AMC Global Media Inc.

Okay, thank you. After I do that, I will start the stream and do the operating introduction. All right, starting now in three, two, one. Good day, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by. And welcome to AMC Network's second quarter 2022 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are on a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 1-1. Please be advised that today's conference may be recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker host, Nick Siebert, Vice President of Corporate Development and Investor Relations.

Thank you. Good morning and welcome to the AMC Network's second quarter 2022 earnings conference call. Joining us this morning are Matt Blank, Interim Chief Executive Officer, Chris Spade, Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer, and Kim Kelleher, President, Commercial Revenue and Partnerships. Today's press release is available on our website at amcnetworks.com. We will begin with prepared remarks and then we'll open the call for questions. Today's call may include certain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Any such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance or results and involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ. Please refer to AMC Network's SEC filings for a discussion of risks and uncertainties. The company disclaims any obligation to update any forward-looking statements made on this call. Today, we will discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures. The required definitions and reconciliations can be found at the end of today's press release. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Matt. Matt?

Thank you, Nick. Good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining us. Before we discuss our second quarter results, I'm delighted to share the news we announced earlier this morning. Our COO and CFO, Chris Bade, has been named AMC Network's CEO, effective next month. at which point, as planned, I'll step down from my interim role as CEO, which I've held for the past year. I've known and worked closely with Pris for more than 20 years, and I had the pleasure of working with her again when I arrived here last September. She's done a tremendous job leading the company's transformation in every respect, driving our strong streaming subscriber growth, jump-starting our global expansion efforts, optimizing our performance marketing, and ensuring we're leveraging our strong linear business. Her focus, her drive, and her passion for this company can't be overstated. And with her leadership skills and strong financial background, I know she'll make even more significant contributions to our success as she leads AMC into its next chapter. For my part, it's been a pleasure to lead this company for the past 12 months, helping guide the strong pipeline of great programming and building on its IP, and helping to develop and refine our differentiated streaming strategy. With this company's unique collection of assets, content strengths, powerful brands, and financial discipline, as well as its talented people and strong culture, I know there's an incredibly bright future ahead. This is a wonderful moment for AMC and for my longtime friend and colleague, Chris. So congratulations, Chris. And now let's get to our second quarter results. While operating in what is a challenging and uncertain macroeconomic environment, AMC Networks delivered a solid second quarter with a consolidated adjusted operating income margin of 26%, In the face of inflation and other economic headwinds, we're performing very well, benefiting from strong subscriber growth for our differentiated and targeted streaming services, which in Q2 included expansion into Spain with several distributors. We're seeing positive indicators for our upfront around pricing and volume and demand for our innovative advanced advertising offerings, with our linear business providing a powerful platform to launch, promote, and monetize our content and brands. Our content creation strengths were on full display in the quarter, with viewership records and widespread critical acclaim for new and returning series alike. We remain committed to the full-year financial targets we shared at the beginning of the year, including total company revenue growth of low single digits and free cash flow of approximately $100 million in 2022. In the second quarter, we added nearly 1.3 million net subscribers in aggregate across our streaming portfolio, ahead of our forecast. The growth was driven by global expansion, as well as strong audience demand for our AMC Plus offering and our targeted services, Acorn, All Black, HiDive, Shudder, and Sundance Now. Launching our services globally has been a priority for us, and with our efforts now taking shape, We're taking advantage of packaging and other opportunities across various markets, including in Spain, where we launched with several leading distribution platforms, representing a major contributor to our subscriber growth for the quarter. We ended the quarter with 10.8 million total paying streaming subscribers, and we're well on our way to our longer range goal, which we've previously shared of 20 to 25 million subscribers in 2025. In the second quarter, we grew our streaming revenues 20% year over year, with normalized growth of 36%, driven by our focus on improving our performance marketing outcomes, acquiring and retaining high-value subscribers with a disciplined, data-driven, and cost-conscious approach, in addition to refocusing our efforts on branding and promotion for our strong content. With high viewer engagement across our services, we're maintaining advantageous churn levels, and we remain focused on operating our services profitably. We had a very strong quarter with respect to content, and I'd like to spend a few minutes highlighting some of the great programming that's driving our performance and demand from subscribers and viewers, as well as advertisers and our distribution partners. We said before that 2020 is the biggest year of original programming for our company, and the second quarter saw the return of key shows while simultaneously launching exciting new series for the next chapter of AMC. Our strong streaming performance underscores our ability to not just make the kind of high-quality content that's always been a key pillar for our brand, but to make true hits that break through and make a mark in the popular culture. Let's start with Better Call Saul. There's been enormous interest from critics and fans alike in the sixth and final season, which debuted in the second quarter and will complete its final