VSNT

Greetings. Welcome to Versant Media's first quarter 2026 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. The question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star 0 from your telephone keypad. Please note this conference is being recorded. At this time, I'll now turn the conference over to Wylie Collins, Executive Vice President of Investor Relations and Treasury. Thank you. You may begin.

Thank you, good morning, everyone. Welcome to Versant Media Group's 1st quarter 2026 operating and financial results conference call. Joining us today are Mark Lazarus, Chief Executive Officer, and Anand Kini, Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operating Officer. Also with us are Jordan Fasbender, General Counsel, and Natalie Candela, Vice President of Investor Relations. Before we begin, I'd like to remind you that certain statements made during this call may constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements reflect management's current expectations and are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied. For discussion of these risks and uncertainties, please refer to Versant Media Group's filings with the SEC and today's earnings release.

All forward-looking statements are made as of today, May 14, 2026, and we undertake no obligation to update them. In addition, we may refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations of these measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures are included in today's earnings release and in the materials posted in the investor relations section of our website. During today's call, all comparisons to the prior year are against standalone adjusted figures, which represent our estimated 2025 results as if Versant were already a separate independent company. With that, I'll turn the call over to Mark.

Thank you, Wylie, and good morning, everyone. We're off to a strong start to the year with continued progress and growth across key areas of the business, driven by disciplined execution and the strength of our portfolio. As we report our first quarter as an independent company, I want to recognize the truly unique culture and organization that we are building. I am incredibly proud of how our teams are executing with focus, rigor, and a shared commitment to performance. The teamwork is evident in the results and in the momentum we're building across the business. This momentum reflects our strategy at work, operating scale, market-leading brands anchored in live sports and news, winning with premium content, expanding audience reach, and accelerating the growth of our digital platforms.

We hold a leadership position in each of our four large and growing markets: business news and personal finance, political news and opinion, golf, and sports and genre entertainment. Across each, we continue to make meaningful progress against our objectives, deepening engagement and driving new monetization opportunities. Let's talk about the results. At CNBC, we saw exceptional engagement during a period of heightened market volatility. The network delivered its highest-rated quarter in four years with double-digit year-over-year growth, reinforcing CNBC's role as the destination for business news when it matters most. That strength was on full display in Davos at the World Economic Forum, where CNBC was on the ground having and covering the most consequential conversations shaping today's global economic agenda with CEOs, policymakers, and business leaders. Viewership among key demographics increased more than 50% during the week, resulting in our largest Davos audience in five years.

We also continue to expand and build on the strength of our programming with the launch of Morning Call, a new early morning program that begins our business day lineup by delivering pre-market analysis, insights, and global financial developments to set the agenda for the trading day. At MS NOW, the network achieved its most-watched quarter since 2024, with double-digit growth in both total day and prime time viewership among key demographics. MS NOW reached an average of over 30 million viewers weekly, and our viewers watched an average of 9 hours weekly, the second highest engagement across all cable networks, regardless of genre, and nearly double the next closest competitor. That scale extends to digital, where the MS NOW website and app delivered the strongest first quarter on record. MS NOW generated more views on YouTube than the 3 broadcast networks combined from their news divisions.

We had over 1.6 billion views across YouTube and TikTok combined year to date. Growth also continued in digital publishing and podcasts, with original podcast downloads up more than 60% year over year. MS NOW is the network audiences turn to during the most important moments in politics. With the 2026 midterm elections approaching, MS NOW will continue to deliver premium programming with differentiated analysis. In golf, Golf Channel continued to build on its leadership position as the number one golf media outlet driven by strong early season engagement. The PGA Tour is off to an exceptional start with the Golf Channel drawing its largest audience for the Players Championship in 2 decades.

That momentum continued more recently at The Masters Tournament, where Golf Channel reached 13.5 million unique viewers during the week, reinforcing its role as the primary destination not only for live golf but for news, interviews, and post-round analysis as well. We are extending that leadership beyond pay TV through our platforms business. GolfNow delivered broad growth across tee time bookings and payments. GolfPass, boosted by our partnership with Rory McIlroy, in the 1st quarter reached the highest number of subscribers ever. In just a moment, I'll talk about the platform's business, but as it relates to golf, this is a clear example of how we are integrating content, commerce, and consumer engagement within a single ecosystem. Turning to sports and genre entertainment.

In the first quarter, we delivered the largest Olympic audience in USA Network history with the Milano Cortina Olympics, which aired across USA Network and CNBC, reaching approximately three-quarters of U.S. pay TV households and securing the number one rank among sports and entertainment cable networks. In addition, we are building on our momentum in women's sports. Our first season of League One Volleyball on USA Network was a breakout success, highlighted by the most-watched match in league history. We are also proud to have just kicked off our inaugural WNBA season this past Sunday with our opening game and a double header just last night. Beyond live sports, we are driving value from our deep content library.

The licensing of Keeping Up with the Kardashians and other iconic entertainment titles to third-party platforms underscores the enduring demand for our own content and our ability to monetize it across the evolving distribution landscape. In addition, our entertainment brands continue to perform throughout the quarter. E! Live from the Red Carpet drove strong audience engagement around major events, including the Oscars, the Grammys, and the Critics Choice Awards. The Critics Choice Awards aired as a simulcast on E! and USA Network, doubling viewership compared to the prior year. Finally, in platforms, we delivered high single-digit growth in the quarter, continuing to build a scalable revenue stream beyond pay TV while expanding the reach and distribution of our iconic brands. Our performance reflects disciplined execution and progress in scaling these businesses, which remains a foremost strategic priority.

Platform's growth in the quarter was driven by GolfNow and Fandango, with Fandango One, formerly INDY Cinema, expanding Fandango's value proposition for cinema operators. An important component of our platform strategy is to build on CNBC's position as the leading source for business news and expand our audience relationships through deeper and broader coverage. As part of this strategy, we acquired StockStory, an AI-driven platform that enhances our ability to deliver real-time, actionable investment intelligence and supports the next phase of CNBC's direct-to-consumer product development. We're building on this momentum with other new platform initiatives as well, including the previously announced MS NOW direct-to-consumer offering and Fandango AVOD service, both on track to launch later this year. These initiatives and strategies underscore that we are actively managing through pay TV's secular changes.

We are focused not only on continuing to improve the content and reach of our leading brands but also aggressively expanding beyond TV through direct-to-consumer initiatives. Our strong balance sheet enables us to both return capital to shareholders and invest in these growth opportunities. That includes acquisitions such as INDY Cinema Group for Fandango, StockStory for CNBC, and Free TV Networks, which expand our platform capabilities and accelerate our evolution. As I just mentioned, we remain committed to returning capital to shareholders through dividends and share repurchases, including this morning's announcements of an accelerated share repurchase transaction as we enter the second quarter. With that, I'll turn it over to Anand. We'll walk through the financials.

