view the evolving search dynamics as an opportunity to build a healthier and more resilient business, and a business that is less dependent on any single platform. We experienced the risks of that dependence firsthand in early 2025, when Google's manual actions delayed the growth we expected from several content partnerships. As a result, reducing that reliance has been a key focus of ours for several quarters, and it's something we have consistently discussed with you. It is how we gain greater control over the growth drivers in our business. It also reflects the same approach we successfully applied in 2025, to our digital-only subscription business, where we moved away from volume that didn't create long-term value. That transition required patience and discipline, but it has produced a healthier, more durable business with consistent growth across key metrics. Some of which include our digital-only subscription revenue grew year-over-year for the second consecutive quarter, giving us increased confidence that revenue will grow over the next several quarters and beyond. Our digital-only ARPU reached another record high in the quarter, increasing 34% year-over-year, and our start-to-stop ratio grew sequentially, reflecting further volume stabilization and bringing us closer to sequential volume growth. We are applying that same discipline to our broader audience strategy by prioritizing the quality of engagement over the sheer volume of traffic. To support that strategy, our focus is shifting away from one-and-done traffic because even though it contributes to our unique visitor count, it is ultimately our least valuable and least monetizable audience. Instead, we are investing in new channels that allow us to build direct ongoing relationships with consumers. That includes expanding how audiences discover our content off platform through channels like social media, where we continue to see meaningful growth and where we see significant potential to unlock greater value from those audiences. We also see social media along with vehicles like personalized newsletters, as important pathways to bring audiences back to our platform where we can deepen that engagement through immersive video experiences. And as those relationships deepen, so does our understanding of our audience, allowing us to deliver greater value to advertisers and drive higher CPMs while also connecting consumers with the right commerce opportunities at the right time. We believe this is the right long term trade-off because replacing lower value traffic with deeper audience relationships creates a stronger foundation for predictable and repeatable revenue growth and in turn, long-term value creation. Now with that, I'd like to hand the call over to Kristin, to discuss these initiatives in more detail as well as the continued momentum we're seeing in our digital-only subscription business. Kristin? Kristin Roberts: Thank you, Mike. Audience growth has been central to our transformation. And over the past 3 years, that strategy has helped us build one of the largest digital audiences among content creators in America. As Mike noted, consumers are changing how they find and consume content, and we're meeting them where they are. We're doing that from a position of real strength through the scale, trusted brands, and loyal audiences that we have already built, which we believe will provide a foundation that very few others in the industry can match. As consumer behavior shifts, we're putting focus on platforms such as YouTube, TikTok and Instagram, as well as leveraging creators, personalities, podcasts, and video-first experiences. Social video and newsletters are becoming primary engines of discovery, and the early results speak for themselves. In the first half of this year, we generated 3 billion off-platform video views, putting us on pace to more than double last year's total. Within that, TikTok alone surpassed 1 billion views. These channels are still small relative to our overall traffic, but that's exactly what makes the opportunity so compelling. We see significant runway ahead, and these numbers tell a bigger story than audience growth alone. They reinforce that our content continues to find audiences as consumer discovery evolves. Importantly, we continue to see strong search performance in the categories where we have a clear right to win, including breaking news, sports, and entertainment. The World Cup is an excellent example. Coverage across the USA TODAY NETWORK generated 97 million page views with search driving nearly 65% of that traffic. That reinforces an important point. When content meets a real and urgent need, search still delivers. But we're not building our future on search. Even in our strongest categories, great content still finds an audience, and our opportunity moving forward is to ensure that our distribution tactics keep pace with the way readers and viewers want to consume content in digital spaces. As we continue to strengthen how audiences discover and engage with our content, we are also expanding the ways we generate revenue from those relationships. Commerce is one of the clearest examples, and we believe our work with Palantir has the potential to accelerate that opportunity. Historically, much of our commerce business has relied on manual processes to connect affiliate opportunities with our content. Our work with Palantir changes that by matching affiliate products and offers to relevant content at scale, which will allow us to monetize significantly more of our sports, entertainment, dining, and other relevant content categories in real time. And the opportunity extends well beyond commerce. By connecting audience signals across our platform, we can create a unified understanding of our users that simply didn't exist before. That enables more personalized experiences, increases our base of known users and strengthens our first-party intelligence, which is expected to significantly increase the value of our audience over time. In other words, we are not working to simply monetize more of our content, but to better understand, engage, and unlock greater value from every audience relationship we create. Together, expanding our discovery and growing our base of known users fuels growth in digital advertising, and we believe this positions us to generate materially higher revenue from our audience than we have in the past. Known users simply monetize at higher rates. And as they become a larger share of our audience, the value of every impression we sell rises with them. This shift in audience mix doesn't happen overnight, but the investments we have made are already improving that mix, and we're encouraged by the progress we're seeing. We've done this before with our digital-only subscription business, where we absorbed short-term pressure in exchange for a healthier, more durable model. And today, we're capturing the benefits of that discipline. We believe digital advertising can follow the same path. The playbook is proven, and we are ready to run it again. On that note, we're encouraged by the strong performance of digital-only subscription revenue. Our approach has not changed. We are deliberately trading a measure of raw page views for stronger engagement metrics as well as higher-value subscription revenue. We're continuing to build out our stacked products model, and this quarter, we added Marvel Comics to the PLAY platform, which is an important step in extending the experience beyond puzzles and games. Since launch, the audience engaging with Marvel content has been overwhelmingly new to us. That's a signal we take seriously. We believe it reinforces both the demand for premium entertainment experiences and our ability to bring entirely new audiences into our portfolio. It also supports PLAY's broader role in differentiating our product offering to drive long-term subscription growth. On the subscription front, we continue to build momentum in the second quarter. Our progress reflects solid improvement across key drivers of the business, including churn, our start-to-stop ratio, and paywall encounters. Those improvements reinforce our confidence that we are building sustainable momentum and position us well for sequential growth over the coming quarters. To recap, the work is far from complete, but we are confident in the direction we are heading. We have anticipated these changes for some time and the strategy we are executing is designed to build a broader, more engaged audience that delivers predictable and repeatable revenue. Back to you, Mike. Michael Reed: Thanks, Kristin. I'd like to reinforce a few of the points you just made because they get to the heart of the confidence we have in our path forward. We have significant scale, and we have made deliberate investments over the past few years to engage directly with that audience. Most importantly, as Kristin put it, great content still finds an audience. Our job now is to meet that audience wherever they choose to be and from there, keep them engaged. That heightened focus on engagement is central to how we are using AI on our platforms. DeeperDive, our generative AI answer engine, is a great example of this. Since launching in September of last year, readers have asked more than 50 million questions with average daily activity now exceeding 390,000 interactions. But the real story is not the volume, it's the value of that engagement. When we tested pages with DeeperDive against pages without it, the difference was clear. DeeperDive generated longer time on site, higher advertising revenue per session and stronger subscription intent. These results reinforce what we already know: the engagement of our audience matters more than the raw traffic alone. And DeeperDive is another way we are deepening that engagement and translating it into greater monetization. As DeeperDive usage grows beyond just USA TODAY, we see a significant opportunity to replicate this engagement across the entire network. We are also one of the first publishers in the U.S. to adopt this kind of AI answer engine. And as advertiser demand moves quickly towards this type of experience, we believe our position as an early innovator, combined with our scale, creates additional opportunities to unlock value across our advertising business. Overall, we navigated the quarter well, and we feel good about the momentum we are carrying into the second half of the year. Now I'd like to turn the call over to Trisha, to provide additional details and color around our 2026 second quarter financials. Trisha? Trisha Gosser: Thank you, Mike. Good morning, everyone. Please keep in mind, all comparisons are on a year-over-year basis unless otherwise noted. As Mike mentioned, we expected variability in our quarterly results this year, and the second quarter was consistent with that expectation. While performance varied across the portfolio, we managed the business well through it. We held the line on costs. We delivered solid profitability, and we grew free cash flow. We continue to see encouraging trends in several key areas of the business, reinforcing our confidence in our strategy and the opportunities ahead. Let me walk you through the numbers. In the second quarter, total revenues were $536.3 million, a decrease of 8.3% or 6.1% on a same-store basis. Let me bridge this performance to the first quarter because the drivers are specific and in large part expected. First, we are lapping an outsized content licensing contribution in Q1, while still driving strong year-over-year digital other growth in Q2. Second, digital advertising softened a bit as we adapt to the shift in audience behavior. We expected variability across quarters given the shift in revenue mix. But overall, we feel positive about the collective direction of the business over the first half of the year. Total adjusted EBITDA was $56.9 million in the second quarter, representing a margin of 10.6%. While total adjusted EBITDA decreased compared to the prior year period, we continue to expect year-over-year growth for the full year. Expense management remains a top priority. And in Q2, operating expenses decreased 7.8% compared to the prior year. In the back half of the year, we will continue to align our expense base with our revenue trends while projecting the investments that drive our growth. Continued operational discipline made our net income more consistent, and we reported net income of $9.1 million in the second quarter, marking our second consecutive quarter of positive net income. On an adjusted basis, adjusted net income attributable to USA TODAY Co. was $11 million. Total digital revenues in the second quarter were $254.3 million, a decrease of 4.2% or 3.6% on a same-store basis, and represented 47.4% of total revenues. Digital advertising revenues decreased 9.2%, reflecting lower page views and the loss of a programmatic partner, creating pressure on programmatic advertising. Given the focus on audience engagement, we are expecting improved advertising trends in the back half of the year. Within digital, the underlying growth engines continue to perform. Digital-only subscription revenues totaled $45.6 million, increasing 6.8% year-over-year. Digital-only ARPU also reached a record high of $10.47 in the second quarter, increasing 34.4% year-over-year. Volume decreases moderated further during the quarter, while our start-to-stop ratio improved sequentially, reinforcing our confidence in the path toward renewed subscriber growth. In the second quarter, our digital other revenues, which include revenues from our AI partnerships, content licensing agreements and syndication, grew 20.2% year-over-year to $20.4 million, and we expect ongoing growth in this category this year as we further expand this revenue stream and our suite of licensing agreements. Turning to the USA TODAY Media segment. Segment adjusted EBITDA totaled $42 million, representing a margin of 10.6%. Second quarter revenue trends were