AMC Global Media Inc.

Good day, and welcome to AMC Networks, Inc.' 's fourth quarter earnings call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. Instructions will be given at that time. As a reminder, this call may be recorded. I would like to turn the call over to Nick Siebert, VP of Corporate Development and Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning and welcome to the AMC Network's fourth quarter and full year 2024 earnings conference call. Joining us this morning are Kristen Dolan, Chief Executive Officer, Patrick O'Connell, Chief Financial Officer, Kim Kelleher, Chief Commercial Officer, and Dan McDermott, President of Entertainment and AMC Studios. 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 in today's press release. And with that, I'd like to turn the call over to Kristen.

Thank you, Nick, and good morning, everyone. We appreciate you joining us today. Before we get into the call, I wanted to say that we've been focused on supporting our employees and creative partners in Los Angeles during the recent devastating fires. We're thankful for the heroic efforts of firefighters and first responders and recognize the long-term period of recovery and rebuilding that lies ahead for our people and the entire city. I also want to acknowledge the recent passing of our founder and longtime chairman, Charles Dolan. A visionary and industry icon who created businesses like Cablevision, HBO, and AMC Networks, Mr. Dolan always took a long-range view in business. building companies and shaping industries with a clear strategic vision. We have the privilege and responsibility of continuing that approach today and into the future as we execute on our core strengths and advantages and navigate the changing world of media. Now to our results. As we look back on the fourth quarter and full year 2024, I'm encouraged by our progress. Patrick will report on our financial results and outlook in greater detail, but I'm pleased to report that, even in this uncertain and shifting environment, we achieved our full year guidance for 2024. This includes consolidated revenue of $2.4 billion, consolidated AOI of $563 million, and most importantly, free cash flow of $331 million. Free cash flow generation has been strong, and today we are increasing our outlook to approximately $550 million of cumulative free cash flow over the 24-25 period. At a time when all media companies are facing challenges, our size, nimbleness, and independence allow us to move quickly to create new opportunities for ourselves and for our partners. Our innovative mentality is driving our approach to content creation, distribution, advertising, and new partnerships. This freedom and ability to take a more imaginative approach to our business played out in a number of ways over the past year. We ended 2023 with an unconventional experiment to put some of our shows on the max streaming service, where they quickly became top titles. In 2024, we built on this success with an expansive branded licensing agreement with Netflix that featured prior seasons of more than a dozen of our shows, including some of our most important franchises. We believed exposure on this massive platform would boost viewer awareness and interest in our titles, and that's exactly what happens. The exclusive availability of current seasons on AMC Plus drove viewership and acquisition on our own platform. The Walking Dead, The Ones Who Live was added to Netflix last month and appeared on the platform's U.S. Top 10 list the following day and remained there for weeks, rising as high as number two, ahead of Squid Game and other titles. As we prepare for the return of the U.S. streaming rights to the original The Walking Dead series in less than two years, It's great to see continued strong interest in this very active and vibrant universe. Our partnership and bundling activity continued in the fourth quarter. We launched a two-month content exchange with MGM Plus to promote sampling and drive subscriptions on our respective platforms. Subscribers on both sides of the exchange reacted positively. We saw double-digit gains in engagement and acquisition on AMC Plus, led by the sci-fi horror series From, And The Walking Dead's Daryl Dixon was a top performer for MGM+, spending multiple weeks in its top 10 list and peaking at number two. We expanded access to the AMC Plus and Stars bundle by making it available through Vizio. We offered new bundles through Verizon and brought AMC Plus to platforms like Philo with a very positive consumer response. These arrangements helped drive healthy streaming subscriber additions in the fourth quarter. They also underscore the strength of our AMC Studios IP and ability to partner and reach viewers in new ways. As audiences continue to fragment, our number one goal as a company is to produce and curate great shows and films and make that content as easy as possible for viewers to find in a very crowded and noisy world. This strategy requires management of our own platforms and strong relationships with our distribution partners. In 2024, we renewed agreements representing about half of our U.S. linear footprint, including multi-year deals with Charter, Cox, Verizon, and