Thanks, Mark. Good morning, everyone. I'll begin by reviewing our first quarter 2026 results, then discuss key performance drivers, and finally touch upon our outlook for the remainder of the year. As Mark mentioned, our first quarter performance reflects a strong start to the year, with disciplined execution driving robust profitability, healthy margins, significant free cash flow generation, and continued momentum in platforms revenue. Total revenue for the quarter was approximately $1.69 billion, a 1% decrease from the prior year quarter. This performance reflects the expected continued pressure on pay TV impacting linear distribution and advertising revenues. This was partially offset by significant growth in platforms which, as we've mentioned, is a top strategic priority for Versant.

Linear distribution revenue was $1.01 billion, a decline of 7% year-over-year, driven by continued cord-cutting trends, partially offset by contractual rate increases. This decline is consistent with the prior year trajectory. Advertising revenue was $368 million, down 5% year-over-year, a significant improvement from last year's Q1 decline of 12%, reflecting the power of our portfolio, particularly in our news businesses, where we successfully monetize strong ratings and robust advertiser demand. Platform's revenue was $192 million, up 9%, with strong results at both GolfNow and Fandango. Mark mentioned the breadth of GolfNow's growth, and it's a similar story with Fandango, with robust performance in ticketing and home entertainment with INDY Cinema Group, now known as Fandango One, also fully integrated and contributing to our success.

Content licensing and other revenue was $121 million, a significant increase compared to the $57 million in the prior year. Was favorably impacted by the licensing of select titles in our content library, including Keeping Up with the Kardashians, which we announced in January. A reminder that the value of licensing transactions is generally recognized immediately when the content is delivered. As a result, content licensing and other revenue can vary significantly quarter-to-quarter and year-over-year. In the first quarter, adjusted EBITDA was $704 million, reflecting our continued focus on operating efficiency and increasing 5% versus the prior year. Margins remained well above 30%. Programming and production costs were $519 million in the first quarter, down 5% year-over-year, as we continue to deliver the premium content our audiences love efficiently.

As a reminder, these costs have some degree of seasonality, with higher costs in the second half of the year driven by sports rights timing. Other costs of revenue increased 11% in the first quarter due to our continued investment in platforms, including costs associated with onboarding Fandango ONE. Total cost of revenue was $638 million, down 3% compared to last year. SG&A costs of $346 million represented a decrease of 9%. We remain focused on operating with a lean organization and modernizing our technology infrastructure, driving efficiency and productivity. We expect a modest go-forward increase in SG&A costs to support our growth initiatives, including the ongoing development of our D2C offerings.

Free cash flow totaled $558 million in the quarter, reflecting strong cash generation and timing-related items, including accounts receivable collections and payable processing, which we expect to normalize as the year progresses. Capital expenditures were relatively light in the first quarter and are expected, consistent with our prior commentary, to increase modestly over the remainder of the year, largely driven by the build-out of our Manhattan facility and targeted investments in our platforms and other growth businesses. Demonstrating our commitment to return capital to shareholders, our board has declared a quarterly cash dividend of $0.375 per share. As Mark mentioned, in the first quarter, we repurchased $100 million of Class A shares under the $1 billion authorization approved last quarter.

This morning, we have announced a $100 million accelerated share repurchase agreement, which we expect to complete in the second quarter. Liquidity remains strong with a total cash balance of $1.2 billion at quarter end, supported by healthy free cash flow generation as well as timing-related items discussed earlier, which we expect to normalize in the second quarter. Our capital allocation priorities remain consistent, investing to evolve our business model and generate growth, returning capital to shareholders, and maintaining a strong balance sheet. We mentioned previously our decision to explore strategic alternatives for SportsEngine and sold most of the business on May 1. Our focus will always be to maximize long-term value through disciplined capital allocation, and this sale, along with the growth investments we've mentioned, underscores that commitment.

As we look ahead to the rest of the year, we continue to expect $6.15 billion-$6.4 billion in revenue, adjusted EBITDA of $1.85 billion-$2.0 billion, and free cash flow at $1.0 billion-$1.2 billion. We expect quarterly fluctuations driven by content licensing, working capital, and higher programming costs in the second half, particularly in the fourth quarter. These dynamics are reflected in our full year outlook and consistent with 2025. As mentioned, content licensing revenue can vary across quarters, and we expect higher programming costs driven by sports rights timing relative to both Q1 and last year in the second half and particularly Q4. With respect to free cash flow for the remainder of 2026, we also expect continued variability due to working capital timing differences.

With that, I will turn it over to the operator for Q&A.

Thank you. We'll now be conducting a question and answer session. Thank you. Our first question is from the line of Michael Ng with Goldman Sachs. Please proceed with your questions.

Good morning. Thank you for the questions. I have two, one on advertising and one on skinny bundles. First, on advertising, it was a little bit better than expected in the quarter. Can you just talk a little bit about how much of the performance was driven by growth initiatives gaining traction versus the strong news cycle across CNBC and MSNBC? Was there any halo effect on USA from the Winter Olympics? Just trying to understand the sustainability of the outperformance in ads. Then on skinny bundles, could you talk a little bit about whether you're seeing a wider range of performance across your network portfolio? Said differently, are MSNBC and CNBC outperforming the rest of your networks just given their inclusion in the news inclusive plans? Thank you very much.

Thanks, Michael. Thanks for the questions, Mark. On advertising. You know, the marketplace has been strong. The portfolio of news and sports, along with a bunch of the live entertainment we had, has been resilient. The, you know, our partnership with NBCU representing us in the market has proven to be fruitful for both parties. We believe that this is sustainable. It was not a big halo from the Olympics. The Olympics were wonderful and were great for us. As a reminder, you know, that NBC buys the time from us, we didn't benefit from growth in advertising from the Olympics. Our portfolio of live content is what advertisers are seeking, and I feel that that will continue, and we have all good indicators going forward.

On the skinny bundle side, I think what I would say is that we are, you know, we're well-positioned, and we are in all of the appropriate bundles. As you point out, we're in the sports and news bundles with our content. You know, the portfolio is diverse and has networks that is prepared and built to work with the distribution marketplace in this new tiered bundled world.