run in just a few weeks. The series ranks as the third most watched show in key demos for the current broadcast season, behind only Yellowstone and our own The Walking Dead. And the series has been the biggest acquisition driver for AMC Plus of any show in the history of the service. And that was all before this week's surprise return of Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul in their iconic Breaking Bad roles. Last month's Emmy nomination saw the show land coveted nominations in major award categories, including outstanding drama, outstanding lead actor for Bob Odenkirk, and a long overdue outstanding supporting actress nomination for Ray Sehorne. And we couldn't be prouder of this incredible show that's become a landmark piece of TV history. And how exciting is it that AMC favorite Bob Odenkirk will be joining us again in a fabulous new series, Straight Man, that starts filming this fall. And our own Giancarlo Esposito will star in our upcoming series, Parish, which goes into production this month. So lots of new ways to keep that Better Call Saul audience engaged in the future. Back to the quarter. The second eight episodes of the final season of The Walking Dead finished in the quarter as the most watched season on AMC Plus to date. And as I just mentioned, even in its 11th season, The Walking Dead ranks as the second most watched cable show of the broadcast season. The series concludes this fall with a final eight episodes, bringing to a close one of the most successful and groundbreaking shows in television history. But there's a lot more ahead for the Dead franchise. We have a number of spinoffs featuring popular and fan-favorite characters coming next year. More on that in a moment. We saw a very strong engagement for Killing Eve's fourth and final season, which was also a big acquisition driver for AMC+. And it was wonderful to see co-stars Jodi Comer and Sandra Oh both recognized with Emmy nominations for their stellar performances. But it's not just returning shows that are driving her growth. We introduced three new series in the quarter that have captured the attention of audiences and critics alike. Our Western noir crime thriller, Dark Winds, produced by AMC Studios and from executive producers Robert Redford and George R.R. Martin, ranked as the number two new cable drama of the season, having averaged nearly 2 million linear viewers per week. And it's the number one new series launch in AMC Plus history in terms of both subscriber acquisition and viewership. The series was met with glowing reviews and has maintained a 100-point score on Rotten Tomatoes, demonstrating critical as well as commercial success. We recently renewed it for season two. Two other standouts new AMC Plus exclusive series. This is Going to Hurt, starring Emmy winner Ben Whishaw, and Moonhaven with Joe Mangiello and Dominic Monaghan are among the best reviewed new shows of the year, and both are driving meaningful subscriber acquisition and audience engagement for AMC Plus. And we've already renewed Moonhaven for a second season. The performance of these freshman series reinforces AMC's reputation as a hit maker, and it's a testament to our ability to continue to bring audience content that ignites the pop culture conversation and commands attention in a very crowded and competitive landscape. We're also seeing great success with the launch of our AMC Plus film slate, which includes a new movie each week from our film labels, direct from theaters, and allows us to further maximize the value of our film content. Our Friday night exclusive movies are driving acquisition, engagement, and retention and many already have become among our top film titles for the year. A few weeks ago, there was a standing room only crowd at Comic-Con in San Diego for the final panel of the flagship Walking Dead series, where we also announced an exciting new spinoff series with iconic characters Rick and Michonne, which joins a spinoff featuring the Maggie and Negan characters that is currently in production. The episodic anthology series, Tales of the Walking Dead, and The Daryl Dixon Show in our expanding Walking Dead universe. We also saw some real early excitement for our next big franchise, Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire, which attracted thousands of enthusiastic fans. Looking ahead to 2023, there is much more in the pipeline, including Anne Rice's Mayfair Witches, starring Emmy-nominated Alexandra Daddario, Monsieur Spade with Clive Owen, and a new chapter in the Orphan Black franchise, and a new series, Damascus, and Invitation to a Bonfire. We couldn't be more excited with where we are in terms of our current slate. The combination of our high-quality content and strong brands continues to be a very potent calling card with advertisers, enabling us to maintain high value for our linear business. Beyond linear pricing gains, we're seeing demand for advanced advertising initiatives, as well as our expanding portfolio of AVOD and fast channels. We're pleased to be joined today by Kim Kelleher, who leads our commercial revenue and partnership team, and who will talk in greater detail about our digital innovations, how the momentum we're seeing in the upfront is reflecting our strong position in the marketplace. International expansion of our streaming portfolio remains a top priority for us, and we're encouraged by the demand we're seeing for our differentiated offerings from consumers as well as distributors. We've talked about the progress we're making in terms of beginning to scale our services overseas. We have plans to expand with new partners and into new territories through the end of the year. This is an opportunity we're just beginning to mine and represents an exciting area of growth for us going forward. Before handing the call over to Chris, I did want to mention we're thrilled that we've added Len Fogey as our new president of marketing, someone Chris and I worked with for many years at Showtime. lends a great executive and is already beginning to evolve our efforts to accelerate subscriber acquisition and boost retention while focusing on maximizing and elevating our distinct brands and content. So looking ahead to the second half of the year, we recognize there are great opportunities and we remain excited about where our business is today and where we're headed. We're building our differentiated streaming businesses and optimizing our strong linear business in a steady, disciplined, and sustainable fashion as we position ourselves for future growth and shareholder value creation. With that, I'll turn the call over to Chris for more details on our results.