comScore, Inc.

Thank you, operator. Before we begin our prepared remarks, I'd like to remind all of you that the following discussion contains forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements include comments about our plans, expectations, and prospects and are based on our view as of today, August 8, 2023. Our actual results in future periods may differ materially from those currently expected because of a number of risks and uncertainties. These risks and uncertainties include those outlined in our 10-K, 10-Q, and other filings with the SEC, which you can find on our website or at www.sec.gov. We disclaim any duty or obligation to update our forward-looking statements to reflect new information after today's call. We will be discussing non-GAAP measures during this call for which we have provided reconciliations in today's press release and on our website. Please note that we will be referring to slides on this call which are also available on our website www.comscore.com under Investor Relations Events and Presentations. I'll now turn the call over to Comscore's Chief Executive Officer, John Carpenter. John.

Thanks, John, and good evening, everyone. Thanks a lot for joining us to talk about our second quarter this evening. Our results in the quarter are solid, and while the end markets we serve continue to experience softness, particularly in the ad markets, our results across a number of areas in our business are encouraging. We delivered revenue growth of 2.5% over the second quarter of last year and saw sequential growth over the first quarter of this year. Local TV continues to show strength, and our digital business was up for the first time in five quarters, led by strength in our activation product, which was up by over 30%. As we've discussed previously, this team is focused on delivering scalable, profitable growth, and in the second quarter, we printed adjusted EBITDA growth of 125%, after adjusting for foreign exchange. Clear signs that we're moving in the right direction. I continue to believe that our opportunity to drive meaningful growth and deliver value for our stakeholders is significant. And the challenges that our clients are faced with that include the continued fragmentation of media from traditional channels to more digital programmatic channels, coupled with the proliferation of signal loss throughout the digital ecosystem that has created an audience addressability gap approaching nearly 70%. And finally, a lack of accountability across advertising that's fueling billions of dollars in waste. These are all problems that Comscore is uniquely positioned to help solve. Our audience intelligence footprint across digital, video, and connected TV, as well as web, mobile, and linear is unmatched. And due to over 10,000 publisher integrations and the trillions of signals we collect, we have massive scale and a trusted methodology that is both solving the audience signal loss problem and helping close the addressability gap. Until now, our massive scale has made Comscore a stable, reliable audience measurement partner who's more granular and accurate than the competition, but the industry needs more than that in the age of signal loss, and that's why we're invested in making our data actionable. Our AI-driven predictive audience segment empower advertisers to maximize reach regardless of whether IDs are present or not. In fact, a recent case study that showed our AI-enabled predictive audiences product reached nearly double the incremental users versus ID-based segments. Signal loss isn't a someday problem. It's one that every advertiser is dealing with now, and Comscore is unique in our ability to help them solve for it. We also have the linear footprint that can provide both transparent and accurate reach and frequency to our clients. providing data that is 93% accurate to final posting data within 48 hours across all 41,704 zip codes and 210 local markets. Our depth and understanding audiences with precision in every market and zip code is valuable for advertisers who want to maximize reach and eliminate waste. While you've heard me speak about our digital and linear data assets many times, we're finding new ways to use them to create value and solve problems for our clients. One of the things that I'm most excited about is the innovation and transformation I'm seeing when we bring our digital, linear, and cross-screen capabilities together. While we're still in the early innings here, results are encouraging. With best-of-breed measurement approaches in both digital and linear, Comscore is positioned to make advertisers more efficient and to bring a new level of insight to the delivery of cross-screen incrementality. With our assets, clients can guarantee deduplicated reach across digital and traditional video channels, optimizing in-flight campaigns in ways that help them eliminate wasted ad spend and inventory. I want to be clear. We're committed to delivering products and solutions that help our clients solve the big problems and challenges facing their businesses. The product capabilities that we've talked about coupled with the continued execution like we had in the second quarter, gives me confidence that we're focused on the things that matter most to our clients and our stakeholders. With that, let me turn it over to Mary Margaret to discuss our second quarter results in more detail.

Thank you, John. Total revenue for the second quarter was $93.7 million, up 2.5% from $91.4 million the same quarter a year ago. Cross-platform solutions revenue of 41 million was up 3% from 39.8 million in the second quarter of 2022, primarily driven by double-digit growth in local TV and the continued strength of our movies business, which grew 5% to 8.8 million from 8.4 million a year ago. Revenue from digital ad solutions of 52.6 million was up 2% compared to 51.6 million a year ago, primarily driven by an increase in usage of our activation product. We also saw an increase in revenue for certain custom digital products as a result of higher deliverables for our enterprise customers. As John mentioned earlier, the end markets that we're serving are challenged, evidenced by recent earnings reports from some of our biggest clients and softer than expected upfronts this year. We're certainly not immune to these macro factors, and these may have an impact on our business as we move into the third quarter. Adjusted EBITDA was $8.8 million, up 35% from the prior year quarter, resulting in an adjusted EBITDA margin of 9.4%. If you exclude the foreign exchange impact from adjusted EBITDA, this year's second quarter result of $9 million is up 125% over the prior year. This result is a testament to our continued focus on cost execution. Our core operating expenses were down 4% year-over-year, with a large part of that due to lower employee compensation. We are continuing to execute on the restructuring plan we put in place last year as evidenced by the restructuring charge of $4.1 million we took in the second quarter, which is and will continue to contribute to lower operating costs as we move through the year. And we're not done yet. We're diligently working to transform our business operations and to simplify our tech stack to drive additional efficiencies in the latter part of 2023 and into 2024. Regarding our full-year guidance, we noted last quarter that there was pressure on the high end of our revenue growth range. Based on our current expectations, we're tightening our revenue guidance to the low end of the range with growth in the low single digits. For adjusted EBITDA, we remain confident in and are reaffirming the guidance we previously provided. With that, I'll turn it back over to John for closing remarks.