Mike, just to add on to what Mark said, you know, on the advertising side, the organic presence drove kind of the trajectory improvement. Yes, we have some new initiatives like Free TV Networks, but to be clear, that was not the reason that we saw that performance improvement. That was just based on the organic businesses and the health of them and, you know, all the factors that Mark just mentioned. Again, just to reiterate, you know, Mark's point on the skinny bundles. The way we look at this also from a business model and financial perspective is we look at it in total revenue and where, as you saw, the kind of the linear distribution revenue and our focus is on maximizing that across the portfolio.

That's how we manage the business, and it kinda shows up in the results and how we'll continue to do so.

Wonderful. Thank you, gentlemen.

The next question is from the line of Brent Thill with Raymond James. Please proceed with your questions.

Hey, good morning, everyone. Thanks for taking the questions. First one for me, on MS NOW and Fandango digital, and AVOD strategies. Appreciate the color launching later this year. Are there any more details you all can give at this point on what the go-to-market or maybe pricing strategies will look like for each? Can you help us size the investment this year to bring those both to market?

Thanks, Brent. We haven't settled on pricing yet, really that's only for half the equation. MS NOW will be a direct-to-consumer and be a subscriber-based service, which will center around content that MS NOW, its reporters, its contributors, its anchors, create, but not only that. There'll be a build-out in a sense of community and mindfulness, and it'll be a much broader service than what we provide today, bringing together voices that are both on our air and not necessarily on our air today. That will be a subscriber-based service.

Fandango AVOD will be just that, you know, be free with advertising, and it'll be, you know, we will be able to serve content based on the data and information we have from our current Fandango U.S. users, both in form of buying movie tickets as well as buying home video services for buying and renting TV series and films. We'll be able to serve advertising, relevant advertising as people consume our content. Again, that's a free with advertising service.

Just to answer your question on the investment. The investment is not substantial. We get the benefit of leveraging our existing infrastructure, on the video, for example. We already have a well-established Fandango infrastructure to support video playback. Similarly on MS NOW, we have existing streaming services that have video playback at CNBC. There is some kind of bespoke user design investment, but we have a very strong base that we're starting with. A lot of the investment is actually just on marketing and driving awareness to the product for the consumer, but it's embedded in kind of the outlook we set. We mentioned that you'll see, for example, SG&A tick up modestly, and that's really to support those plans and a little bit on the CapEx side.

We've mentioned that you'll see a little bit there both for the New York facility build-out and to support them. From a size perspective, it's not like substantial dollars.

Okay. That's helpful. On the accelerated buyback, what drove the decision to do that, and why now? Still with $800 million of authorization pro forma for that, is there any color that you can give on what will drive your decisions around the pacing of the remaining buyback?

Sure. 2 things. Just to reiterate that the buyback, A, both the ASR for Q2, and then we bought back $100 million in Q1, and then we also have the $0.375 dividend. I think all exemplify our capital allocation approach. Just to remind everybody, kind of 3 prongs here, and they're ands in that we're uniquely positioned, we think, to do all of them. A is maintain a strong balance sheet, which we think gives us a competitive advantage and a strategic advantage. B is to invest in growth to evolve the business. C is a return of capital to shareholders.

We think each one of them are equal priorities, and I think the results that you just see in our share buyback and dividend kind of exemplify that. I think one other thing in terms of, you know, the ASR, it kind of just underscores our confidence in the business and our commitment to that capital allocation approach. Just one final thing, like we don't view these capital allocation decisions within this framework as static, but rather, like we make those decisions in the context of the market environment and opportunities we see to add value. That's going to be our approach going forward as well.

Okay. Final question from me. Could you just size the benefit from Keeping Up With the Kardashians? What's the timeframe on that licensing deal?

Sure. Just a couple things. On the, on the sizing, it was a driver, as you can see in the content licensing and other growth. It is a driver of that. I think I reiterated that we have a multifaceted business model where we have content licensing, we have ad sales, you know, linear distribution platforms. This is one of the levers that we have and think it exemplifies the value of the library. Yes, this quarter was Keeping Up with the Kardashians. We have a lot of other programming, great true crime kind of library. We have a lot of other unscripted programming that we will sell in the future as well.

Just by notion or I should note that this is inherently there's some variability in this revenue stream on content licensing just based off of the timing of the sale. We recognize all the revenue for the sale just based off of GAAP this quarter that it's announced, and that will be the same with other sales that we do going forward. It's a multi-year licensing deal that we did with the Kardashians.

I'll just add to that, you know, we do have a robust library titles that are part of the current structure of the library, but also as we continue to create new and original content, that will also be things that we're able to put into the marketplace. Shows that we are creating now, we know have been attractive to third parties who have already reached out to us about licensing.

Okay. Thank you both.

The next question is from the line of David Karnovsky with JP Morgan. Please proceed with your questions.

Hey, thank you. Maybe just following up on the prior question. Is there any way to help frame residual costs, I mean, either for Kardashians or just, you know, how to think about your library content generally, to help us better understand flow through to EBITDA or cash flow when you do move some of this programming? Then on SportsEngine, maybe this detail will be in the queue, but I don't know if there's anything you can say on the terms of the sale or just revenue and EBITDA impact. Thank you.

Sure. On, on the residual costs, like, A, I should say like really all of our content sales are profitable. Like, you know, we generate every good margins from our content licensing. It is gonna vary a little bit on deal by deal, depending on the individual talent that's associated with the show. I guess the best guide I can kinda give on that is it was a driver of kind of 1 of the drivers of the increasing content licensing and other revenue, and those incremental revenues are profitable. You know, it's a good margin business for us. Then I think your other question that you asked on Can you just remind me what that was?

SportsEngine.

SportsEngine. On SportsEngine, it's, you know, like, in terms of we did sell on May 1. We're very proud of the business. We think this was a, like I mentioned, an attractive deal for our shareholders. It was a way to kind of maximize value of the asset. It's not gonna be from a materiality perspective within our financials as you look to kind of revenue and EBITDA. It's not gonna kinda change our trajectory of kind of our guidance and so forth. As you can see, we've kinda stuck with where we were, it kinda gives you a sense of that. Financially, again, it's, you know, we're pleased with the outcome, you know, we don't think it's gonna really change how we run the business going forward.

Thank you.

Our next questions are from the line of Rich Greenfield with Lightshed Partners. Please proceed with your questions.

Hey, thanks, guys, for taking the questions. You know, when I look at companies like Disney and Fox even, they sort of talked about how their D2C strategy is sort of counteracting or lessening the declines they're seeing in the linear business, you know, in terms of how they talk about their overall trajectory of subscribers. I'm wondering, you know, as I know you can't get into details on pricing and the exact strategy on the MS NOW launch, but I guess how should we judge success? Like, will success be lessening the declines on the linear business? Like, what are sort of the ways you think about we're gonna be able to understand the success and progress of that D2C strategy?