primarily affected by the performance in digital advertising. Turning to the Newsquest segment. Segment adjusted EBITDA totaled $14.3 million, reflecting a margin of 24.2%. Revenue trends were impacted by the expected timing shift of a revenue-generating conference but reflects strong ongoing digital growth. In our LOCALiQ segment, revenue remained lower year-over-year, but Q2 reflected sequential growth in both core platform revenue and segment adjusted EBITDA. We are pleased with the sequential momentum from Q1 to Q2, which is reflected in the following key areas. Total core platform revenue was $106.3 million, up 7%. Segment adjusted EBITDA totaled $13.2 million, while margins expanded 560 basis points to 12.4%. Core platform average customer count increased by 300 or 2.8% and core platform ARPU increased 4.1% to a record quarterly high of $2,908. Let's now turn to the balance sheet. At the end of the second quarter, our cash balance was $86.7 million and net debt decreased to $883.8 million. In Q2, free cash flow totaled $19.6 million, an increase of 11.2%, while cash provided by operating activities grew 8.6% to $35.4 million. We ended Q2 with $970.5 million of total debt, reflecting $17.7 million of total debt paydown in the quarter. Now let me turn to our outlook. We are reaffirming our full year 2026 business outlook. We continue to expect meaningful improvement in same-store revenue trends as compared to 2025, driven by the strength of our digital-only subscription and digital other businesses and improving digital advertising trends. We expect adjusted EBITDA to grow over the prior year and solid net income growth, along with double-digit free cash flow growth. Our second half reflects a shift away from search and the mitigating actions underway across content distribution, licensing and known user monetization. In short, we view the second quarter as a period of expected variability within a year that we still expect to be a strong one for the company. As we look ahead, we remain encouraged by the direction of the business. This is a dynamic environment, and results may continue to vary quarter-to-quarter, but we believe the strategic foundation, following our audience, growing our data and known audience capabilities, expanding our license capabilities and footprint, and staying disciplined on costs will lead to long term growth and shareholder value creation. I will now hand it back to the operator for questions, and then we will go back to Mike for some closing thoughts. Operator: [Operator Instructions] Your first question for today is from Giuliano Bologna with Compass Point. Giuliano Anderes-Bologna: Great results. As a first question, you referenced your work with Palantir several times during the call. Can you elaborate on that and what the opportunity looks like? Michael Reed: Yes. Giuliano, good to talk to you. Yes, we're -- we did reference it a couple of times. We're really excited about this opportunity and what it could do for the trajectory of our business transformation. We have really a tremendous amount of data on consumers on our platform today. And this work with Palantir is really going to allow us to connect that audience behavior, content engagement and first-party data in a way that allows us to monetize each consumer on the platform at a much higher rate. So I mean, the easiest way to think about it is taking this first-party data everything is a signal and turning it into actionable intelligence in a real-time and fast way where we can deliver the right content to consumers while they're on our platform, the right advertisement to consumers while they're on our platform, the right commerce opportunity embedded into that content in the right time and the right price for a subscription offer. So it really allows us to take this wealth of data we have and turn it into actionable intelligence in real time. And that gives us a lot of optimism on how fast we can move and how big the opportunity can be. I think this partnership with Palantir -- Giuliano -- is exciting to us, too, because what may take us a considerable amount of time to build internally, we can do in a matter of weeks or months with Palantir. So you're talking about taking a best in the world AI and software platform with Palantir and applying it to actions on our platform. It's important to note, all of our data remains our data. It's our data. The actions and the intelligence that we utilize takes place on our platform. It's our IP, it's our outcomes. So we're not replacing any technology. It's really just leveraging this incredible AI and software that Palantir has to allow us to move so much faster and to be so much smarter with the data we have today. And then the other thing that's really going to help us do, which is really important to us is take a lot of the anonymous interactions we have today and turn those into known relationships. And that's going to just increase the amount of data we have. The more known relationships we have, the more data we create, the more signals we create, the more actionable intelligence we have. So we'll evaluate this work. We're in it now. We'll look at conversion, retention, engagement, and revenue per user. And we hope over the next quarter and the next -- actually in the next 2 quarters, we're going to be able to really start to talk more specifically about the financial upside here. If you do -- when we talk to Palantir, they're very bold about the predictions of the financial upside. It's too early for us to do that yet. But we do believe the scale of our data, coupled with this best-in-class technology has the potential to really create a powerful uplift in the trajectory of our business. So we're excited to be working with them and think it's going to have a near-term and meaningful uplift to our business. Giuliano Anderes-Bologna: That's helpful. And next question, you mentioned the large audience you're building on social media platforms. Is that a potential new revenue stream? Kristin Roberts: Mike, I'll take this one. Giuliano, it's Kristin. The answer to the question about whether this is a potential new revenue stream is, yes, absolutely. And for us, social and video are increasingly becoming primary discovery channels. And that's where consumers are choosing to engage with the content. As we said, couple of minutes ago, we generated more than 3 billion off-platform video views just in the first half of the year. And all of that reinforces for us the fact that our journalism continues to reach audiences really have significant scale even as those audiences are changing the way they discover that content. So some of that audience, Giuliano, we'll monetize directly through platform revenue sharing, also through sponsorships, also through branded content. But another opportunity here is using those platforms to begin to build the direct relationship with consumers. And from there, what we're seeing is that we can bring a portion of these users back on our platform. And then coupled with our data, we can deepen that engagement and then create those higher value opportunities that hit advertising, it hits commerce, it hit subscriptions. So in this way, these off-platform moments become -- it becomes a new on-ramp that drives frequency and habits and then ultimately, that leads to paid relationships. So we don't view social as separate from our business. We view it as an increasingly important part of how we build and engage and monetize the audience over a long-term period. I hope that helps. Giuliano Anderes-Bologna: And the next one, do you see any more licensing deals coming this year? Just kind of thinking about the AI front and other deals around that. Michael Reed: Yes. Giuliano, yes, the short answer is yes. We do see more AI licensing deals coming this year. To expanding on that, we do continue to believe that demand -- that the demand for trusted and real-time content will grow as all of the various AI platforms expand their products and their services. It's still really an evolving business landscape there. But the other thing that we're doing now, which I think is going to be really important to our future licensing opportunities is reformatting our content to be machine readable. So we have historically always created content for humans. And in the AI machines, certain things are more important. And so reformatting our content to be machine readable is going to be really important, not only for future deals, but also to unlock more value in our current deals, so current deals. So yes, we're actively engaged in discussions. I don't want to get into specifics until we have announcements, but we do expect more deals in -- and our objective here is not just to sign more agreements, but it's really to build recurring long-term relationships where we get proper recognition of the value that we bring with this trusted real-time content. So we continue to block the scrapers and we are reformatting our content. We're working on that by the hour now to reformat content to make it machine readable. And as the ecosystem evolves, as an industry leader in terms of scale and the amount of great content, we expect to be at the table with new deals as well as expanding current deals. So this opportunity really is still in front of us, even though we've had revenue and we've had nice growth from it, almost all of this opportunity remains in front of us. So we're pretty excited about it. Giuliano Anderes-Bologna: And then a couple of your second quarter revenue trends were softer than 1Q. Is that a setback? Or do you expect some of those -- some of that variability? And do things still remain on track at this point? Trisha Gosser: Giuliano, this is Trisha. Yes, I'll take this. I absolutely don't view Q2 as a setback. I think we really remain on track with the strategy that we've outlined. And I think it's really important to separate the quarterly variability that we saw from the underlying trajectory of the business. So we discussed earlier this year, we expected 2026 to include both meaningful progress, but also quarterly variability, particularly around that content licensing that Mike was just talking about. That's absolutely still a growth engine for us. And I think we've also been talking about the changes in consumer behavior and the work we're doing to create a more direct engagement with our audience. And then if you couple that with the loss of a programmatic partner in the quarter, we did start to experience some pressure in digital advertising. But I'd say, at the same time, the businesses that we think are most important for long-term growth continue to perform extremely well. Our digital-only subscription revenue grew again for the second consecutive quarter. Our digital other revenue grew by more than 20% year-over-year, and all this translated into really good free cash flow growth, solid net income. And we're also starting to see those underlying fundamentals of the LOCALiQ business stabilize, improve, and we think that leads to improving revenue trends. So certainly, some of the revenue categories were softer in the quarter than Q1, but we're seeing really encouraging progress in the areas that we think are most important to the long term success of the business. We're seeing the work that we're doing on the audience and the data really start to scale more meaningfully. And all of that led us to reaffirming our full year outlook. So we have a lot of confidence in where we are and where we're going. Giuliano Anderes-Bologna: And then last one from me. Is there anything to update on the Google litigation? Michael Reed: Yes. Well, nothing specific since our last earnings call, but it's worth reiterating that we remain very optimistic about our position in that case. And just also reiterating the next big milestones are -- number one is, we do expect the remedies ruling in the DOJ Google case to be out in the market any time. We've kind of expected it for the last few months. And so that we think is coming sometime in the near future. And then we also expect a ruling on Google's -- the summary judgment filing motion in our case, specifically that Google filed earlier in the year, we expect a ruling from the judge in our favor in that case -- in that motion, probably September-ish. We'll disclose any material developments as they occur. I think one other important point to make on this topic is in our outlook for 2026. And as we think about not only 2026, but 2027, we've not built into our outlook any specific upside that we would see from a more open and transparent advertising ecosystem that may evolve from the DOJ remedies. So there is -- we reaffirmed guidance today, and that's without any benefit from the potential upside that we could get from DOJ remedies, the DOJ remedies case or, in fact, our specific litigation against Google. So that's all upside for us in the future, whether it's this year or next year. Operator: Your next question is from Matt Condon with Citizens Bank. Matthew Condon: My first one here is just Google accelerated its push into AI search this quarter. A lot of other open web companies have been calling that out. Is there any way that you can size that impact on the business in 2Q? And then have you seen search trends stabilize at all more recently? Kristin Roberts: Mike, I'll jump in on search trends and then I'll circle back to you and to Trisha. I would say, Matt, the way that we look at this is that the direct and engaged and identifiable audience is going to produce for us better economics and a more reliable business than maximizing that low-value anonymous traffic from any one platform. And so what our strategy has been for many quarters now, and you can see that in Q2, is to diversify how the audiences are finding us, how they're discovering the content and then converting more of those interactions into those direct and known relationships, right? So social and video, as we talked about, are expanding