AMC Global Media Inc.

To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 1-1 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising that your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star 1-1 again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Nick Siebert, SDP, Corporate Development and Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning and welcome to the AMC Network's second quarter 2025 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 Crispin.

Thanks, Nick, and good morning, everyone. We continue to execute our clear strategic plan focused on programming, partnerships, and profitability as we manage AMC networks through this period of change in our industry. I'm pleased with the progress we've made in the first half of the year. In the second quarter, streaming revenue growth accelerated. We saw strong licensing performance and generated $96 million of free cash flow. In light of these positive results, we are raising our free cash flow outlook to approximately $250 million for the full year. In addition, we recently completed important financing transactions, which Patrick will discuss in more detail. We expect that the retirement of our debt at a significant discount will create meaningful shareholder value. I'd like to spend a moment discussing a core competency that differentiates AMC Networks which is our ability to build and grow fan communities around our high-quality content. This is the goal of every company in media, and our success in this regard spans our linear networks, programming franchises, targeted streaming services, and film business. Two weeks ago, we were at San Diego Comic-Con, the biggest fan event in the world and a major annual priority for our company. Our Walking Dead and Anne Rice universes and, for the first time, our Shudder streaming service were well-represented. Active fan relationships drive our company and also deliver meaningful value to our distribution and advertising partners. It was powerful and affirming to see people lined up for hours to be terrified at our shutter activation, to watch Norman Reedus and Melissa McBride preview a new season of The Walking Dead Daryl Dixon in Hall H, or experience the cast of Interview with the Vampire entering Ballroom 20 to deafening applause. We've also approached streaming in a unique and fan-forward way, building a suite of targeted services that allow us to efficiently serve passionate fans of specific genres while achieving very high levels of engagement and loyalty. When a horror fan finds Shudder or someone who loves cozy mysteries discovers Acorn TV, something very powerful happens. They don't just add another platform to the pile, they subscribe to a service that quickly becomes their favorite. Our viewers first strategy is designed to meet viewers wherever they are on every possible platform. The benefits of this approach are cascading across our business and allowing us to expand audiences by finding new viewers across linear, streaming, and CTV fast. We have more than 20 domestic fast channels today, which do more than just grow our digital ad business. They promote sampling and raise awareness and interest in our brands and franchises. They drive viewership on our linear networks and subscriptions on our streaming services. We're also adapting our success in FAST internationally. We're already seeing a great response to the three FAST channels we've launched in the UK and are adding three more this month. Later this year, we'll launch channels in markets across Central and Northern Europe, Iberia, and Latin America. We've been focused on expanding awareness and subscriber interest in the Acorn service and brand, one of the world's first targeted streaming services. In the quarter, we celebrated our first Murder Mystery May, a new event that delivered the biggest month for Acorn membership ever and achieved a multi-year high in subscriber acquisition. In addition to that effort, we developed a custom plan with a partner that successfully drove higher subscriber acquisition for the service. A new mystery series called Art Detectives, starring Stephen Moyer, premiered during the quarter and is now the number one new series in Acorn history. Irish Blood, starring an executive produced by Alicia Silverstone, premieres next week, and a new Brooke Shields mystery goes into production next month. Shudder continues to cement its status as the premier brand for fans of horror and the supernatural, with the breakout success of Clown in a Cornfield. The film opened to critical acclaim in May and set a company record for opening weekend box office. We're looking forward to extending the film's momentum with its streaming debut today on AMC Plus and Shudder. It's worth noting that during the quarter, we implemented raid events at both Acorn and Shudder, and still saw year-over-year and sequential improvements in both our rate of churn and engagement across our streaming portfolio. All of our streaming services are still priced below $10 a month, which is increasingly rare today. I'd also like to call out the strong growth of our HiDive streaming service. Anime is a popular genre with a passionate and highly engaged fan base. We see a lot of potential for continued growth at HiDive. In terms of operational updates, we're very pleased with our performance in the current advertising upfront negotiations and the continued expansion of our digital ad business as more of our advertising partners embrace the power of reaching our viewers by buying across multiple platforms. We're tracking toward the same overall volume as last year while driving a 25% plus increase in digital commitments, capitalizing on the innovation we've invested in over the last few years. Our commercial team leads the industry in key areas of innovation and attribution, and we see momentum as new currency opportunities are embraced by the marketplace. We're in advanced discussions with Netflix to extend and expand the innovative branded AMC collection content relationship we launched a year ago. We expect to provide a more specific update in the coming weeks. Let me just say both companies have been very happy with the results that came from making prior seasons of many of our shows, including our biggest franchises, available to this enormous base of subscribers in the U.S. In terms of content licensing in general, we're seeing interest in our shows and franchises around the world. We saw strong performance in this category during the quarter, including continued demand for our content, the sale of our music catalog, as well as additional fees related to our development of Apple TV Plus' hit series, Silo. This reinforces not only the value of our owned IP, but also the versatility and breadth of AMC Studio's assets and capabilities as we continue to develop premium content for our own platforms and opportunistically for other buyers. AI has become a significant focus generally and in media. We recently entered into a partnership with a company called Runway, a leader in the use of generative AI in entertainment to leverage AI in our marketing and programming development. We've already begun using these tools to efficiently and quickly explore possibilities around certain storylines or locations, expanding the quality and volume of opportunity in these important areas. We'll have more to say on this and how we're using this new technology across marketing and programming development in the coming months. Our work with Comcast Technology Solutions to standardize and streamline our back office functions continues and crossed several important performance milestones in the last quarter. Just recently, we worked with CTS to expand the delivery of our content to an ever-increasing number of digital distribution partners. On the linear side, we've fully transitioned origination for our LATAM channels as well as disaster recovery services for our North American channels. This meaningful progress positions us well for the technical challenges associated with a rapidly evolving media distribution landscape. We're looking forward to a third season of The Walking Dead Daryl Dixon, which will premiere in September. and the arrival of a third series in our Anne Rice universe, The Secret Order, later this fall. Our size, independence, and unified organizational structure serve our company, our partners, and of course our viewers extremely well in this changing time in media. We've done the hard internal work to ensure that our employees are empowered, focused, and clear on our strategy, which gives us the ability to move quickly, intelligently, and decisively to seize new opportunities. We are managing this business in a thoughtful and strategic way as we continue to build franchises and entertain fans. And now I'll turn the call over to Patrick.