Just I wanted to follow up on the cord shaving comments at the beginning of the Q&A. You know, Disney warned about the impact of the YouTube TV skinny bundles on their non-sports assets. I guess when you look at both DirecTV and YouTube TV, they've gotten more aggressive with sports bundles and sports and news bundles. Anything you can say on, are most people, from what you can tell, taking sports and news? Are they gravitating towards sports? Obviously, you have a unique view given the portfolio you have. Where are consumers gravitating to as these skinny bundles play out? Thanks.

Sure, Rich. Thanks. I'll start with the second one first. You know, clearly we are seeing You know, there are a set of consumers who are looking for sports and news. We are proud that, you know, 4 of our 7 linear businesses fall into those areas and in those tiers, and that we are participating in that. As it relates to the entertainment side, what we're seeing is a fair amount of stability. We still have a large and robust subscriber base. We're also being creative and flexible with how we're able to distribute.

By way of example, I'll share that, you know, Oxygen over the last few years, while it is a very, I'll call it very fair priced to the MVPD, we also have some availability in free over the air as a multicast network, and we think that that's a way to expand creatively and flexibly without and being additive to our distribution flow mechanisms. We see a lot of opportunity. As the MVPDs change their tiers, we'll be creative and flexible. That's one of the things that we, as a standalone company, have the ability to do, to work with all of the MVPD partners to make sure our content is available through them, but also in other forms and factions without damaging or hurting those relationships.

On the MS NOW question, or really the D2C question, our goal is to continue to build scale and expand our audiences. Yes, we hope that comes with a large base of subscribers. Where we'll gauge ourselves is how do we work, how do revenues look across all of our various forms of distributing content? One of the things that we want to do is make sure we grow revenue diversification within each of our verticals, as we have been doing. As we talked about, we have done a very good job over the years with golf by adding StockStory, adding INDY Cinema Group, adding Free TV Networks. MS NOW is the MS NOW version of growing revenue diversification into that very important vertical for us.

It goes well beyond subscription in your mind, but you do think it should lessen subscription declines and success?

Yes. Yes, very much so. I mean, we wanna build an audience, you know, a circular way to move audience between various platforms for our content. This is one of the key elements.

Thank you.

Our next question is from the line of Sean Diffley with Morgan Stanley. Please proceed with your questions.

Great. Thanks very much, team. I had 2. 1, a capital allocation follow-up, and then a sports rights question. Obviously, you can buy back your own stock. The ASR is helpful, but you're also able to do M&A. I was hoping you could walk us through how you assess the relative attractiveness of each and where your strategic focus is from an M&A standpoint, and how you would describe the valuation backdrop for some assets out there. Then second, on sports rights, obviously, some of your bigger competitors are very focused on the NFL. Do you see the potential for smaller rights to free up, and which sports we should be focused on? Thank you.

We'll talk about the framework for M&A. Clearly, we're looking in a variety of areas and obviously can't be too specific here. You know, we're adding to our verticals as the 3 that I've already mentioned that we've done, and we're looking for creative opportunities within each of those verticals. More broadly, we are interested in being We're gonna be very disciplined, but we're interested in things that help us diversify our revenue streams. As we've talked about, a vertical strategy, not a horizontal strategy, across the linear landscape. On the NFL question, I'll let Anand come back to the capital allocation side.

On the NFL question, yes, the competitive set, they're working through however they in the NFL are going to work through the next cycle of contracts. I do believe that that will put pressure on those companies that retain or grow their NFL expense to make decisions on other content and that we will selectively look at contracts. If you can just look at who the next groups of leagues that come up, you know, whether it's baseball, hockey, soccer or Premier League, there's a variety of content coming due. I think what I would just express is that we are well-positioned. You know, if you think about since we've announced our spin, we have extended our USGA contract, we've extended our PGA of America Ryder Cup contract, we have expanded our WNBA relationship.

We have done a deal and have now completed our first season of League One women's Volleyball. I do think there will continue to be opportunity for us to build upon our sports portfolio, being judicious with our capital.

Just to kind of go back to what Mark said on the capital allocation and M&A. In terms of, again, whether it's share repurchase, whether it's ASR or on the market at an M&A, again, we view it as these are both two prongs, and the third prong is maintaining a healthy balance sheet that we are gonna execute concurrently. That's what we've been doing, and we hold each one as very important. I think, again, they all work together, so we think we're in a advantaged position to be able to do it, do it all, and I think our results kind of show that. On M&A, Mark mentioned the strategy focus. It's also, we have a lot of focus on value.

I think hopefully our results in Q1 demonstrate that we have a resilient, strong business model. We're gonna do things, whether it's there's a lot of room to grow organically. Our platform's revenue growth this quarter demonstrates that. That was really organic growth in GolfNow and Fandango. We're gonna look when there's opportunities that are inorganic. They have a very high threshold, even as they fit within those markets and those strategies. If it makes a lot of sense and it adds a lot of value, we'll pursue. If it doesn't, we really like the hand that we have.

Thank you.

Thank you. Our last and final question is from the line of David Joyce with Seaport Research Partners. Please proceed with your questions.

Thank you. Anecdotally, it seems like you've been self-promoting Fandango and GolfNow and GolfPass more. What's the engagement and subscription growth been like year-over-year, and where do you see your share going in a few years? Secondly, some of your other peers have been starting to work on vertical video. Is this possibly gonna be part of your strategy, and what would be involved in that? Thank you.

First, thank you for noticing. Yes, we have been utilizing our airtime. Given, you know, the portfolio we have, we've been utilizing our airtime to promote Fandango, GolfNow and Rotten Tomatoes. Some of you left that far out. Hopefully, you've seen those as well. I think what we've been doing there, I think the results that we just announced of growing, you know, growing at 9% is indicative of the power of our linear promotion helping grow those businesses. You know, they're not really subscription businesses, they're transaction businesses. Our growth is evident that our transactions are growing. Part of that for sure is our ability to promote those services on our air. We will continue to do that.

It's one of the benefits we have of having this closed loop of multiple businesses. In terms of vertical video, we are investigating it, where there's a couple of companies that we're working with. In fact, if you look, we just launched a new Golf Channel app, and it is built for vertical video. We'll continue to do that in other areas and other genres as well.

Great. Thank you.

Thank you. This now concludes our question and answer session and will also conclude today's conference. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect your lines at this time, and have a wonderful day.