discovery. Obviously, newsletters create habit. Registration and subscriptions allow us to better understand and then to monetize. That, in my view, creates value across multiple revenue lines, not just the key revenue line that has been most impacted by the change in search, which is programmatic. So some of those channels are monetizing directly today. Others are creating a path back to own platforms. And what we can see is that the value of the audience we already have is actually paying out in those different revenue lines. There is a bit of a lag between audience growth in these channels and the full revenue benefit of our multipoint monetization. Trisha, do you want to add anything here? Trisha Gosser: Sure. The one thing I would say is that our digital advertising performance in the quarter was really driven by three main things. I think one is what we've been talking about, the impact of search on our business. Second, we mentioned that we saw the loss of a programmatic partner in the quarter. And then third, we saw a platform policy change that impacted one of our sponsored link partners. I would say each one of those is fairly equal in size on the impact year-over-year. That helps give a little bit of color. I will also say, though, that one thing that we're encouraged by is the fact that our premium sales on our platform did grow year-over-year. Our RPMs continue to improve throughout the quarter. So I think the things that we are able to control, we are moving in the right direction. Matthew Condon: Great. And then another question. Just, Mike, some other people have talked about potentially shutting Google off as far as their crawlers. Obviously, that would very much impact search for you guys, but then that would give you more negotiating leverage as bringing them to the table for AI licensing deals. Can you just talk about philosophically whether this would be something you'd be interested in? And at what point is -- could you easily do that? Meaning like the search become a low enough part of your business at some point that this would make sense? Michael Reed: Yes, Matt, I think the answer is yes. We're not there yet. But -- and we still -- as Kristin noted in our remarks on the call this morning, there are still some areas where we have great content, it's unique and we have a right to win, and search still performs in some of those categories like the FIFA World Cup for us this year. So we're not prepared to do it today. However, search revenue on our platform today is pretty small. And the traffic that we're getting from search, as I mentioned in my remarks, a lot of that's one and done, and it's not really meaningful traffic to us in the long term. And so it's less monetizable. So I think the short answer is yes, I can see a day where we turn off scraping or making our content available for the links. I think that day is getting much sooner now than it was a while back. So I don't know if it's 9 months, 12 months, 15 months, but we're definitely -- there's a line of sight there. And so we're -- but we're actually more hopeful that we can be proactive with Google in negotiating a fair licensing deal. That would be our preferred path to have our content appear both in traditional search as well as in AI summaries. That's obviously the preferred path. But if we have to cut them off and block them in order to get to the -- to a deal, then we'll do that for sure. And we're getting closer to that day today. Matthew Condon: And then the last one for me, just on the subscription business, the underlying trends continuing to improve there. As we look forward, just what are the key areas that continue -- that you can continue to drive growth? And just how much of a lever is pricing still from here? Michael Reed: Sure. Kristin, do you want to take that? Kristin Roberts: Yes, Mike, I'll be happy to. I think -- first of all, I love this question. The most important point in my view, coming out of Q2, is that our digital-only subscription revenue is continuing to grow, and it's now grown year-over-year for 2 consecutive quarters. And the ARPU increase is an important piece of that, but it's not solely -- the ARPU increase is not solely sort of the result of broad price increases. It reflects that -- a better mix of subscribers that reflects more consistent offers, less reliance on deep discounting and importantly, I think the removal of lower-value subs that just did not generate attractive lifetime economics. So the actions that we took to improve subscriber quality and economics really are working here. We would not extrapolate a 34% ARPU growth rate indefinitely, right? But we continue to see opportunity. We continue to see it through pricing and packaging and stacked products. The other thing I would note is volume trends also are stabilizing. So the sequential decline moderated again in the quarter and the start-to-stop ratio improved during the quarter. So what we're committing to is ongoing growth in digital subscription revenue. And as we get closer to volume growth, we will have more levers to pull to make the growth more meaningful. So Matt, I guess I would sum up by saying our objective really remains to grow subscription revenue and lifetime value, not to pursue subscriber volume at uneconomic price points. Michael Reed: Yes. And Matt, what I would add to Kristin's remarks is we do -- we're not at the end of the runway in terms of ARPU growth. So we do expect to be able to lift subscription revenue for many quarters to come from ARPU. But really importantly, as Kristin mentioned, we've seen volumes stabilize. And so when we look out not just several quarters, but several years, we see meaningful growth in subscription revenue that's really driven by the return of volume growth. And a really important piece of that is the work we're starting to do now with Palantir, which I think will allow us to deliver an even better content experience to consumers and deliver a subscription offering at the right price at the right time. So we see runway ahead of us driven by ARPU growth certainly over the next several quarters or a year, but longer than that by the return of volume growth. So we're pretty -- we're really excited about the digital subscription category and its performance over the next few years. Operator: Your next question for today is from Barton Crockett with Rosenblatt. Barton Crockett: I guess one thing I was wondering about on just numbers. You guys report this monthly unique visitors. And I think it was down to a number that was substantially kind of lower than it was in the first quarter and in the year-ago. I was wondering if you could talk about what's driving that. Michael Reed: Sure. Kristin, do you want to take that? Kristin Roberts: I'll take that. Sure. Barton, nice to hear from you. A couple of things are true here. First, we still maintain one of the largest digital audiences among content creators, and I think there's value in that scale. But as you've heard from us, the way that the consumers are discovering the content is changing. And so what that means is that the quality of our audience is becoming increasingly more important than simply maximizing anonymous uniques. The decline in uniques that you are noting and that we all are seeing during the quarter, it does not reflect lower demand for the content. What it reflects is lower referrals from traditional search because of those consumer discovery changes that we're seeing and witnessing. Our reach is extending right now well beyond our owned and operated properties today. So the audiences are discovering the content through social, through video, and we're generating those views in those spaces just in the first half of this year alone is putting us on a trajectory to do extremely well this year in that category and to grow those on-ramps, if you will. Those audiences might not be reflected in traditional unique visitor metrics, but they do demonstrate that our content is reaching consumers at scale. And so our strategy is to meet the audiences where they are and then use registration and use subscriptions and use the first-party data capabilities, some of which are coming from Palantir, in combination with the efforts that we're doing internally to build those direct relationships. And ultimately, the way that we think about this is that we would rather have a larger share of known, highly engaged users than maximize onetime anonymous visits because those users are generating greater value across multiple revenue lines, advertising, subscriptions, commerce, content licensing because they engage more deeply and they are returning more frequently and they allow us to better personalize both the content and the monetization. So yes, unique visitors remain an important measure of reach. We increasingly are evaluating the health of the business by the strength of engagement, by the growth of our known users. And then in turn, our ability to increase the lifetime value of every one of those relationships. Michael Reed: Barton, I think I would add to that. A good example to look at is, and we mentioned this on the call today, is what we did with the subscription business a little bit over 1 year ago, 1.5 years ago. And while -- and you're seeing the fruits of that labor today, we have fewer subscribers today than we had in the first quarter of 2025, but we're growing our revenue. So it's about getting to the right subscriber base. It's about getting to the right unique visitor base that we can then increase ARPU per user on the platform. And so I'm being -- I'm just being vague here, but whether it's 180 million uniques or 150 million or 140 million, what really matters is ARPU per unique. And if we can do a much higher ARPU per unique visitor at 140 million or 150 million and then grow from there, that's a great place to be. And so that's what we're really hyper focused on now, especially as the search dynamics change. Barton Crockett: Okay. And kind of extending on that, kind of related to the goal for you guys to be a majority digital at some point this year. This quarter slightly ticked down, I think, 47.4% from 47.8% or something like that of revenues first to second quarter. Part of that may be that ad revenue kind of accelerated down. What gets you to that majority digital? I mean, is ad revenue kind of turn around? Or does something else happen? Just get us the road to kind of get you there. Michael Reed: Yes, sure. Trisha, do you want to take this one? Trisha Gosser: Yes, absolutely. First, I do think that our advertising revenue trends improve. We alluded to that into the call that we think that our advertising revenue trends will improve in the back half of the year as we start to see that work that we've done on audience and on data start to be more meaningfully reflected in our revenue. I think there's a lot of other growth drivers as well. Our AI licensing, we expect that to continue to grow. Mike mentioned that we expect new licensing deals and the work that we're doing to make our content both suitable for humans and machine readable should really unlock more value and additional AI licensing deals throughout the back half of the year and going forward as well. We feel really happy about the underlying drivers that we've talked about on our digital-only subscription business. And then we talked a little bit about the indicators in our LOCALiQ business, the ARPU growth, the customer count growth, the core platform growth. We saw a nice uptick in EBITDA even in the quarter. So our LOCALiQ trends are also improving. So absolutely, we're going to have a little bit of quarter-to-quarter variability. We alluded to that last quarter. You saw it in Q2. But when you see the way that our subscription business is moving and growing, the opportunity that we have ahead of us in licensing, the way that we intend to put our audience and our data to use and the way that the LOCALiQ business is starting to improve, I think that really gives us a lot of confidence in getting to that majority digital in the back half of the year and getting to revenue growth. Operator: We have reached the end of the question-and-answer session, and I will now turn the call over to Mike, for closing remarks. Michael Reed: Yes. Thank you, and thanks for everybody for joining today. Just a couple of things I want to reiterate just to kind of close out the remarks for the day, and I want to recap a few really important points from today's call. First, while we will have variability from quarter-to-quarter, as we said, it's not linear. It's not a straight line up. But overall, the first half of 2026 was actually very good. We've improved overall revenue trends and moving -- and we're moving toward our inflection point. We grew EBITDA in the first half of the year. In the second quarter, we grew free cash flow double digits over the prior year, and we posted another quarter of positive net income. We feel really good about the second half of 2026, and that led us to reiterate our full year guidance, which calls for significantly improved same-store revenue trends this year versus the last couple of years. EBITDA growth over the prior year, double-digit free cash flow growth and the fourth consecutive year of free cash flow growth and positive net income for the full year. Also, we talked a little bit on the call and in Q&A about how excited we are about the Palantir relationship and believe that will work to position us to turn up large amounts of first-party data that we have more actionable intelligence on. None of that is in our forecast for the year. So we think there's upside from the work we're doing from Palantir, both this year and in years to come. And we're really excited about the digital other category. The last question we just got from Barton, that digital other category is going to be a big driver of what leads us to having more than 50% of our revenue coming from digital later this year in addition to what Trisha just mentioned. We also are seeing really nice double-digit growth in our commerce and affiliate revenue categories. So we do see the ability to continue to grow there. Our off-platform revenue that Kristin mentioned through our social media channels and then our newsletter and video strategies are all potential digital revenue upsides in the back half of the year. So we have a lot of good initiatives in the way -- in the works, and we're actually starting to see those hit the P&L. So all the work we're doing is leading us to building in a more engaged and recurring audience. It's really important. That leads to signals and intelligence we can use to grow repeatable revenue across our various digital streams. So we're really excited about the work we're doing. We're excited about the second half of the year and look forward to really getting back to you guys in the third quarter to update you on the progress that we're continuing to make. So with that, we'll end the call today. Enjoy the rest of the summer, and we look forward to talking to you again to update you on our Q3 progress. Thanks, everyone. Operator: This concludes today's conference, and you may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation. Before you buy stock in USA Today, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and USA Today wasn’t one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $400,209!