comScore, Inc.

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the ComScore third quarter 2023 earnings call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 1-1 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star 1-1 again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today. John Tinker, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

John Tinker 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, November 6, 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 calls. 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 thank you, everyone, for joining us this evening. Let's jump right into it. With regard to the financial print, while revenue came in short of expectations, largely as a result of lower custom deliverables, which were down double digits year on year, there is a lot of really great progress being made, particularly in our cross-platform product offerings coupled with excellent momentum in activation, where in the quarter we announced some key strategic partnerships that we expect will continue to fuel growth for the foreseeable future. In addition, we continued to execute in local TV, where revenue growth was again up double digits. Comscore also received conditional certification from the U.S. JIC, one of only three companies to have received such certification, and we're excited about the progress we're making and what it means for our growth prospects heading into 2024. On an adjusted EBITDA basis, we printed a solid result, highlighting the progress we're making towards creating a more scalable, profitable business. We've seen significant improvement in just under a year, and while we still have plenty of work left to do, I'm happy with our execution. In 2023, we've been focused on three key things, improving our margin and cash flow profile, growing our local business, and finally, the tech and product transformation that's needed to establish the foundation we need to drive scalable cross-platform growth. And across all three, we've had success. On our margin profile, we've hit the 15% rate that we'd set out to achieve earlier than expected. When you consider that we finished 2021 with a percent margin rate and exited 22 at just under 10%, it's clear we've made significant progress by doing exactly what we told you we would do when I moved into the role. I expect us to continue to deliver strong margins while we work to drive revenue growth in 24 and beyond. In our local business, our third quarter revenue is up double digits for the eighth consecutive quarter. Looking forward, I fully expect the local business to continue growing at double-digit rates. Our strength in local is a key differentiator, and it is the foundation, along with digital, for the cross-platform and activation products we're delivering to the marketplace. When it comes to cross-platform, addressing tech debt and transforming the foundation that underpins our complete view of audiences is essential to delivering value for our clients and driving growth, and that's what we remain focused on. Our cross-platform solutions are aimed at helping clients reduce waste and drive outcomes more efficiently. I fully expect, based on the momentum we build, that we'll continue to see our cross-platform product growth accelerate throughout next year. In 2023, we've made a lot of announcements highlighting important partnerships and integrations, including integrating data from the largest smart TV platform to partnering with major streamers, so their advertisers can leverage CCR to measure their campaigns across platforms, and partnering with one of the largest demand-side platforms on a first-of-its-kind AI-enabled offering for political advertising. With CCR, we are generally paid on a per-impression basis, and the growth of our impressions measured is one way to evaluate adoption of the product, and those impressions are a leading indicator of revenue and future growth. In 2022, CCR measured just 10 billion impressions. And based on progress this year alone, we anticipate that number to easily exceed 12 times the 2022 run rates. This growth is just scratching the surface of the potential for CCR. With more than 1 trillion impressions happening every day, we've got a lot of runway here. And the progress we've made with the product and the adoption of it makes me incredibly bullish for what's ahead in 24. We've seen similar impacts to our activation business where we've made a number of partnership announcements. Each time we execute one of these integrations, the uses of our product accelerates and our growth rate ramps. Highlighted by the 26% growth we've seen across CCR and activation through the first three quarters of this year, we fully expect to deliver accelerated growth next year. We're focused on the growth of products that align with the needs that our clients have, and for Comscore, ones that also have a stronger margin opportunity. Our syndicated digital activation in emerging cross-platform products represent roughly 40% of our revenue today. We expect that they will command a greater share of our revenue going forward, contributing to improved margins. Finally, when we talk about building the foundation for cross-platform growth, it's about making sure that we're able to turn our best-in-class data assets into full-spectrum products and solutions needed to become the standard for cross-platform measurement and audience data. That's where our focus is, delivering long-term value for our stakeholders via our big data scale, the commitment to being interoperable in delivering with the speed that the market needs. When you're making the kind of changes we're making, you're bound to experience bumps along the way. And while the revenue print this quarter doesn't live up to our expectations, the progress we're making towards our long-term objectives continues to be solid and gives me a great deal of excitement. With that, let me pass it over to Mary Margaret, who will walk you through the results of the third quarter.