Greetings. Welcome to Versant Media's Full Year 2025 Operating and Financial Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please note, this conference is being recorded. At this time, I'll turn the conference over to Wylie Collins, Executive Vice President, Investor Relations and Treasury. Thank you. You may now begin.

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to Versant Media's Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2025 Operating and Financial Results Conference Call. Joining us today are Mark Lazarus, Chief Executive Officer; and Anand Kini, Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operating Officer. Also with us are Jordan Fasbender, General Counsel; and Natalie Candela, VP of Investor Relations. Before we begin, I'd like to remind you that certain statements made during this call may constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements reflect management's current expectations and are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied. For a discussion of these risks and uncertainties, please refer to Versant Media's filings with the SEC and today's earnings release. All forward-looking statements are made as of today, March 3, 2026, and we undertake no obligation to update them. During today's call, we may refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations of these measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures are included in today's earnings release and in the materials posted in the Investor Relations section of our website. With that, I'll turn the call over to Mark.

Thank you, Wylie, and good morning. We are pleased to report Versant's 2025 operating and financial results as an independent, well-positioned media and entertainment company. 2025 was a pivotal year for Versant. We completed our transition to a stand-alone public company while advancing our clear and deliberate strategy, continuing to win with premium content, extending the reach of our iconic brands and accelerating the growth of our digital platforms. We operate in 4 large and growing markets: business news and personal finance, political news and opinion, golf and athletics participation and sports and genre entertainment. In each, our brands hold leadership positions with clear opportunities to extend beyond pay TV. Versant enters this next phase with meaningful scale, reaching an average of approximately 100 million people every month. Our live news, live sports and premium entertainment programming continue to attract large engaged audiences and generate robust advertiser demand. Approximately 60% of our audience comes from news and sports, which is most valued by audiences and advertisers. In 2025, CNBC solidified its position as the #1 global business media brand, delivering exclusive breaking news and more than 6,000 hours of live on-air coverage. That leadership was on full display in Davos last month, where viewership surged across all 3 days of coverage as CNBC was at the center of the world's most consequential business conversations. We built on that position of strength in 2025 with a multiyear partnership with Kalshi, integrating real-time prediction market data directly into CNBC's editorial coverage. This important commercial relationship introduces new revenue streams and connects us with a younger, highly engaged and data-driven investor audience. We're extending that strategy even further. CNBC will launch a next-generation direct-to-consumer subscription service tailored to retail investors, a fully integrated platform combining CNBC editorial insights, investment recommendations, portfolio tracking, advanced charting, AI-powered analysis and powerful decision-making tools, all built on a brand and talent that investors trust. We believe this service addresses a significant market need with a product only CNBC can deliver. On election night in 2025, MS NOW was the most watched network across all of cable, reinforcing the strength of the brand at the most consequential moments in politics. Since the rebrand to MS NOW in the fourth quarter, that momentum has not only held, it has accelerated with double-digit growth in total viewers since November. That momentum extends well beyond traditional television as well. In 2025, MS NOW generated nearly 8 billion views across TikTok and YouTube, along with more than 140 million podcast downloads, demonstrating the depth and demand of a highly engaged audience. To build on that engagement, later this year, we will launch a new MS NOW direct-to-consumer platform centered on community, access and exclusive content, extending the breadth and depth of MS NOW's audience reach. The Golf Channel is the #1 golf media outlet. And in 2025, we aired over 2,000 hours of live coverage across more than 200 events, accounting for 35% of all hours watched for golf. The inaugural Golf Channel games aired in December, and we also extended our USGA partnership through 2032 and our PGA of America partnership, including the Ryder Cup through 2033, securing long-term rights and reinforcing our leadership in golf for years to come. Beyond pay TV, our tee-time platform, GolfNow, delivered a record year with 40 million tee-times booked over 9,000 courses globally, demonstrating Versant's scale in the broader golf ecosystem. Across our broader sports portfolio, USA Sports added Pac-12 football and basketball and expanded our leadership in women's sports through long-term agreements with the WNBA and League One Volleyball. Last month, we also brought the Olympic Winter Games from Milan Cortina to audiences nationwide on USA Network and CNBC, and we'll provide more on that during our first quarter call. In entertainment, USA delivered the #1 scripted cable original premiere of 2025 with The Rainmaker, and it has already been renewed for a second season, reinforcing our ability to launch and develop premium franchises. We also broadcast the Critics Choice Awards, which delivered their strongest ratings since 2022, a reminder of the enduring appeal of live unscripted entertainment. At Fandango, we will launch new ad-supported streaming service later this year, enabling audiences to watch films and television series for free, leveraging Fandango's broad distribution footprint, scaled customer base and Versant's strong library of content. This is a natural extension for the Fandango platform, growing audience and deepening engagement while driving incremental monetization. In addition, we completed the acquisition of INDY Cinema Group, expanding our offering for cinema operators with a cloud-based operating system now deployed across theaters worldwide. We also added Free TV Networks to our portfolio with national over-the-air distribution, expanding our presence in the fast-growing free ad-supported market and extending our footprint beyond traditional pay television. These acquisitions reinforce our strategy of building on our leadership in our core markets by expanding distribution, deepening engagement and developing new audience touch points through both existing and new platforms. We view revenue mix as a critical indicator of our strategic transformation. In 2024, 17% of our revenue came from non-pay TV platforms. In 2025, that increased to 19%, and that was achieved without the benefit of the new initiatives launching this year. Our target is 33% over the next 3 to 5 years and over time to get closer to 50%, positioning Versant to a platform for growth over time. We are committed to continue investing in the business and returning capital to shareholders. Our Board has declared the company's first dividend and has also approved a $1 billion share repurchase authorization. This program reflects our confidence in the business and our strong balance sheet, which provides us the flexibility to invest in growth while also delivering meaningful shareholder returns. As we move forward, we have a clear strategy and the infrastructure, operating discipline and leadership required to win. We enter this next chapter from a position of strength, profitable, scaled and disciplined. None of this would be possible without our team. Across every part of our company, our people executed at a complex separation while continuing to deliver for audiences, partners and shareholders. I am incredibly proud of what we have built and even more confident in what we will accomplish next. With that, let me turn it over to Anand.