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $1,375,393!* Now, it’s worth noting Stock Advisor’s total average return is 964% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 215% for the S&P 500. Don't miss the latest top 10 list, available with Stock Advisor, and join an investing community built by individual investors for individual investors. See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of August 13, 2026. This article is a transcript of this conference call produced for The Motley Fool. While we strive for our Foolish Best, there may be errors, omissions, or inaccuracies in this transcript. As with all our articles, The Motley Fool does not assume any responsibility for your use of this content, and we strongly encourage you to do your own research, including listening to the call yourself and reading the company's SEC filings. Please see our Terms and Conditions for additional details, including our Obligatory Capitalized Disclaimers of Liability. The Motley Fool recommends USA Today. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. USA TODAY (TDAY) Q2 2026 Earnings Call Transcript was originally published by The Motley Fool

Make better investment decisions with Simply Wall St's easy, visual tools that give you a competitive edge. USA TODAY (TDAY) reported second quarter 2026 results with revenue of US$536.34 million and net income of US$9.13 million, alongside reiterated full year 2026 guidance for higher net income versus the prior year. See our latest analysis for USA TODAY. The earnings update and reiterated 2026 guidance came alongside a 1 day share price decline of 9.38% to US$7.25, which extends a 7 day share price fall of 16.57%. Even so, USA TODAY's year to date share price return of 39.16% and 1 year total shareholder return of 86.38% signal that longer term momentum has been stronger than the recent pullback suggests. If you are looking beyond USA TODAY for other ideas in the market, this could be a useful time to review companies highlighted in the Simply Wall St screener of 20 top founder-led companies Bulls see USA TODAY's pullback as a reset after a strong year. Bears point to softer recent earnings. The next step is to see which story aligns with the current valuation. On the most followed view of USA TODAY, the current share price of $7.25 sits below an implied fair value of $8.51, which puts the recent pullback in a different light. Read the complete narrative. Read the complete narrative. Want to understand why this narrative still sees upside even with revenue projected to decline? The story hinges on margin expansion, earnings turning positive, and a different profit multiple than today. Curious which of those levers carries the most weight in the $8.51 fair value call. Result: Fair Value of $8.51 (UNDERVALUED) Have a read of the narrative in full and understand what's behind the forecasts. However, USA TODAY still faces ongoing revenue decline and heavy debt, which could pressure margins and challenge the assumptions behind that 14.8% undervalued call. Find out about the key risks to this USA TODAY narrative. With sentiment on USA TODAY clearly mixed, this is a good moment to look through the numbers yourself and pressure test the narrative. To see what optimistic investors are focusing on, review the 3 key rewards. If USA TODAY has sharpened your focus on valuations and momentum, do not stop here. Use this moment to broaden your watchlist with other targeted opportunities. Scan for resilience by checking companies in the 79 resilient stocks with low risk scores that may suit a more defensively minded approach. Hunt for potential value by reviewing the 51 high quality undervalued stocks and see which stocks currently trade below their assessed worth. Spot potential future standouts by using the screener containing 19 high quality undiscovered gems before they attract wider attention. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned. Companies discussed in this article include TDAY. Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email [email protected]

Interested in USA Today Co.? Here are five stocks we like better. Revenue declined but profitability and cash flow improved: Second-quarter revenue fell 8.3% year over year to $536.3 million, while net income reached $9.1 million and free cash flow rose 11.2% to $19.6 million. The company reaffirmed its full-year outlook. Digital subscriptions and other revenue offset advertising weakness: Digital advertising declined 9.2%, but digital-only subscription revenue increased 6.8%, with record average revenue per user, and digital other revenue grew 20.2% amid expanding AI licensing and syndication opportunities. Management is shifting toward first-party audiences and AI-driven monetization: USA Today is emphasizing social, video, newsletters and direct reader relationships as search referrals weaken. Its Palantir data initiative and DeeperDive AI tool are intended to improve personalization, conversions, engagement and revenue per user, though no Palantir benefit is included in current guidance. USA Today's Digital Revival Is Gaining Steam, But With Plenty of Risk USA Today (NYSE:TDAY) reported second-quarter 2026 revenue of $536.3 million, down 8.3% from a year earlier, as lower digital advertising revenue and quarter-to-quarter variability in content licensing offset gains in digital-only subscriptions and other digital revenue streams. The company generated $19.6 million in free cash flow during the quarter, up 11.2% year over year, and posted net income of $9.1 million, its second consecutive profitable quarter. Adjusted EBITDA was $56.9 million, down from the prior-year period, while the adjusted EBITDA margin was 10.6%. → No Hangover: Revisiting Microsoft One Week After Earnings Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Michael Reed said the quarter reflected continued progress toward the company’s longer-term digital strategy despite uneven quarterly results. The company reaffirmed its full-year outlook, including expectations for improved same-store revenue trends, adjusted EBITDA growth, net income growth and double-digit free-cash-flow growth. Total digital revenue was $254.3 million, down 4.2% year over year and representing 47.4% of total revenue. Digital advertising revenue declined 9.2%, which Chief Financial Officer Trisha Gosser attributed to lower page views, the loss of a programmatic advertising partner and a platform policy change affecting a sponsored-links partner. → MarketBeat Week in Review – 08/03 - 08/07 Gosser said the three factors had a roughly similar year-over-year effect on digital advertising. Still, she noted that premium sales on the company’s platform increased from a year ago and revenue per thousand impressions improved during the quarter. Digital-only subscription revenue rose 6.8% to $45.6 million, marking the second consecutive quarter of year-over-year growth. Digital-only average revenue per user reached a record $10.47, up 34.4% from a year earlier. The company said subscriber volume declines moderated further and its start-to-stop ratio improved sequentially. → Why the Landlord of the AI Boom Could Outlast the Chipmakers Kristin Roberts, president of USA TODAY Media, said the company’s subscription strategy has emphasized subscriber quality, more consistent offers and less reliance on heavily discounted subscriptions. She said ARPU gains were not solely driven by broad price increases and reflected a more valuable subscriber mix. Digital other revenue, which includes AI partnerships, content licensing and syndication, climbed 20.2% to $20.4 million. Reed said the company expects to expand its portfolio of AI licensing partners and is working to format content in machine-readable ways to support both existing and future agreements. “We do see more AI licensing deals coming this year,” Reed said during the question-and-answer session, while adding that the company would not provide details before agreements are announced. Management said changing consumer discovery habits and the growing use of AI-generated answers have increased the importance of building direct relationships with readers and viewers. The company is emphasizing newsletters, social platforms, video and other channels intended to generate repeat visits and more identifiable first-party audience relationships. Roberts said USA TODAY Media generated 3 billion off-platform video views in the first half of 2026, putting it on pace to more than double the prior year’s total. TikTok accounted for more than 1 billion views during the period. The company acknowledged that monthly unique visitors declined, primarily because of lower referrals from traditional search. Roberts said the decrease did not reflect lower content demand, arguing that audiences increasingly find USA TODAY content through social and video platforms that are not fully captured by traditional unique-visitor metrics. Reed said the company is prioritizing engagement and monetization per user over anonymous, “one and done” traffic. He pointed to the company’s subscription business as an example of accepting lower volume in favor of improving long-term economics. Search remains important in certain categories, management said. Roberts noted that USA TODAY Network coverage of the World Cup generated 97 million page views, with search accounting for nearly 65% of that traffic. A central theme of the call was USA TODAY’s work with Palantir to connect audience behavior, content engagement and first-party data. Reed said the company expects the effort to help it convert anonymous interactions into known customer relationships and improve personalization for content, advertising, commerce and subscription offers. Reed said the company will evaluate the initiative through measures including conversion, retention, engagement and revenue per user. He said management expects to provide more specific discussion of potential financial effects over the next one to two quarters, but added that no projected benefit from the Palantir work is included in the company’s current full-year forecast. Roberts said the technology could also support commerce by matching affiliate products and offers with relevant content in real time, reducing reliance on manual processes. Reed said commerce and affiliate revenue were producing double-digit growth. The company also highlighted DeeperDive, its generative AI answer engine. Reed said readers had asked more than 50 million questions through the product since its September launch, with average daily activity exceeding 390,000 interactions. Tests showed that pages using DeeperDive produced longer time on site, higher advertising revenue per session and stronger subscription intent than pages without the tool, he said. Within LocaliQ, management reported sequential improvement in core platform revenue, customer counts and ARPU. Core platform revenue was $106.3 million, up 7% sequentially, while average customer count increased by 300, or 2.8%. Core platform ARPU rose 4.1% to a record $2,908. LocaliQ segment adjusted EBITDA was $13.2 million and margin expanded 560 basis points to 12.4%, according to Gosser. USA TODAY ended the quarter with $86.7 million in cash and net debt of $883.8 million, down from the prior period. Cash provided by operating activities increased 8.6% to $35.4 million. Reed also said the company remains optimistic about pending litigation against Google. He said USA TODAY’s outlook does not assume any benefit from possible changes resulting from U.S. Department of Justice remedies in the Google case or from the company’s own litigation, which he described as potential future upside. Gannett Co, Inc (NYSE: GCI) is a media and marketing solutions company headquartered in McLean, Virginia. As the largest U.S. newspaper publisher by circulation, Gannett publishes USA Today alongside more than 260 local news brands. The company’s multimedia platforms include daily and weekly newspapers, websites, mobile apps and a network of subscription-based digital products. In addition to journalism and content production, Gannett offers a suite of digital marketing services designed to help small and medium-sized businesses grow online. This instant news alert was generated by narrative science technology and financial data from MarketBeat in order to provide readers with the fastest reporting and unbiased coverage. Please send any questions or comments about this story to [email protected]. The article "USA Today Q2 Earnings Call Highlights" was originally published by MarketBeat. View MarketBeat's top stocks for August 2026.

