iHeartMedia, Inc.

Good afternoon and welcome to iHeartMedia's Q2 2025 earnings call. All participants are now listen-only mode. After the speaker's remarks, we will conduct a question and answer session. To ask a question at this time, you'll need to 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 for our second quarter 2025 earnings call. Joining me for today's discussion are Bob Pittman, our Chairman and CEO, and Rick 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 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. Our second quarter performance was solid and slightly ahead of our initial expectations as we continued to execute on key initiatives while navigating a still uncertain macro environment. In the second quarter, we generated adjusted EBITDA of $156 million. At the upper end of our previously provided guidance range of $140 to $160 million and 4% above prior year. Our consolidated revenue for the quarter was above our guide of down low single digits and was up 0.5% compared to the prior year quarter. Excluding the impact of political, our consolidated revenue was up 1.5%. Turning to our individual operating segments now, the Digital Audio Group generated second quarter revenue of $324 million, up 13.4% versus prior year, slightly above our previously provided guidance of up low double digits. The digital audio group generated the second quarter adjusted EBITDA of $108 million, up 17.1% versus prior year, and the digital audio group's adjusted EBITDA margins were 33.2% versus 32.2% in the prior year, making continued progress toward our stated goal of achieving adjusted EBITDA margins in the mid-30s. Within the digital audio group, our podcast revenue was above our guidance of up low 20s. It grew 28.5% compared to prior year as we continue to feel the growing flywheel effect of our strong leadership in podcast publishing and the benefit of our unique complementary assets that help to build podcasting. Our podcasting financial discipline and our focus on the high-margin podcast publishing sector continue to fuel what we believe is the most profitable podcasting business in the United States. Importantly, our podcasting EBITDA margins remain accretive to our total company EBITDA margins. And in the second quarter, our non-podcast digital revenue grew 4.7% compared to prior year. We often talk about the tremendous advantages this company has in building out the number one podcast audience, but I want to point out that we also have an advantage on the ad sales side of podcasting. iHeart has the largest local sales force in audio. We probably have the largest local sales force of anyone in media as well, and you can see that advantage in our revenue performance. In Q2, about 50% of our podcasting revenue was generated by our local sales force, up from about 14% in Q2 of 2020. Our unparalleled local sales organization gives us an important and unique advantage for both our current and future revenue growth. Turning now to the multi-platform group, which includes our broadcast radio, networks, and events businesses. In the second quarter, revenue was $545 million, down 5.4% versus prior year, and at the upper end of our previously provided guidance range of down mid to high single digits. Excluding the impact of political advertising, revenue is down 4.8%. The multi-platform groups adjusted EBITDA was 96 million, down 7.6% versus prior year. Historically, we've seen that the largest advertisers and advertising agency groups are a good indicator of what's to come in the future. With that context, I want to share two data points with you. First, our top 50 multi-platform group advertisers for Q2 were up in revenue by 4% year-over-year. And second, the four largest advertising agency groups were up in revenue by 7% year-over-year multi-platform group advertising. These results give us added confidence that our plan to return the multi-platform group to revenue growth is on the right track. We also continue to make progress on our ad tech platform, specifically building capabilities to allow our broadcast radio inventory to be bought and sold like digital advertising and to be a part of the key integrated buying systems. And today, we announced that Lisa Coffey is joining the company in the newly created role of Chief Business Officer to drive those efforts. Lisa has a long history in ad tech and digital and mobile advertising, including leading the team that introduced Amazon advertising to the U.S. agency marketplace. In summary, the company's second quarter performance is important evidence of our ability to generate positive financial results, even though the marketplace remains a little uncertain. Additionally, our podcasting momentum continues to build with both consumers and advertisers, and we continue to make meaningful progress to reignite the revenue growth of our multi-platform group. And finally, cost management remains a major focus. We are still on track to generate $150 million net savings in 2025, and we continue to look for additional cost savings opportunities in both our structure and our operations using the power of AI and our unique scale. And now, I'll turn it over to Rich.