Thanks, Mark, and good morning, everyone. As Mark noted, we are focused on disciplined execution and positioning the company for long-term value creation. I'll review our full year 2025 results, discuss key performance drivers and provide our outlook for 2026. Unless otherwise noted, all comments reflect stand-alone results, meaning a view of 2025 and 2024, as if we were already operating as an independent company, aligned with how we presented at Investor Day and how we will report going forward. 2025 performance is consistent with the forecast we shared in December with strong profitability, healthy margins and significant free cash flow generation. Total revenue was approximately $6.7 billion, down 5% year-over-year. The decline primarily reflects ongoing secular pressure in pay TV and advertising normalization following the prior year's presidential election cycle, partially offset by growth in our platform's businesses. Stand-alone adjusted EBITDA, which excludes transaction and separation-related costs, was about $2.2 billion, down 9% year-over-year. Stand-alone adjusted EBITDA margins remained above 30%, consistent with the framework outlined at Investor Day. An estimated stand-alone free cash flow totaled a healthy $1.5 billion for the year. Turning now to revenue details. Linear distribution revenue was $4.1 billion, down 5% year-over-year, driven by continued moderate cord cutting, partially offset by contractual rate increases. Importantly, more than half of our pay-TV subscribers are under agreements not subject to renewal until 2028 and beyond, providing meaningful revenue visibility. Advertising revenue was approximately $1.6 billion, down 9% year-over-year, reflecting ratings declines and post-election normalization in use. Quarterly growth trends were affected by sports timing differences and certain assumptions related to the impact of the 2024 Paris Olympics on our stand-alone results. Platforms revenue, primarily GolfNow and Fandango, increased 4% to approximately $826 million. GolfNow delivered another strong year with growth in bookings, payment volumes and subscriptions. Fandango performance reflected a softer-than-expected theatrical slate, particularly in the second half. We expect platforms to return to high single-digit revenue growth organically in 2026, supported by a stronger box office slate and continued growth at GolfNow. Additionally, we anticipate favorable contributions from our recent INDY Cinema acquisition. Content licensing and other revenue was approximately $193 million, down 9% year-over-year, primarily due to timing of entertainment licensing agreements. On expenses, cost of revenues declined by about $130 million in 2025 driven by programming cost savings, including from a new long-term NASCAR agreement. SG&A, excluding transaction and separation-related costs, was slightly lower year-over-year and reflects the resources required to operate as a stand-alone public company. Turning now to the fourth quarter. Results were broadly consistent with the full year trends. Revenue was $1.6 billion, down 7% year-over-year. Stand-alone adjusted EBITDA was $521 million, down 19%, impacted by production tax benefit in the prior year quarter. Full year results better reflect the underlying financial profile. We began the year with approximately $850 million of cash and total liquidity of approximately $1.6 billion, including availability under our $750 million revolving credit facility. Gross debt totaled approximately $3 billion, resulting in net leverage of 1x trailing 12-month stand-alone adjusted EBITDA, providing substantial financial flexibility. With respect to capital allocation, returning capital to shareholders remains a top priority for us, alongside disciplined investing to support long-term growth. As Mark noted, the Board has authorized a share repurchase program of up to $1 billion and has declared a $0.375 per share quarterly cash dividend, representing an expected annualized dividend of $1.50 per share. Our 2026 outlook remains consistent with the framework provided at Investor Day. We expect revenue between $6.15 billion and $6.4 billion supported by midterm political advertising and new product initiatives. We expect adjusted EBITDA between $1.85 billion and $2 billion as we continue to invest in growth with some quarterly volatility caused by sports rights timing, particularly in second half. Depreciation and amortization will remain elevated in 2026 largely due to amortization of intangibles related to the 2011 Comcast acquisition of NBCUniversal. This amortization will be substantially complete by year-end 2026. We anticipate our cash tax rate for 2026 to be approximately 26%, excluding the impact of intangibles on the balance sheet. From a capital expenditure standpoint, we expect 2026 CapEx to be modestly above stand-alone 2025 levels. The increase primarily reflects the build-out of our new Manhattan headquarters and targeted investments in our platforms and other growth businesses. Over the medium term, we expect capital intensity to normalize following completion of these projects. We continue to expect free cash flow between $1 billion and $1.2 billion in 2026. Free cash flow conversion will be modestly lowered in 2025, reflecting working capital timing, onetime cash tax benefits in 2025 and the incremental capital expenditures I just outlined. On working capital, we anticipate quarterly variability, particularly in the fourth quarter. This is principally caused by separation-related timing effects, including NBCUniversal's prefunding of certain receivables at separation, which increased our opening cash balance with a corresponding Q1 working capital impact. With that, I'll hand it back to the operator to open the line for Q&A.

[Operator Instructions] And the first question comes from the line of Michael Ng with Goldman Sachs.

Congratulations on your first quarter as a stand-alone public company. I just have 2 questions, if I could. First, platforms is obviously a critical part of getting to your revenue diversification goals. Can you talk a little bit about your confidence in achieving that 1/3 of revenue from non-pay TV over the next 3 to 5 years, key new product launches and features that you expect to be the most meaningful in the next couple of years here?

Yes, sure, Michael. Thanks. So we're really confident in our platforms business. As we mentioned earlier, though the results for 2025 were a little bit impacted by a slightly softer film slate for the industry. And Anand mentioned, we expect high single-digit revenue growth for 2026, which is consistent with the history that we have with these businesses. So we're very bullish on strong growth, both top and bottom line long off into the future. When you think about those core businesses, GolfNow and Fandango are established leaders. They're really strong, you'd say, preeminent brands in their respective markets. And they still have a lot of room to grow organically and to grow penetration. GolfNow, for example, represents less than 10% of the total rounds booked and it's very early on in the international expansion trajectory that we've undertaken. We can extend these businesses very easily into adjacent markets. We're launching a free AVOD service as part of Fandango, which will complement the movie ticketing and the home rental business. And we purchased INDY Cinema, which we mentioned, which enables us to offer the industry's best operating software to the same cinema operators who already use our partners in the ticketing business. So there's a lot of -- many more expansion opportunities for Fandango and GolfNow. We'll also launch brand-new platforms associated with our brands. CNBC's D2C is targeted to the retail investor. MS NOW D2C will be offering community insights perspective relevant to that brand. These are big powerful brands. We've got big existing audiences, and we're in a great position for these to be adopted at scale around D2C places we have not really invested before.

Yes. The only thing I would just add is, I think as Mark mentioned, Michael, it's a good question. And for us, it's a combination, as you saw, of organic investment where we're making quite a bit as we just talked about the different brands. And then also M&A, our bar is high. I think INDY Cinema is a good example of an M&A opportunity that we found very compelling, very good use of capital, significant value creation, fits with our brands, fits with Fandango. It's kind of an opportunity to add incremental value right away because we already have a sales channel to those exhibitors who buy our Fandango ticketing products. So I think that between the organic investment and then selective inorganic just kind of reinforces how confident and how bullish we are about our platforms business.