Our analysts just identified a stock with the potential to be the next Nvidia. Tell us how you invest and we'll show you why it's our #1 pick. Tap here. Management is executing a deliberate shift away from 'one-and-done' anonymous search traffic toward direct, known audience relationships to build a more resilient revenue base. Performance variability in Q2 was attributed to the timing of content licensing agreements and the loss of a programmatic advertising partner, rather than a strategic setback. The company is serving two distinct audiences: human readers and AI platforms, necessitating a transition to machine-readable content formats to maximize licensing value. Digital-only subscription growth is being driven by record ARPU and volume stabilization, validating the strategy of prioritizing subscriber quality over raw volume. A new partnership with Palantir aims to connect vast audience signals into actionable intelligence, accelerating monetization across advertising, commerce, and subscriptions. Operational discipline resulted in the second consecutive quarter of positive net income and an 11% increase in free cash flow despite top-line revenue pressure. Management views evolving search dynamics as an opportunity to reduce dependence on single platforms like Google and gain greater control over growth drivers. Full-year 2026 outlook is reaffirmed, assuming meaningful improvement in revenue trends and a fourth consecutive year of free cash flow growth. Management expects to reach a majority-digital revenue mix in the back half of the year, supported by digital-only subscription momentum and expanded AI licensing. The Palantir integration is expected to yield financial upside in the next two quarters, though these benefits are not yet factored into current guidance. Future licensing strategy focuses on building recurring, long-term relationships with AI platforms that recognize the value of trusted, real-time content. Guidance excludes any potential financial benefits from pending litigation against Google or changes to the advertising ecosystem resulting from DOJ remedies. Digital advertising faced headwinds from a platform policy change affecting a sponsored link partner and the loss of a programmatic partner. The company continues to block unauthorized crawlers and scrapers to protect intellectual property and force formal licensing negotiations. Ongoing litigation against Google remains a key focus, with a ruling on a summary judgment motion expected around September. Content licensing revenue is expected to remain 'lumpy' as the timing of agreement deliveries varies significantly between quarters. One stock. Nvidia-level potential. 30M+ investors trust Moby to find it first. Get the pick. Tap here. The partnership allows the company to build a common intelligence layer in weeks or months that would otherwise take years to develop internally. Management expects the collaboration to convert anonymous interactions into known relationships, significantly increasing revenue per user. Specific financial upside metrics will be shared in the coming two quarters as conversion and retention data matures. Social platforms like TikTok and YouTube are viewed as primary discovery engines and new 'on-ramps' for the broader ecosystem. Revenue will be captured through platform sharing, sponsorships, and by driving a portion of that audience back to owned platforms for higher-value monetization. Off-platform video views reached 3 billion in the first half of the year, putting the company on pace to double last year's total. Management acknowledged they are 'getting closer' to a point where blocking Google's crawlers could be a viable negotiating tactic. While search still performs in specific categories like sports, its overall revenue contribution is small enough that a total block is becoming a visible 'line of sight' option. The preferred path remains a proactive, fair licensing deal that covers both traditional search and AI-generated summaries. The 34% ARPU growth reflects a better mix of subscribers and less reliance on deep discounting rather than just broad price hikes. Management expects subscription revenue growth to be driven by ARPU in the near term and a return to volume growth in the long term. The 'start-to-stop' ratio improved during the quarter, signaling that volume stabilization is nearing an inflection point.

This article first appeared on GuruFocus. Release Date: August 06, 2026 For the complete transcript of the earnings call, please refer to the full earnings call transcript. USA Today Co Inc (NYSE:TDAY) delivered its second consecutive quarter of positive net income, reporting $9.1 million in Q2 2026. Digital-only subscription revenue grew 6.8% year-over-year, with ARPU reaching a record high of $10.47, up 34.4%. Digital other revenues, including AI partnerships and content licensing, surged 20.2% year-over-year to $20.4 million. Free cash flow increased 11.2% to $19.6 million, marking the fourth consecutive year of expected double-digit growth. The company's partnership with Palantir is expected to enhance audience data monetization, driving higher ARPU across subscriptions, advertising, and commerce. Off-platform video views reached 3 billion in the first half of 2026, more than doubling last year's pace, with TikTok alone surpassing 1 billion views. Local IQ segment showed sequential improvement, with core platform revenue up 7% and segment adjusted EBITDA margin expanding 560 basis points to 12.4%. Total revenues decreased 8.3% year-over-year, or 6.1% on a same-store basis, impacted by softer digital advertising and content licensing lumpiness. Digital advertising revenues fell 9.2% due to lower page views, the loss of a programmatic partner, and a platform policy change affecting sponsored links. The shift in consumer behavior away from traditional search continues to pressure traffic, with monthly unique visitors declining significantly. The company experienced a loss of a programmatic partner and a platform policy change, each contributing equally to the year-over-year digital ad decline. Content licensing revenue showed quarterly variability, with Q2 lapping an outsized Q1 contribution, leading to uneven revenue trends. The company expects continued quarterly variability and does not anticipate a return to subscriber volume growth in the near term, relying on ARPU growth. The pending Google litigation and potential AI licensing deals are not included in the 2026 outlook, representing uncertain upside. Warning! GuruFocus has detected 8 Warning Signs with TDAY. Is TDAY fairly valued? Test your thesis with our free DCF calculator. Q: Can you elaborate on your work with Palantir and what the opportunity looks like?A: Mike Reed (Chairman and CEO): We are excited about this opportunity. Palantir's AI-powered platform will allow us to connect audience behavior, content engagement, and first-party data to monetize each consumer at a much higher rate. It turns our data into actionable intelligence in real-time, allowing us to deliver the right content, advertisements, commerce opportunities, and subscription offers. This partnership accelerates our timeline significantly, and we expect to be able to discuss the financial upside more specifically over the next two quarters. We believe the scale of our data coupled with this technology has the potential to create a powerful uplift in our business trajectory. Q: Is the large audience you are building on social media platforms a potential new revenue stream?A: Kristin Roberts (President of USA Today Media): Yes, absolutely. Social and video are becoming primary discovery channels. We generated 3 billion off-platform video views in the first half of the year. This audience will be monetized directly through platform revenue sharing, sponsorships, and branded content. More importantly, these platforms serve as a new on-ramp to build direct relationships with consumers, bringing them back to our platform where we can deepen engagement and create higher-value opportunities in advertising, commerce, and subscriptions. Q: Do you see more AI licensing deals coming this year?A: Mike Reed (Chairman and CEO): Yes, the short answer is yes. We are actively engaged in discussions and expect more deals. A key part of our strategy is reformatting our content to be machine-readable, which is important for future deals and unlocking more value in current ones. We are blocking scrapers without agreements and believe that as the ecosystem evolves, our scale and trusted content will put us at the table for new and expanded deals. Almost all of this opportunity remains in front of us. Q: Were the softer Q2 revenue trends a setback, and are things still on track?A: Tricia Gosser (CFO): I absolutely don't view Q2 as a setback. We remain on track with our strategy. The quarterly variability was expected, particularly around content licensing. While digital advertising faced pressure from search changes, a lost programmatic partner, and a platform policy change, our key long-term growth engines performed well. Digital-only subscription revenue grew for the second consecutive quarter, and digital other revenue grew over 20%. We are seeing encouraging progress in the areas most important to long-term success, which is why we are reaffirming our full-year outlook. Q: Is there any update on the Google litigation?A: Mike Reed (Chairman and CEO): Nothing specific since the last call, but we remain very optimistic. We expect the remedies case from the DOJ to be out in the market any time. We also expect a ruling on Google's summary judgment motion in our specific case around September. Importantly, our 2026 and 2027 outlook does not include any potential upside from a more open advertising ecosystem or our litigation against Google, so any positive outcome is pure upside for us. Q: Can you size the impact of Google's push into AI search and have search trends stabilized?A: Kristin Roberts (President of USA Today Media) and Tricia Gosser (CFO): Our strategy is to diversify how audiences find us and convert interactions into direct, known relationships. The impact on Q2 digital advertising was driven by three roughly equal factors: the impact of search, the loss of a programmatic partner, and a platform policy change. However, our premium sales grew year-over-year and RPMs improved, showing that the things we control are moving in the right direction. There is a lag between audience growth in new channels and the full revenue benefit. Q: Would you consider shutting off Google's crawlers to gain negotiating leverage for AI licensing deals?A: Mike Reed (Chairman and CEO): Yes, we are not there yet, but we are getting closer. Search revenue is now a small part of our platform, and much of that traffic is one-and-done and less monetizable. I can see a day, perhaps in 9 to 15 months, where we turn off scraping. However, our preferred path is to proactively negotiate a fair licensing deal with Google. If we have to block them to get to a deal, we will do that. Q: What are the key areas to continue driving growth in the subscription business, and how much pricing leverage is left?A: Kristin Roberts (President of USA Today Media) and Mike Reed (Chairman and CEO): The most important point is that digital subscription revenue has grown for two