iHeartMedia, Inc.

speaker's remarks, we'll have a question and answer session. To ask a question, please press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the call over to Mike McGinnis, head of investor relations. Thank you. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for taking the time to join us on our fourth quarter 2024 earnings call. Joining me for today's discussion are Bob Pittman, our chairman and CEO, and Rich Bressler, our President, COO, and CFO. At the conclusion of our prepared remarks, management will take your questions. In addition to our press release, we have an earnings presentation available on our website that you can use to follow along with our remarks. Please note that this call may include forward-looking statements regarding our financial performance and operating results. These statements are based on management's current expectations, and actual results could differ from what is stated as a result of certain factors identified on today's call and in the company's SEC filings, including our recent AK filing. Additionally, during this call, we will refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations between GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures are included in our earnings release, earnings presentation, and our SEC filings, which are available in the investor relations section of our website. And now I'll turn the call over to Bob.

Thanks, Mike, and good afternoon, everyone. Before I take you through the fourth quarter financial results, I want to share two key highlights from last year. We successfully completed the comprehensive exchange transaction that we discussed in our third quarter call. This exchange accomplished three things. One, it extended the majority of our debt maturities by three years. Two, it kept our current consolidated annual cash interest expense essentially flat. And three, it provided overall debt reduction. This improved capital structure provides the company with the flexibility it needs to remain focused on creating shareholder value. And an important part of creating that value is the continued modernization of our company. In 2024, we took another significant step in that journey, flattening our organization, eliminating redundancies, and breaking down silos. It'll be easier to do business with us and easier for us to get our business done and will help to accelerate earnings growth as well. As we discussed last quarter, the actions we took over the course of 2024 will generate over $200 million of annual cost reductions. There will be some ordinary course add-backs of approximately $50 million to our expense base, which results in net savings of approximately $150 million. And with that, I'll turn to our fourth quarter financial results. In the fourth quarter, we generated adjusted EBITDA of $246 million, up 18.2% versus prior year. Our consolidated revenues for the quarter were up 4.8% compared to the prior year quarter, excluding the impact of political, our consolidated revenues were down 1.8%. Turning to our individual operating segments, the digital audio group generated fourth quarter revenues of $339 million, up 6.7% versus prior year, which represents approximately 30% of the company's revenues. The Digital Audio Group generated fourth quarter adjusted EBITDA of $119 million, up 2.1% versus prior year, and the Digital Audio Group's adjusted EBITDA margins were 35%. I will also note that this was the Digital Audio Group's best full-year performance on record, generating over $1.1 billion of revenue and approximately $380 million of adjusted EBITDA. Within the Digital Audio Group, our podcast revenues grew 5.7% compared to prior year, And our non-podcast digital revenues grew 7.1% compared to prior year. Our podcasting financial discipline continues to fuel what we believe is the most profitable podcasting business in the United States. Additionally, our podcasting EBITDA margins remain accretive to our total company EBITDA margins. And as Rich will discuss later, our podcasting revenues in Q1 are expected to grow in the high teens. In January, iHeart was once again ranked the number one podcast publisher in the U.S., according to PodTrack. And iHeart is the number one sales network in podcasting as well, with approximately three times the downloads and monthly audience of the next largest U.S. sales network, according to PodTrack, with a similar leadership position globally as well. To that end, this week iHeart Podcast served as the official podcast partner for the 2025 Web Summit Qatar, where our marquee talent, including Malcolm Gladwell and Jay Shetty, led panel discussions. And on Monday, we announced a groundbreaking multi-year partnership with the Government Communications Office of the State of Qatar to help create a thriving podcasting industry in the Middle East and North Africa. We see this as further validation of the continued growth potential of the podcast industry and of our ability to expand our leadership position as the largest U.S. podcast publisher to the global market as well. In addition to our industry-leading podcast business, we also have the number one streaming digital radio service, which has five times the listening of our closest competitor. We have the largest social footprint of any audio service by a factor of five, and we operate 3,000 national and local websites with more than 140 million unique users in the United States each month. And in the fourth quarter, we launched the next generation of our iHeartRadio app, which combines the key features of the car radio that listeners know and love with innovative technological enhancements. We've had a strong positive response from our listeners. So if you've not done so already, I encourage everyone to check out the redesigned iHeartRadio app and see for yourselves. Turning now to the multi-platform group, which includes our broadcast radio, networks, and events businesses. In the fourth quarter, revenues were $684 million flat versus prior year, and excluding the impact of political advertising, revenues were down 5%. The multi-platform group's adjusted EBITDA was $150 million, up 5.9% versus prior year. As we look at the multi-platform group, let me take a moment to focus on broadcast radio and tell you why we continue to believe it's a growth engine for our company, not a declining business. Broadcast radio has more listeners today than it did 20 years ago. In an environment in which broadcast and cable TV audiences have dwindled and print audiences have disappeared, broadcast radio audiences have remained strong. And our broadcast radio is the undisputed leader in monthly audience reach, even when compared to Google and Facebook. And as we look at our advertising growth opportunities for broadcast radio, the most important variable for advertising on any medium is what's happening to the audience. On that front, broadcast radio is not only healthy but robust. Additionally, when audio is added to a social media campaign, the response rate jumps by 83%. Powerful evidence that in addition to reaching more potential consumers for advertisers, we can also meaningfully improve the response rates for their other media as well. This, combined with the ad tech innovations we're rolling out to inject our broadcast radio inventory into data-infused digital buying platforms, including programmatic, makes us more confident than ever in the growth of broadcast radio revenue. Turning to the audio and media services group, revenues were $98 million, up 44.7% year-over-year, and adjusted EBITDA was $49 million, up 136% from $21 million in the prior year. Excluding the impact of political, the audio and media services groups' revenues were down 1.6%. As we look to the year ahead, we remain focused on supporting our high-growth businesses like podcasting, while, as I said before, finding new ways to unlock the power and value of our broadcast radio assets, including our ongoing work to integrate our broadcast radio inventory into programmatic platforms. As evidence of our progress, I'm excited to announce that in March of this year, our broadcast radio inventory will be available via the Yahoo DSP and Google's DV360 for digital buyers to purchase alongside other programmatic assets like CTV. This is a critical early step in aligning our broadcast assets with digital buying behavior, which will allow iHeart's broadcast radio assets to participate in the growing digital and programmatic TAMs. And as we continue to innovate and grow, our operational efficiency is critical to our success, and we remain relentlessly focused on cost efficiencies and on our commitment to take advantage of new and evolving technologies like programmatic and AI to deliver both short and long-term results. Before I turn it over to Rich, I'd like to take a moment to briefly mention the devastating Los Angeles wildfires. Serving our local communities is at the heart of everything we do. And I want to acknowledge the incredible work of our teams on the ground during that time of crisis. It's moments like this and the hurricanes last fall that the dramatic value of what we do becomes apparent. And now I'll turn it over to Rich.