Cable One, among others. And a reminder that our Charter deal will make AMC Plus available at no additional cost to all Spectrum customers who receive AMC as part of their TV package. This is in keeping with Charter's broader strategy to bundle streaming value into its video service. and will significantly expand the universe of people who have access to AMC+. In the last 24 months, we renewed the vast majority of our Canadian distribution footprint with agreements that include easy access to AMC for our partners, video, and broadband customers. We also saw a significant expansion of our fast channel distribution with major launches on platforms like Roku and Prime Video. and we closed a long-term renewal with Amazon Prime Video Channels for the distribution of our streaming services. We kicked off our 2526 Upfront last week, hosting some of our most important long-standing commercial partners at an event spotlighting our technological leadership in advertising. Building upon previous advances in addressable and programmatic buying through our AudiencePlus platform, we unveiled a groundbreaking attribution product called AMCN Outcomes. We now give our advertising partners real-time insights into purchasing decisions that are driven by consumers' exposure to our partners' marketing messages, another meaningful first for AMC Networks. And later this year, as previously announced, we will launch an ad-supported version of our popular Shudder streaming service. Let me share a few programming highlights across our linear networks, targeted streaming services, and film business. The fourth quarter included our two biggest annual programming events on AMC and AMC Plus, Fear Fest and Best Christmas Ever. On linear TV, AMC finished the quarter as a top 10 entertainment network with adults 25 to 54, with Fear Fest and Best Christmas Ever driving the network to its highest rated months of the year in October and December. BCE also attracted a record number of sponsors and advertising partners this year. On streaming, Fear Fest drove AMC Plus to record movie viewership, with Best Christmas Ever also showing double-digit year-over-year growth in film viewership. WeTV remains the number one entertainment network on Friday nights among women in the 25 to 54 demo. In 2024, WeTV had two of the top three cable originals on Friday nights among women 25 to 54, including Mama June and Love After Lockup, which is also the number one Friday original among black women, 25 to 54, followed by the Braxton's at number two, the Braxton's finished its first season as we TV's highest rated new reality series in more than three years, BBC America, which we now fully own just premiered the most recent BBC natural history temple series, the stunning planet earth Asia, again, narrated by Sir David Attenborough. We are excited to kick off 2025 with a robust slate of highly anticipated new original programming, including the second season of Anne Rice's Mayfair Witches and the highly anticipated third season of Darkwinds, exclusively on AMC and AMC+. We are excited for the return of Darkwinds on March 9th, after the series' first two seasons spent an uninterrupted month on the Netflix Top 10 list last summer. This year, we'll see the return of The Walking Dead Dead City, a thrilling new series called Nautilus, the third season of The Walking Dead, Daryl Dixon, set in Spain, and a new series in our growing Anne Rice Immortal universe called Anne Rice's Talamasca, The Secret Order. Our targeted streaming services continue to delight viewers with the depth of content in distinct categories that are not available anywhere else. Shudder had an incredible year, releasing six of the top ten horror films of 2024 as ranked by Rotten Tomatoes. Acorn TV brought fans another season of Jane Seymour and Harry Wilde, Sharon D. Clarke and Inspector Ellis, and will premiere a new series called Irish Blood, starring Alicia Silverstone, later this year. This is a sample of the depth and appeal our targeted streaming services offer, as research shows streaming subscribers continue to seek out special and distinctive, as opposed to more of the same. IFC Films had a fantastic year. Its diverse slate included critically acclaimed titles like Memoir of a Snail, Ghost Light, The Taste of Things, and Late Night with the Devil, which set an opening weekend box office record for the company. I want to congratulate everyone at IFC Films for the recent Oscar nomination for Memoir of a Snail in the Best Animated Feature category. We are all incredibly proud of the film and grateful for this recognition. We've consistently emphasized programming, partnerships, and profitability as our key priorities in running this business and moving the company forward. As we look back on our 2024 results and look forward to a productive year ahead, I'd like to also recognize our people. This is not an easy or straightforward time to be working in media, but as I see your progress, I'm thankful for our collective ability to adapt, evolve, and lean into the advantages and strengths we bring to this dynamic and changing marketplace. Now I'd like to turn the call over to Patrick for a detailed look at our financial results.