consecutive quarters. The 34% ARPU growth is not solely from broad price increases; it reflects a better mix of subscribers, more consistent offers, and the removal of low-value subs. We would not extrapolate that growth rate indefinitely, but we see continued opportunity through pricing, packaging, and stacked products. Volume trends are stabilizing, and as we get closer to volume growth, we will have more levers to make growth more meaningful. We expect to lift subscription revenue for many quarters to come. Q: What is driving the decline in monthly unique visitors?A: Kristin Roberts (President of USA Today Media) and Mike Reed (Chairman and CEO): The decline reflects lower referrals from traditional search due to changing consumer discovery habits, not lower demand for content. Our reach is extending beyond owned properties through social and video. We would rather have a larger share of known, highly engaged users than maximize one-time anonymous visits. The key metric is our revenue per unique visitor. Whether we have 140 million or 180 million uniques, what matters is increasing the value we derive from each one. Q: What gets you to majority digital revenue, and is ad revenue turning around?A: Tricia Gosser (CFO): We expect advertising revenue trends to improve in the back half of the year as our work on audience and data becomes more reflected in revenue. Other growth drivers include AI licensing, which we expect to continue growing, our digital-only subscription business, and improving local IQ trends. The digital other category, including licensing and affiliate revenue, will be a big driver of getting us past 50% digital revenue later this year. We have a lot of confidence in the path of the year and getting to revenue growth. For the complete transcript of the earnings call, please refer to the full earnings call transcript.

NEW YORK, NY, August 06, 2026--(BUSINESS WIRE)--USA TODAY Co., Inc. ("USA TODAY Co.", "we", "us", "our", or the "Company") (NYSE: TDAY) today reported its financial results for the second quarter ended June 30, 2026. "The second quarter reflected continued progress against our long-term strategy and reinforced our confidence in reaffirming our full-year outlook. We reduced operating expenses by approximately 8% year-over-year, generated approximately $20 million of free cash flow, an increase of approximately 11% year-over-year, and delivered positive net income for the second consecutive quarter," said Michael Reed, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. "Our Digital-only subscription and Digital other businesses continued to build momentum and remain important drivers of our long-term growth. Digital-only subscription revenues grew year-over-year for the second consecutive quarter, while digital-only ARPU reached another record high. Digital other revenues also grew year-over-year, and we expect this revenue stream to continue expanding throughout the year as we broaden our portfolio of content licensing partners and further grow our commerce opportunities." "Consumer discovery continues to evolve beyond traditional search, and we have been preparing for that shift by expanding our reach across social, video and newsletters while strengthening our first-party audience capabilities. Combined with investments in technologies like Palantir, these initiatives are helping us better understand and monetize our audience while building a more diversified and resilient business." "While quarterly results may fluctuate as we execute our strategy, our long-term business plan remains intact and supports our confidence in reaffirming our full-year outlook. Across the business we continue to see meaningful progress, and we believe are getting close to crossing that revenue inflection point. We believe we are building a strong operating foundation on a large and engaged audience, from which data and signals will drive greatly improved monetization as we leverage that intelligence." "We are confident in the steps we are taking to position the Company for sustainable long-term revenue growth combined with free cash flow growth and margin expansion, leading to long-term value creation for shareholders." Second Quarter 2026 Financial Highlights: Total revenues of $536.3 million decreased 8.3% year-over-year and decreased 6.1% on a same-store basis(1) Total digital revenues of $254.3 million, or 47.4% of total revenues Net income attributable to USA TODAY Co. of $9.1 million, reflecting the second consecutive quarter of positive net income Total Adjusted EBITDA(1) of $56.9 million Cash provided by operating activities of $35.4 million Free cash flow(1) of $19.6 million Second Quarter 2026 Digital Highlights: 158 million average monthly unique visitors(2) Digital advertising revenues of $79.8 million Digital-only subscription revenues of $45.6 million, representing the second consecutive quarter of year-over-year growth LocaliQ segment core platform revenues(3) of $106.3 million Second Quarter 2026 Capital Structure Highlights: Cash and cash equivalents of $86.7 million as of June 30, 2026 Total debt principal outstanding at June 30, 2026 was $970.5 million, including $722.7 million in first lien debt First lien net leverage(4) was 2.3x, a decrease of 14% year-over-year Business Outlook:(5) The Company reiterates its full year 2026 outlook. Full Year 2026 Business Outlook(5) Financial Highlights: Earnings Conference Call Management will host a conference call on Thursday, August 6, 2026 at 8:30 A.M. Eastern Time to review the financial and operating results for the period. A copy of the earnings release will be posted to the Investor Relations section of USA TODAY Co.'s website, investors.usatodayco.com. The conference call may be accessed by dialing 1-888-506-0062 (from within the U.S.) or 1-973-528-0011 (from outside of the U.S.) ten minutes prior to the scheduled start of the call; please reference "USA TODAY Co. Second Quarter Earnings Call" or access code "581209". We use our website as a channel of distribution for important Company information and we use the investors.usatodayco.com website as a means of disclosing material non-public information and for complying with our disclosure obligations under Regulation FD. A simultaneous webcast of the conference call will be available to the public on a listen-only basis at investors.usatodayco.com. Please allow extra time prior to the call to visit the website and download any necessary software required to listen to the internet broadcast. A telephonic replay of the conference call will also be available approximately two hours following the call's completion through 11:59 P.M. Eastern Time on Thursday, August 20, 2026 by dialing 1-877-481-4010 (from within the U.S.) or 1-919-882-2331 (from outside of the U.S.); please reference access code "53737". A transcript of our earnings call held today also will be posted to the investors.usatodayco.com website. About USA TODAY Co. USA TODAY Co., Inc. (NYSE: TDAY) is a diversified media company with expansive reach at the national and local level dedicated to empowering and enriching communities. Our mission is to inspire, inform, and connect audiences. As a media and digital marketing solutions company we are focused on sustainable growth. Through our trusted brands, including the USA TODAY NETWORK, comprised of the national publication, USA TODAY, and our network of local properties, in the United States, and Newsquest, a wholly-owned subsidiary operating in the United Kingdom, we provide essential journalism, local content, and digital experiences to audiences and businesses. We deliver trusted unbiased journalism when and where consumers want it. LocaliQ, our digital marketing solutions brand, supports small and medium-sized businesses with innovative digital marketing products and solutions. Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Statements Certain items in this press release may constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including, but not limited to, our full year 2026 business outlook, statements regarding our business outlook, digital revenue and digital other revenues performance and growth, expectations regarding our cash from operating activities, free cash flows, margin expansion, revenues, net income (loss) attributable to USA TODAY Co., Total Adjusted EBITDA, same store revenues and cash flows, expectations regarding our long-term growth, sustainable growth, revenue inflection point, and audience growth, our ability to create long-term stockholder value, our expectations, in terms of both amount and timing, with respect to debt repayment, our ability to protect our content, expand AI-related monetization opportunities and our pipeline of AI opportunities, growth of our AI content licensing, our expected capital expenditures, expectations regarding our assets, our strategy, our partnerships, our ability to achieve our operating priorities, our long-term opportunities, economic impacts, our ability to navigate volatility, achieve our financial goals, optimize our capital structure and achieve optimal financial performance, our cost structure, future revenue and expense trends, and our ability to influence trends. Words such as "expect", "believe", "will", "can", "positioning", "initiative", "building", "opportunity", "outlook", "guidance", "optimistic", "estimate", "projection", "trend", "focus", and similar expressions are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. These statements are based on management's current expectations and beliefs and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties. These and other risks and uncertainties could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements, many of which are beyond our control. The Company can give no assurance its expectations will be attained. Accordingly, you should not place undue reliance on any forward-looking statements contained in this press release. For a discussion of some of the risks and important factors that could cause actual results to differ from such forward-looking statements, see the risks and other factors detailed from time to time in the Company's most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K, our quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, and our other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Furthermore, new risks and uncertainties emerge from time to time, and it is not possible for the Company to predict or assess the impact of every factor that may cause its actual results to differ from those contained in any forward-looking statements. Such forward-looking statements speak only as of the date of this press release. Except to the extent required by law, the Company expressly disclaims any obligation to release publicly any updates or revisions to any forward-looking statements contained herein to reflect any change in the Company's expectations with regard thereto or change in events, conditions or circumstances on which any statement is based. USE OF NON-GAAP INFORMATION The Company uses non-GAAP financial performance and liquidity measures to supplement the financial information presented on a U.S. generally accepted accounting principles ("U.S. GAAP") basis. We define our non-GAAP financial performance and liquidity measures as follows: Total Adjusted