Wonderful. And just as a follow-up, could you just provide an update on the SportsEngine strategic review process and the M&A point to support platforms? Just some clarity on kind of tuck-ins versus maybe something more midsized?

Sure. I'll start with SportsEngine. So as we discussed, we're evaluating kind of value-maximizing alternatives for that business. So just to be very clear, we see a lot of consolidation in youth sports market-wide. So we think it's the right time for this review, but we haven't made a decision yet. We -- just to be very clear, we like SportsEngine. It's been a very good business for us. It is a very good business. And so we're only going to pursue opportunities that genuinely maximize value for the long term. Broadly on M&A, we will consider, obviously, all opportunities that add value. I think INDY Cinema is a very good example of a tuck-in, as you called it. And we think there very well may be more. I mean, for example, GolfNow, we built GolfNow over time. It was really a roll-up of a lot of independent operators. You can kind of consider that in some ways a tuck-in type as well. So definitely, we'll look at those. Could there be something bigger? Sure. But I think the key point is our thresholds here are very high. As part of our capital allocation, M&A is one area, but the brand fit, the ability to drive value right away and the synergies are something that we obviously consider very carefully. And so it has to kind of satisfy all those thresholds and make sure it delivers premium returns, and we will continue to be very disciplined in pursuing that.

Our next questions are from the line of Brent Penter with Raymond James.

First one for me. Good to see the shareholder return plans in the buyback authorization. What's your philosophy going to be on buybacks? Do you plan on being pretty opportunistic? Or should we expect them to be pretty regular? And is there a 10b5-1 program in place already?

Yes. At this point, we're going to be opportunistic. We're going to be thinking through the total capital allocation program sort of holistically, and we'll handle it that way.

Okay. And then realize it's very early into your journey as a stand-alone company and majority of your renewals are beyond '26 and '27, but can you just update us on your confidence on the affiliate fee trajectory and what you might be hearing from distribution partners at this point?

Well, we were able to execute a bunch of deals last year when we were long announced as a stand-alone company, and we were able to do that on terms that work for us and work for the distribution partners. We have a few deals up later on in this year, and we anticipate being able to have very productive and similar discussions with them at that time. Our live portfolio of news and sports we think plays into what people are still looking to watch on linear television, and that's a big part of our asset play.

Okay. Got it. And then final question for me. The Warner Bros. Discovery process, obviously kind of moving into the next phase now. Watching from the sidelines, what have you all learned from this process in terms of the industry in terms of some of your competitors in terms of valuations? What does all this mean for Versant?

Well, we have our plan to go as an independent company. We have a strong set of assets. We're very focused on our vertical markets. And the wider view was it was interesting because the assets from Warner Bros. were interesting to a couple of people in a couple of different ways, and we look at that as being reinforcing of the value of our company.

I think the only other thing I'd add is I think maybe what we learned is as you kind of went through that process, the assets that had a tremendous amount of value often were around news and sports. And I think you've heard us say before that, that's about 60% of our audience is news and sports. So we think in many ways, that process validates, a, the quality of our brands and our portfolio and the strategy that we're pursuing to kind of continue to drive those businesses, which are supremely positioned within the pay TV ecosystem, and it also gives us the opportunity then to extend them outside of it. So we think, in many ways, kind of validated the approach that we have.

Our next question is from the line of Peter Supino with Wolfe Research.

A couple of questions about the way your brands go to market. First, I wondered if you could talk about the size of the audience that you're reaching in linear pay TV. We obviously can see ratings data on individual shows, but I wonder how many households are engaging with your news and sports content every month and with enough frequency to be important to your negotiations with pay TV distributors. And the background of that question is we just hear in our conversations with clients and enormous preoccupation with the possibility that you all might have -- I mean it might someday lose a distributor. And then a second go-to-market question relates to your brand's DTC opportunity. Could you talk about your economics streaming CNBC and MS NOW direct-to-consumer and whether someday a partnership with a third-party streamer with a massive audience might be interesting.

So on the audience engagement, we have big brands that are well known and ubiquitously known to the marketplace. We reach around, as we stated earlier, 100 million people each and every month with our brands. If you look at some of them individually, MS NOW has doubled its audience in prime time in the last 10 years. We're reaching over 1 million people on average, 1.2 million people on average in prime time on MS NOW each and every day. So that's massive scale. And those people are watching with huge engagement, they're watching roughly 8 to 9 hours a week, which is the second highest engagement across the entire media TV landscape. CNBC similarly has a large loyal following in the financial sector and with retail investors, and you'll see that as we talk about the D2C and eventually launch that in the future. Across our sports, Premier League, WWE, NASCAR, WNBA, the Olympics was -- we were reaching 2 million, 3 million, 4 million people at a time with USA Network over the last few weeks. So we have scale, and we do it by both on individual networks and the accumulation of the total audience across our portfolio. On the D2C programs on the economic profile, we feel very confident that we already have an infrastructure. So the build-out of these is not a massive capital -- not massively capital intensive. We're creating product suites that will appeal for CNBC to the retail investor and the MS NOW to that highly engaged audience.

Yes, that's right, Mark. I think, Peter, what part of that also kind of may be implicit or embedded in your question is, would we go to market in different ways. And I think that answer is yes. So sure, we're going to offer it direct to consumers. But clearly, we're open to different opportunities to distribute through other partners, whether that's bundling or packaging or other distributors. And we will, in fact, be active in kind of striking that. I mean it's all about kind of driving value and driving scale. And there's actually a lot of folks that are interested, frankly, in working with us on that. And those conversations, we'll discuss them at the right time, but they're ongoing.

Our next question is from the line of Jessica Reif Ehrlich with Bank of America.

Two questions. First one is on advertising. So in addition to your existing business, which obviously has a big advertising component, your new businesses, whether direct-to-consumer or free TV or dependent, at least in part on advertising. So could you give us a little bit of color on the current market and talk through some of the levers that you can control to maybe improve the advertising trajectory in the current year, whether pricing or sell-through, cross-platform packaging, measurement, et cetera, data, so that would be great if you can give some real color. And then secondly, second completely different topic, but on sports, with the larger media companies facing what's likely a very expensive NFL renewal, does this open the door for you to buy what would be considered secondary or tertiary sports, but growing sports, whether like women's sports or upcoming sports and maybe bigger picture, I mean, sports is obviously a focus. How do you think that your sports strategy will evolve?

