Nexstar Media Group, Inc.

Good day and welcome to the Nextar Media Group's fourth quarter 2025 conference call. Today's call is being recorded. I will now turn the conference over to Joe Giaffone, Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, Rochelle, and good morning, everyone. Let me read the Safe Harbor language, and then we'll get right into the call. All statements and comments made by management during this conference call, other than statements of historical fact, may be deemed forward-looking statements for purposes of the Private Security Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Nexstar cautions that these forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from those reflected by the forward-looking statements made during today's call. For additional details on these risks and uncertainties, please see Nexstar's annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2024, as filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and Nexstar's subsequent public filings with the SEC. Nexstar undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. It's now my pleasure to turn the conference over to our your host, Nexstar founder, chairman, and chief executive officer, Perry Suk. Perry, please go ahead.

Thank you, Joseph, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. Mike Baird, our chief operating officer, and Leanne Gleha, our chief financial officer, are with me on the call, as always. Nexar's fourth quarter financial results kept the year marked by strong execution and bold strategic action to shape our future of the business. We delivered on all key operational priorities in 2025, including successfully reviewing and renewing distribution agreements representing over 60% of our subscriber base, further elevating the CW and NewsNation to top-tier networks, extending our affiliation agreements with both ABC and MyNetworkTV, and pursuing regulatory reform through our landmark agreement to acquire Tegna. These achievements, together with the return of midterm election political advertising in 2026, all set the stage for a very exciting year of growth ahead for Nexstar, as reflected in our standalone Nexstar pre-Tegna full-year adjusted EBITDA guidance of $1.95 billion to $2.05 billion. The rationale for the Nexstar-Tegna combination is becoming increasingly clear. Consolidation is accelerating across the broader media industry, from the Hulu-Fubo transaction to the proposed Charter Cox merger to the upcoming sale of Warner Bros. Discovery. Against this backdrop, our transaction represents a pivotal and critical opportunity to establish a framework for local television broadcasters to more effectively compete with big tech and with big media. while strengthening our ability to deliver high-quality local journalism to our communities. I'm pleased to report that we remain on track and are making great progress on our path to closing. Our HSR filings and our FCC license transfer applications have all been submitted. We have responded to all inquiries from the DOJ, the FCC, and the State Attorneys General, and we continue to work with all regulatory and legal bodies to fulfill any remaining requests. Our explanation for close is by the end of second quarter of 2026, and that remains unchanged. If we look at recent industry strategic activity, broadcast has been a consistently coveted asset because of the scale, reach, and results it delivers to premium programming, especially sports. The numbers speak for themselves. This past season, the NFL delivered its highest viewership in 16 seasons, up 7% year over year, largely driven by broadcast. In home and away markets, broadcast still delivers the majority of the NFL Thursday night football audience versus Amazon Prime. The NBA's return to broadcast fueled a 16% year-over-year increase in regular season viewership through mid-February, and that marks the highest average NBA audience at this point in the season since 2018. The NBA All-Star Game also benefited with the highest ratings in 15 years in its first year back on NBC. And finally, the Winter Olympics also delivered their strongest viewership in years. The data is clear when it comes to delivering scaled audiences for premium live sports and events. Broadcast remains unmatched. In this regard, Nexstar's own sports-focused programming strategy is delivering excellent results and enabled the CW to exceed our financial expectations in 2025. The CW finished the year as the 10th most watched ad-supported network and the second fastest growing network overall, delivering a 19% year-over-year increase in viewership. In 2025, we improved the network's cash flow by an impressive 32%, and we anticipate continued financial improvement for the network as we move through 2026, with profitability expected by the fourth quarter of this year. The continued success of our long-term strategic focus on high-impact news and sports programming is further validated by the performance of NewsNation, which posted its strongest year ever in total day, prime time, and daytime viewership, and in 2025 was the fastest-growing cable news network in the adult 25-54 demographic. Consumer awareness of NewsNation has increased to over 40%, its highest level to date, with over 50% awareness among viewers of news. These results reflect the fact that News Nation's programming and unique fact-based reporting is resonating with viewers looking for a balanced and impartial take on the news. Looking ahead, as we had anticipated and discussed on prior calls, we're beginning to see more stable subscriber trends. Smaller DTC platforms are being integrated into multi-channel pay TV packages, and distributors continue to launch new value-priced skinny bundles, many focusing on broadcast and news programming. In Q4, Charter posted sequential quarterly growth in video subscribers, and overall the data is encouraging to Nexstar's distribution outlook. While we are focused on closing our proposed acquisition of Tegna, we remain equally disciplined in executing against Nexstar's core business. Beyond maximizing the political advertising opportunities presented by the midterm elections, our top two priorities in 2026 are digital optimization and expensed rationalizations. Digital is a key growth engine, and we continue to expand our audience reach, including local CTV apps now live in 108 markets and broaden advertiser solutions across our owned and third-party inventory. Despite AI search headwinds, digital revenue grew high single digits in 2025 and double digits in our local business. And in 2026, we expect digital revenue to surpass our national advertising revenue by an important milestone that strengthens our long-term nonpolitical advertising trajectory. At the same time, we are further streamlining and centralizing our operations, automating select production functions, aligning incentive compensation closely with performance, actions which we expect will drive additional operating expense reductions and enhanced execution across the company. Touching briefly on political, Ad Impact projects about $10.8 billion in total political advertising for the 25-26 election cycle, a record amount for the midterms, with broadcasting expected to capture nearly 50% of that total, or about $5.28 billion. We expect to capture a low double-digit share of total broadcast political advertising spend for the current cycle, as our positioning remains excellent with a presence in more than 80% of the contested election markets. In summary, our assets generate consistently strong free cash flow, which we've used to create the clean balance sheet that we have today, to return capital to shareholders and pursue highly accretive M&A, like Tegna, and have executed with our proven playbook and grounded in our steadfast community to localism. We are energized by the significant prospects before us, and we remain laser focused on executing our 2026 objectives, including closing our acquisition of Tegna, capitalizing on the midterm election political advertising opportunity, and continuing to optimize our business operations, all of which we anticipate will contribute to shareholder value creation. So now with all that said, let me turn the call over to Mike Beard. Michael?