EBITDA, Segment Adjusted EBITDA and Segment Adjusted EBITDA margin are non-GAAP financial performance measures we believe offer a useful view of the overall operation of our business, and may be different than similarly-titled measures used by other companies. We define Total Adjusted EBITDA as Segment Adjusted EBITDA plus Corporate. Segment Adjusted EBITDA, as presented in the notes to our Condensed consolidated financial statements included in our Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the six months ended June 30, 2026, is defined as revenues less (1) operating costs and (2) selling, general and administrative expenses, plus (3) equity (income) loss in unconsolidated investees, net. Segment Adjusted EBITDA also does not include: (1) Income tax expense (benefit), (2) Noncontrolling interest, (3) Interest expense, (4) Gains or losses on the early extinguishment of debt, (5) Loss on convertible notes derivative, (6) Depreciation and amortization, (7) Integration and reorganization costs, (8) Asset impairments, (9) Goodwill and intangible impairments, (10) Gains or losses on the sale or disposal of assets, (11) Share-based compensation expense, and (12) Other (income) expense, net. Segment Adjusted EBITDA margin is defined as Segment Adjusted EBITDA divided by Segment revenues. Total Adjusted EBITDA margin is a non-GAAP financial performance measure we believe offers a useful view of the overall and segment operations of our business. We define Total Adjusted EBITDA margin as Total Adjusted EBITDA divided by total Revenues. Adjusted net income (loss) attributable to USA TODAY Co. is a non-GAAP financial performance measure we believe offers a useful view of the overall operations of our business and is useful to analysts and investors in evaluating the results of operations and operational trends. We define Adjusted net income (loss) attributable to USA TODAY Co. as Net income (loss) attributable to USA TODAY Co. before (1) Gains or losses on the early extinguishment of debt, (2) Loss on convertible notes derivative, (3) Integration and reorganization costs, (4) Third-party debt expenses and acquisition costs, (5) Asset impairments, (6) Goodwill and intangibles impairments, (7) Gains or losses on the sale or disposal of assets, (8) Other items, including (Gain) loss on sale of investments, and (9) the tax impact of the above items. Free cash flow is a non-GAAP liquidity measure that adjusts our reported U.S. GAAP results for items we believe are critical to the ongoing success of our business. We define Free cash flow as Cash provided by (used for) operating activities as reported on the Condensed consolidated statements of cash flows including the impact of (i) capital expenditures and excluding the impact of (ii) third-party debt expenses associated with the refinancing of debt. The result is a figure representing Free cash flow available for use in operations, additional investments, ongoing debt obligations, and returns to stockholders. The most directly comparable U.S. GAAP financial liquidity measure is Cash provided by (used for) operating activities. Same store revenues is a non-GAAP financial performance measure based on our U.S. GAAP revenues for the current period, excluding (1) acquired revenues, (2) currency impact, and (3) exited operations. Management’s Use of Non-GAAP Measures Total Adjusted EBITDA, Total Adjusted EBITDA margin, Segment Adjusted EBITDA, Segment Adjusted EBITDA margin, Adjusted net income (loss) attributable to USA TODAY Co., Free cash flow and Same store revenues are not measurements of financial performance or liquidity under U.S. GAAP and should not be considered in isolation or as an alternative to net income (loss), margin, income (loss) from operations, cash flow provided by (used for) operating activities, revenues, or any other measure of performance or liquidity derived in accordance with U.S. GAAP. We believe these non-GAAP financial performance and liquidity measures, as we have defined them, are helpful in identifying trends in our day-to-day performance because the items excluded have little or no significance on our day-to-day operations. These measures provide an assessment of core expenses and afford management the ability to make decisions which are expected to facilitate meeting current financial goals as well as achieve optimal financial performance. We use Total Adjusted EBITDA, Total Adjusted EBITDA margin, Segment Adjusted EBITDA, Segment Adjusted EBITDA margin, Adjusted net income (loss) attributable to USA TODAY Co., Free cash flow and Same store revenues as measures of our day-to-day operating performance, which is evidenced by the publishing and delivery of news and other media and excludes certain expenses that may not be indicative of our day-to-day business operating results. Limitations of Non-GAAP Measures Each of our non-GAAP measures have limitations as analytical tools. They should not be viewed in isolation or as a substitute for U.S. GAAP measures of earnings or cash flows. Material limitations in making the adjustments to our earnings to calculate Total Adjusted EBITDA, Segment Adjusted EBITDA and Adjusted net income (loss) attributable to USA TODAY Co. using these non-GAAP financial measures as compared to U.S. GAAP net income (loss) include: the exclusion of the cash portion of interest / financing expense, income tax (benefit) provision, and charges related to asset impairments, which are items that may significantly affect our financial results. Management believes these items are important in evaluating our performance, results of operations, and financial position. We use non-GAAP financial performance and liquidity measures to supplement our U.S. GAAP results in order to provide a more complete understanding of the factors and trends affecting our business. Total Adjusted EBITDA, Total Adjusted EBITDA margin, Segment Adjusted EBITDA, Segment Adjusted EBITDA margin, Adjusted net income (loss) attributable to USA TODAY Co., Free cash flow and Same store revenues are not alternatives to net income (loss), margin, income (loss) from operations, cash flow provided by (used for) operating activities, revenues, segment revenues, segment margin, or any other measure of performance or liquidity derived in accordance with U.S. GAAP. As such, they should not be considered or relied upon as substitutes or alternatives for any such U.S. GAAP financial measures. We strongly urge you to review the reconciliations of Net income (loss) attributable to USA TODAY Co. to Total Adjusted EBITDA, Net income (loss) attributable to USA TODAY Co. margin to Total Adjusted EBITDA margin, Segment revenues to Segment Adjusted EBITDA and Segment Adjusted EBITDA margin, Net income (loss) attributable to USA TODAY Co. to Adjusted net income (loss) attributable to USA TODAY Co., Cash provided by (used for) operations to Free cash flow and Revenues to Same Store revenues along with our Condensed consolidated financial statements included elsewhere in this report. We also strongly urge you not to rely on any single financial performance or liquidity measure to evaluate our business. In addition, because Total Adjusted EBITDA, Total Adjusted EBITDA margin, Segment Adjusted EBITDA, Segment Adjusted EBITDA margin, Adjusted net income (loss) attributable to USA TODAY Co., Free cash flow and Same store revenues are not measures of financial performance under U.S. GAAP and are susceptible to varying calculations, the Total Adjusted EBITDA, Total Adjusted EBITDA margin, Segment Adjusted EBITDA, Segment Adjusted EBITDA margin, Adjusted net income (loss) attributable to USA TODAY Co., Free cash flow and Same store revenues measures as presented in this release may differ from and may not be comparable to similarly titled measures used by other companies. Non-GAAP Outlook Our full year 2026 business outlook included in this release includes certain non-GAAP financial performance and liquidity measures, including Same store revenues, Total Adjusted EBITDA, and Free cash flow. The outlook for each of these non-GAAP items does not factor in the impact of any future acquisitions or dispositions. We have provided these non-GAAP measures for future guidance for the same reasons that were outlined above for historical non-GAAP measures. We have not reconciled non-GAAP forward-looking Same store revenues, Total Adjusted EBITDA, and Free cash flow to their most directly comparable U.S. GAAP measure, as permitted by Item 10(e)(1)(i)(B) of Regulation S-K. Such reconciliations would require unreasonable efforts to estimate and quantify various necessary U.S. GAAP components largely because forecasting or predicting our future operating results is subject to many factors or future events that are out of our control, and because forecasts or predictions of such U.S. GAAP components are unavailable or not readily predictable, and could significantly impact, either individually or in the aggregate, our comparable U.S. GAAP measures. Accordingly, we are unable to provide a full reconciliation of the non-GAAP measures used in our outlook without unreasonable efforts. KEY PERFORMANCE INDICATORS A key performance indicator ("KPI") is generally defined as a quantifiable measurement or metric used to gauge performance, specifically to help determine strategic, financial, and operational achievements, especially compared to those of similar businesses. We define Digital-only average revenue per user ("ARPU") as digital-only subscription average monthly revenues divided by the average digital-only paid subscriptions within the respective period. We define Core platform ARPU as core platform average monthly revenues divided by average monthly customer count within the period. We define core platform revenues as revenue derived from customers utilizing our proprietary digital marketing services platform that are sold by either our direct or local market teams. Management believes Digital-only ARPU, Core platform ARPU, digital-only paid subscriptions, core platform revenues and core platform average customer count are KPIs that offer useful information in understanding consumer behavior, trends in our business, and our overall operating results. Management utilizes these KPIs to track and analyze trends across our segments. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260806055001/en/ Contacts For investor inquiries, contact: Matt EspositoInvestor [email protected] For media inquiries, contact: Lark-Marie AntonCorporate [email protected]