So why don't I take the second one first. And yes, as the NFL comes to market and we'll discuss new arrangements with some of the other media companies, we believe that there will be and some -- one of our competitors actually said a rebalancing of the sports portfolios. We believe that there will be a rebalancing of the sports portfolios and that, that will leave opportunity for us who have a heritage in sports, who have strong sports properties and legacy to begin with, but we also have broad reach. And with USA Network in particular, it's as broad a reach vehicle as any other cable television asset and/or pay television asset. And we believe that there will be opportunity for us to get involved in properties that we might not have otherwise gotten involved with. We're open to conversations. We're having ongoing conversations. We've built out our own production unit, and we are prepared for the sports landscape to be shifting, and we will be in the middle of that. We will be disciplined, but we'll be in the middle of that. As it relates to advertising, I'll start out. I mean, I think we're still -- for the next 2 years, NBCUniversal is representing us. That has been a very strong and proven go-to-market strategy, not just for us, but for them to have the scale of our assets and their assets under one umbrella. That's the way we've done it for the last 15 years, and it's been a very successful model. We will continue that at least for the next 2 years, and then they will -- they and we will decide on the right future strategy for our ad sales and theirs. We are moving some of our advertising outside of pay TV, and you mentioned DTC and free TV networks. That allows us to reach other marketers. It allows us to be involved more in the programmatic sales and to more of -- the more technology-driven sales with Fandango, with GolfNow, we have a lot of data and information about our customers and we'll to use that to target advertising in the free TV and the digital spaces.

Our next question is from the line of Kutgun Maral with Evercore ISI.

I just had a follow-up on linear distribution. I think we're all aware of the secular challenge across -- challenges across the industry, along with more skinny and genre-based packages coming to market. But as you go into your future negotiations, do you see any offsets to some of these industry-wide headwinds when it comes to pricing, for example at networks like MS NOW, which seems quite underpriced in terms of affiliate fees per subscribers compared to its cable network peers or cable news network peers. And is there anything more specifically you can share on expectations for linear distribution revenue growth in 2026 specifically?

Well, on the broader question, I mean, sure, we all believe all of our networks are underpriced, but thank you for recognizing that. We -- listen, news and sports have been the predominant focus on the new packaging. We are fortunate or we are strategic in having both of those sets of assets. We have 2 news networks and 2 networks that are sports with Golf Channel and USA Network. So we're in all of those packages, and that has been very helpful for us in retaining our distribution and our revenues. I think those kind of packages will continue. And Anand kind of talked about it a little earlier on the D2C side. We're a new stand-alone company. We don't have as many competing constituencies as we had in the larger company. So we will be as flexible and creative as we can be while making sure we retain the value that we are able -- that we think our networks deserve and that the audiences have shown that they deserve.

And on the 2026 question, we have pretty good visibility here. We have actually very good visibility, I should say. I think we've mentioned that we have about 16% of our subscribers are up for renewal, but obviously, that means 84% are not that we have kind of security on that. And so in terms of what the kind of trajectory would be, what we assume is that the pace of cord cutting is -- it's not been getting worse. We assume that it's kind of roughly the same that we've seen now for a while, kind of that high single digits then offset by some contractual rate increases. So that probably dimensionalizes in terms of what we're kind of looking for as you look forward in '26.

Next question is from the line of David Joyce with Seaport Research.

A couple of clarifications and other questions. On the affiliate fees, are you starting to negotiate your carriage on your own as they expire? Or was there a complete separation already versus the Comcast and Universal -- NBCUniversal deals? And then secondly, on your various other platform companies, do you anticipate providing trends on the data of the users or subscription numbers. Just wondering what we could look for in terms of some more data points and trends there.

So on the distribution question, yes, we have our own distribution negotiation team, and we are handling all of those deals on a going-forward basis ourselves. We're already in -- we have an established group of people that came to us some from Comcast, from NBCU, some from outside and have strong relationships across the industry, and we're out there in the marketplace, building upon those relationships.

Yes. I think in terms of then the kind of the platforms revenue, like right now, we're just -- we're going to continue to report, of course, kind of good visibility in the platforms revenue line, which we think provides a good meaningful indicator of how that business is scaling. Again, just to be very clear, what's in there is kind of the big businesses are GolfNow, Fandango, SportsEngine and some of the new D2C initiatives that we just talked about. And like over time, again, we'll provide a little color commentary as we launch these services. I think Mark referred to earlier with a few launching in 2026. So expect to talk a little bit more about them. But like I said, we think right now that the way we're running the business is really looking at that platform's revenue in total and also then looking at our revenue mix as well. I mean we referred to earlier the percentage of our revenues that come from outside pay TV, which platforms is a big percentage going from 17% to 19%. And our goal is about getting that to about 33% over 3 to 5 years. So we'll continue to provide visibility on that as well.

Okay. I appreciate that. And one final question, actually. On the Fandango AVOD service that you're going to be launching, what's the anticipated library availability there? Is there anything that you have exclusive? Or what are the kind of the windowing availabilities that are going to be on there?

Yes. It will be a combination of content we own, content we license. As part of our linear deals, we have licensed content from a lot of different studios, in particular, Universal and where we will be able to use part of our windows that we -- that were met for the linear networks to run on our -- on the new AVOD service. So the combination of those and then other third-party deals.

Yes, that's right. So some of it will be -- as Mark just mentioned, it will be kind of exclusive in a way to Versant sometimes where it may be available, as you just said, on our television networks as well as then the Fandango AVOD, but you wouldn't be able to watch it anywhere else. And then other types of programming, it may be available also on other platforms, too. The thing that we've seen on AVOD success is, a, that you don't need to be exclusive for the vast preponderance. The market doesn't really necessarily want that or I should say need that. A lot of it's about the brand and Fandango is a really big brand, having a great user experience, and we're continuing to invest in that so you can actually discover the programming that is there. And then also a lot of knowledge of the customer. And one of the big advantages we have in our -- in Fandango AVOD is we already know the customer. These are scaled services where people are logging on to their connected TV. So we can provide recommendations to them. The advertising will be targeted. And so we think there's a lot of areas not only on content, but in other features where we have a real look.

I think to enhance one of Anand's point is Fandango is already a big broad brand. It's already on people's phones and connected TVs because of buying moving tickets and also it's a top 5 home video service for buying and renting movies and TV series. So we already have a large installed base. It's now a matter of converting them and showing them to -- that we have a strong free AVOD service, something that we have seen the trends across the industry as a growth vehicle. And we believe that the combination of our brand and our content and our large installed base will help us grow quickly.

Our final question today comes from the line of Doug Creutz with TD Cowen. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, this will conclude today's conference. We thank you for your participation. You may disconnect your lines at this time, and have a wonderful day.