Lee Enterprises, Incorporated

welcome to the lee enterprises 2024 fourth quarter webcast and conference call this call is being recorded and will be available for replay at investors.lee.net at the close of the plan remarks there will be an opportunity for questions participants accessing this call by webcast may submit written questions through the website and they will be answered during the call as time permits otherwise you will receive a response later A link to the live webcast can be found at investors.lee.net. Now, I will turn the call over to your host, Jared Marks, Vice President, Finance.

Good morning, and thank you for joining us. In addition to myself, speaking on this morning's call are Kevin Mowbray, President and Chief Executive Officer, Tim Millich, Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer, and Les Ottolenghi, Chief Transformation and Commercial Officer, Nathan Becky, Senior Vice President Operations and Audience Strategy is also available to answer questions. Earlier today, we issued a news release with preliminary results for our fourth fiscal quarter of 2024. It is available at lee.net, as well as major financial websites. Please also refer to our earnings presentations found at investors.lee.net, which includes supplemental information. As a reminder, This morning's discussion will include forward-looking statements based on our current expectations. These statements are subject to certain risks, trends, and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. Such factors are described in this morning's news release and in our SEC filing. During the call, we refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations to the relevant GAAP measures are included in the tables accompanying the release. And now, to open the discussion is our President and Chief Executive Officer, Kevin Mowbray.

Thank you, Jared. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining our call this morning. In 2024, we continue to lay strong foundations for Lee's future as a digital-first company. In our last call, we shared an important milestone, achieving the revenue inflection point where our digital revenue surpassed our print revenue. We've made further progress on our digital revenue mix in the fourth quarter, reaching 51% of total revenue, representing a seven-point improvement over the prior year quarter. Our digital subscription business had an extremely strong year, growing revenue 41% on a same-store basis. These results prove, once again, we're the fastest-growing digital subscription revenue platform in local media. Our digital marketing services business, known as Amplify Digital Agency, grew 11% in the fiscal year and 21% in the quarter on the same short basis and is approaching $100 million annually. Lee continues to lead the industry. Our fourth quarter results outpace the industry in several key digital categories. We'll also discuss later in the presentation how we're demonstrating digital leadership with our new strategic AI partnerships. We grew digital subscription revenue by 46% annually over the last three years, nearly doubling the nearest industry peer. In 2024, we successfully achieved our digital subscription unit target of 771,000 and laid the strong foundation on our path to 1.2 million digital-only subscribers by 2028. On the advertising side, MPI Digital Agency's revenue growth has significantly outpaced our nearest competitor, growing an impressive 33% annually over the past three years. Industry-leading growth rates in these revenue streams are driving our digital transformation and have led to total digital revenue approaching $300 million for the fiscal year, which represents a 70% growth rate annually over the last three years. And now I'll pass it over to Tim.