New York, NY, July 23, 2026--(BUSINESS WIRE)--USA TODAY Co., Inc. ("USA TODAY Co.", "we", "our", or the "Company") (NYSE: TDAY) announced today that it will release its second quarter 2026 financial results on Thursday, August 6, 2026, prior to the opening of the New York Stock Exchange. Management will host a conference call on Thursday, August 6, 2026 at 8:30 A.M. Eastern Time to review the financial and operating results for the period. A copy of the earnings release will be posted to the Investor Relations section of USA TODAY Co.’s website, investors.usatodayco.com. All interested parties are welcome to participate on the live call. The conference call may be accessed by dialing 1-888-506-0062 (from within the U.S.) or 1-973-528-0011 (from outside of the U.S.) ten minutes prior to the scheduled start of the call; please reference "USA TODAY Co. Second Quarter Earnings Call" or access code "644209". A simultaneous webcast of the conference call will be available to the public on a listen-only basis at investors.usatodayco.com. Please allow extra time prior to the call to visit the website and download any necessary software required to listen to the internet broadcast. A telephonic replay of the conference call will also be available approximately two hours following the call’s completion through 11:59 P.M. Eastern Time on Thursday, August 20, 2026 by dialing 1-877-481-4010 (from within the U.S.) or 1-919-882-2331 (from outside of the U.S.); please reference access code "54019". About USA TODAY Co. USA TODAY Co., Inc. (NYSE: TDAY) is a diversified media company with expansive reach at the national and local level dedicated to empowering and enriching communities. Our mission is to inspire, inform, and connect audiences. As a media and digital marketing solutions company we are focused on sustainable growth. Through our trusted brands, including the USA TODAY NETWORK, comprised of the national publication, USA TODAY, and our network of local properties, in the United States, and Newsquest, a wholly-owned subsidiary operating in the United Kingdom, we provide essential journalism, local content, and digital experiences to audiences and businesses. We deliver trusted unbiased journalism when and where consumers want it. LocaliQ, our digital marketing solutions brand, supports small and medium-sized businesses with innovative digital marketing products and solutions. Our website address is www.usatodayco.com. We use our website as a channel of distribution for important company information, including press releases and other news and presentations, which is accessible on the Investor Relations and News and Events subpages of our website. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260723987949/en/ Contacts For investor inquiries, contact: Matt EspositoInvestor [email protected] For media inquiries, contact: Lark-Marie AntonChief Communications and Brand [email protected]

Profitability jumped: Q1 adjusted EBITDA rose 44.7% to $73.1M and margin expanded to 13.3%, helped by a ~$100M cost program and first‑lien net leverage falling to 2.3x (management aims <2x). Digital momentum: Digital revenues were an all‑time high at 47.8% of total revenue (up 5.2% same‑store), digital‑only subscriptions grew 6.2% with ARPU at a record $10.30, and the company is targeting a 50% digital mix in 2026. AI/licensing tailwinds but lumpy: "Digital other" (AI, syndication, affiliate) jumped 125.6% to $18.8M, driven by deals with partners like Meta and Microsoft, though management warns AI licensing revenue can be irregular quarter to quarter. Interested in USA Today Co.? Here are five stocks we like better. USA Today (NYSE:TDAY) reported what management described as its strongest start to the year in several years, citing improving revenue trends, rising digital contribution, and sharply higher profitability in the first quarter of 2026. Chairman and CEO Mike Reed said the company is “nearing” several inflection points it has discussed over the past two years, including stabilizing total revenue and pushing digital revenue toward half of the overall mix. Chief Financial Officer Trisha Gosser said total revenues in Q1 were $548.5 million, down 4% year-over-year, or down 1.8% on a same-store basis. Gosser called that a 210 basis-point improvement from Q4 and the second straight quarter of top-line trend improvement. → 5 Stocks to Buy in May Before the Next AI Surge Hits Reed highlighted the same-store decline of less than 2% as the company’s “strongest performance in four years,” attributing the improvement to a return to year-over-year growth in digital-only subscription revenue and continued contributions from AI partnership agreements. Total digital revenues were $261.9 million, up 5.2% on a same-store basis, and represented 47.8% of total revenue, up 400 basis points from the prior-year quarter. Reed said digital accounted for 48% of total revenues, an “all-time high,” and reiterated management’s goal of reaching 50% in 2026. → Bloom Energy May Be Solving AI’s Biggest Power Problem Total adjusted EBITDA was $73.1 million, up 44.7% year-over-year, and adjusted EBITDA margin expanded to 13.3% from 8.8%, according to Gosser. She said the increase was driven by improving revenue trends, the impact of the 2025 cost reduction program, and “ongoing cost discipline.” Gosser reported an 8.8% reduction in operating costs and SG&A versus the prior-year quarter. In response to an analyst question about additional cost opportunities, she said the company “took $100 million out of the business” last year and expects to continue optimizing expenses, including print infrastructure and delivery changes, while also pursuing efficiencies through vendors, partners, and technology. → Apple’s Earnings Make $300 Look Like a Matter of When, Not If On the bottom line, net income totaled $19.9 million, up $27.2 million, or 371.3% year-over-year. Free cash flow was $6.4 million in Q1. The company ended the quarter with $85.2 million in cash and net debt of $903.1 million, and Gosser said total debt declined by $4 million in the quarter. Reed said first lien net leverage declined to 2.3 times, and he reiterated the company’s aim to get below 2 times over time. Digital-only subscription revenue totaled $45.9 million, up 6.2% year-over-year and the third consecutive quarter of sequential growth, Gosser said. Reed said digital-only subscriptions “turned the corner,” while Gosser added that volume declines slowed in Q1 and that new starts approached parity with stops late in the quarter, which management views as a sign of stabilization. Average revenue per user (ARPU) reached a record $10.30, up 42.7% year-over-year, Gosser said. Reed similarly highlighted digital-only ARPU hitting a new high, up 43% year-over-year and 5% sequentially. At USA TODAY Media, President Kristin Roberts said the company is adjusting how and where it introduces subscription opportunities with a “more deliberate approach,” acknowledging an “intentional trade-off in page views” in order to increase digital revenue per user. She pointed to “stacking” multiple products into a single bundle as a key initiative, saying subscribers who add a second product show a “20-point improvement in pay-up rates” versus single-product subscribers. Roberts said the company expects to add more products to the stack, including Golfweek. Meanwhile, “digital other” revenue—which includes digital content syndication, affiliate content, and AI partnerships and licensing—rose 125.6% to $18.8 million, Gosser said. She cautioned that timing and recognition can vary due to agreement structures, with Q1 reflecting a strong contribution. Reed said existing AI agreements, including with Meta and Microsoft, had a “notable impact” on Q1 results, and that the company maintains an active pipeline across foundational model providers, startups, and emerging licensing platforms. He emphasized the category’s potential but said deals are “lumpy in nature” and difficult to time. In the Q&A, Reed told analysts he believes the value of licensing agreements should rise over time, arguing that “the real value in the content we produce is we produce it at scale…and it’s new every single day,” as AI products need to be refreshed continuously. He also said the company is digitizing more of its archive and deploying blocking technology to prevent unauthorized scraping. Addressing a question about separating search crawl and AI crawl, Reed said the company is “very supportive” of that concept, adding that he expects any movement may occur in the U.K. before the U.S., though he noted there had not been progress to date. Digital advertising revenue declined 3% in Q1, which Gosser attributed to softness in page views and programmatic revenue. She said page views were down modestly year-over-year, primarily on local sites, due to lower referrals from Google Discover and deliberate actions to increase paywall encounters and shift traffic toward “higher value monetizable experiences.” Gosser said the company is seeing improved conversion rates and believes the trade-off is appropriate as it optimizes revenue per user. Roberts told analysts that AI Overviews have had an impact “primarily in local,” but said the effect has been “much more muted than what much of the industry has been reporting.” She characterized Google Discover and AI Overviews as “separate issues,” and said Google Discover has been surfacing less local content, creating what she called a “new norm,” though she said the company has begun to see some calibration. She added the company is shifting resources toward categories that continue to perform, including sports, breaking news, local opinion, service journalism, entertainment, and lifestyle, and said video is “increasingly driving audience” after an expanded video catalog effort last year. Despite Q1 advertising pressure, Gosser said the company delivered its “strongest quarter of new digital business signings” and expects that, combined with stabilizing retention, to drive “a notable improvement” in Q2 digital advertising and digital marketing services (DMS) trends. Reed said LocaliQ’s return to growth has been “slower than anticipated,” but management expects progress from shifting the business toward a results-driven approach, expanding social offerings, owned inventory, targeted email, and deeper CRM integrations. He said the company expects LocaliQ initiatives to improve revenue trends and support growth in the second half of 2026. Gosser reported LocaliQ core platform revenue of $99.3 million in Q1 and segment adjusted EBITDA of $6.8 million, noting first-quarter seasonality. Average core platform customer count ended at approximately 11,900 and ARPU was near record highs at about $2,800. At Newsquest, Gosser said Q1 revenues rose 7% to $59.8 million, marking the fourth consecutive quarter of revenue growth, while segment adjusted EBITDA increased 6.6% to $14.9 million. Management reaffirmed its full-year 2026 business outlook. Gosser said Q2 total revenue and same-store trends are expected to remain largely in line with Q1, while adjusted EBITDA should grow year-over-year “at a notably more moderate pace” due to mix, including higher DMS contribution and lower licensing contribution. She also said the company expects “significantly higher” free cash flow generation quarter-over-quarter. Reed said the company is “looking ahead to a really strong second quarter,” with digital-only subscriptions and “digital other” expected to remain key contributors. Gannett Co, Inc (NYSE: GCI) is a media and marketing solutions company headquartered in McLean, Virginia. As the largest U.S. newspaper publisher by circulation, Gannett publishes USA Today alongside more than 260 local news brands. The company’s multimedia platforms include daily and weekly newspapers, websites, mobile apps and a network of subscription-based digital products. In addition to journalism and content production, Gannett offers a suite of digital marketing services designed to help small and medium-sized businesses grow online. The article "USA Today Q1 Earnings Call Highlights" was originally published by MarketBeat.