Cable One, Inc.

mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, press star one again. Thank you. I will now turn the call over to Jordan Morky, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon, and welcome to Cable One's first quarter 2025 earnings call. We're glad to have you join us as we review our results. Before we proceed, I would like to remind you that today's discussion contains forward-looking statements relating to future events that involve risks and uncertainties, including statements regarding future broadband revenue, customer growth, connects and churn rates, new product rollouts, customer yield from new build activities, including related costs future cash flow, future ARPU, future levels of competition, capital expenditures, the anticipated impact of our change in dividend policy, our ability and sources of capital to fund the retirement of our 0% convertible notes in 2026, the anticipated after-tax proceeds from the expected monetization of certain investments, and our future financial performance, capital allocation policy, leverage ratios, and financing plans. You can find factors that could cause Cable 1's actual results to differ materially from the forward-looking statements discussed during today's call and today's earnings release and in our SEC filings, including our annual report on Form 10-K. Cable 1 is under no obligation and expressly disclaims any obligation except as required by law to update or alter its forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. Additionally, today's remarks will include a discussion of certain financial measures that are not presented in conformity with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles, or GAAP. When we refer to free cash flow during today's call, we mean adjusted EBITDA, less capital expenditures as defined in our earnings release. Reconciliations of non-GAAP financial measures discussed on this call to the most directly comparable GAAP measures can be found in our earnings release or on our website at ir.cable1.net. Joining me on today's call is our President and CEO, Julie Lawless, and Todd Cucci, our CFO. With that, let me turn the call over to Julie.

Thank you, Jordan, and good afternoon, everyone. We appreciate you joining us for today's call. Today, I want to unpack the factors which underline my belief that we will achieve long-term subscriber growth and grow residential broadband revenue in 2025 and beyond. As I noted during our year-end call in February, we are executing on a multi-year plan to achieve sustained profitable growth in a rapidly changing and more competitive environment. While our first quarter customer results were not what we wanted, a closer look at how the quarter unfolded along with multiple green shoots of growth now emerging presents a more promising path forward. As I'll detail further, we believe much of the noise of Q1 is behind us. With the right people, platforms, and processes in place, we're building a more effective and scalable customer acquisition engine, one that we believe will drive meaningful growth over the long term. We work very hard to listen to our investors, And right now, every discussion focuses on long-term broadband customer growth. So, I want to spend most of my time today discussing that topic. Let me start by addressing our first quarter residential broadband customer numbers. The key driver of our customer decline in the first quarter was lower than expected connects. Thriving growth through new connects has been the focus of our plans and I'll speak more about the early progress we are seeing in a moment. Our results were further impacted by unusual churn events, which are now behind us. With churn already reverting to historically low levels and with our plans to steadily improve connects underway, we remain confident in our ability to deliver residential broadband growth over time. One of the key drivers of sustainable growth is the strength of our customer retention. After excluding the unusual events of this quarter, our churn levels remained historically low, and we're taking deliberate action to keep them there. Guided by our promise to keep our customers connected to what matters most, we are proactively enhancing our retention efforts. A great example of this is our homegrown AI-driven churn propensity model, which rapidly identifies the customers most at risk of leaving. Once identified, we take targeted action to engage and retain them. The combination of this high touch plus high tech approach reflects our broader commitment to providing an effortless yet personalized customer experience with neighborly service that sets us apart. Importantly, we believe we are positioned for stronger performance through the remainder of the year, supported by a return to a more normalized term profile, our plans to drive higher connects, and continued efforts to compete effectively throughout the MSO. I'd like to highlight several encouraging green shoots that we believe contribute to our future growth, particularly through increased connects. To start, I'll share an update on the products we've introduced for value-conscious customers, which we believe will play an important role in our broader growth strategy. First, there's our PayGo product, which we piloted specifically for the value-by-choice customer. We've rebranded this product as FlexConnect, as it effectively competes with cell phone internet by providing faster speeds along with a more reliable connection and unlimited data, all at a great value with ultimate ease of use. Since launching the pilot, we've seen growth in both customer count and ARPU within this cohort as the ability to choose their speed, unlike cell phone internet, has led many to upgrade to higher tiers that better fit their needs. We will begin to market FlexConnect aggressively across the MSO and expect that it will be an effective tactic to increase connects. Second, we are now piloting internet lift a product designed to serve the value-by-need customer. This offering is available to individuals who meet specific eligibility criteria, and we're taking a targeted local approach to reach them. Internet Lift represents an incremental broadband revenue opportunity for us. Early pilot results show that Lift is bringing additional customers to us with minimal risk of cannibalizing our existing base. We plan to accelerate our marketing efforts for Lyft across targeted portions of the MSO with broader rollout beginning in the weeks ahead. In addition to new products, we're leaning into strategic infrastructure innovations that support long-term growth. One example is how we're re-engineering our approach to selecting and executing new builds to acquire customers more efficiently. Moreover, we're beginning to see early signs that this is working. Stronger early penetration means we now expect the same number of passings to yield more customers within the first two quarters of release. At the end of the day, our ability to grow our customer base comes down to two things. How effectively we retain existing customers, and we're doing that exceedingly well as reflected in our continued low churn rate. and how compelling our value proposition is for new customers. While no single product or initiative stands alone as the driver of growth, together they create a powerful ecosystem of choice, including flexibility, reliability, and neighborly service for our customers. This not only improves our customers' lives, but it also supports our plan for long-term broadband revenue growth. None of this happens without the right people, and we have the team and the organizational structure in place to make it happen. I'm incredibly proud of the talent, experience and momentum within our new customer acquisition and retention teams. Their energy, combined with strong collaboration across other functional areas, gives us confidence that we are going to see positive results. Turning to ARPU, We saw a slight dip this quarter, driven by a variety of small factors, including promotional offers, which have proven track records of strong retention, increased adoption of AutoPay Plus and its associated discount, and credits issued to certain customers impacted by third-party fiber cuts. That said, ARPU remains stable, and the trends that we see support growth in the coming quarters. These include higher sell-in of our gig and multi-gig products, momentum from new product offerings, and the number of discounts scheduled to roll off. Taken together, these factors position us well to improve ARPU through the balance of the year. Related to the potential growth of ARPU, I also want to highlight the continued growth of our SecurePlus product, which has seen a 16% increase in customer adoption since the start of 2025. SecurePlus delivers a suite of security-focused features, including remote access to the home network and household-wide password management. SecurePlus is available a la carte for $8 a month or as part of our ultimate Wi-Fi bundle, which we introduced last November at $24.99 a month. The bundle is resonating well with customers, with 17% of new customers choosing it this quarter. a strong signal that our approach is aligned with the needs of today's connected homes. When you combine these trends with our roadmap and ongoing executable plan, I remain confident in our ability to grow residential broadband revenue in 2025. Finally, before turning the call over to Todd for a review of our financial performance, I want to touch briefly on our decision to revise our capital allocation strategy. specifically the suspension of our dividend. We remain committed to a balanced approach to capital allocation, and after careful consideration, we have decided to suspend our quarterly cash dividend in order to accelerate our debt reduction strategy and invest in organic growth initiatives. As Todd will cover in his remarks, we believe this change will bolster our financial strength and enhance our ability to proactively access the capital markets on favorable terms. With confidence in our strategy, the strength of our team, and the plans we're putting into action, we are well positioned to execute on our goals through the remainder of the year. We remain focused on our long-term objectives of residential broadband customer and revenue growth while maintaining the financial discipline necessary to sustain strong pre-cash flow generation. And now, Todd, who will provide a recap of our first quarter financial performance.