Morgan Stanley

Welcome and thank you for standing by. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode for the duration of today's call. This call is being recorded. If you have any objections, you may disconnect at this time. I would now like to turn the call over to your host, Kate at MS. Ma'am, you may begin.

Dale, thanks. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us for today's MS Communications conference call regarding second quarter earnings. I want to extend a special welcome to all the EMIS employees who are joining us and listening in this morning. We'll begin in just a moment with opening comments from EMIS Chairman and CEO Jeff Smullyan and Ryan Hornaday, EVP, CFO, and Treasurer. After opening comments from Jeff and Ryan, we will respond to questions that have been submitted via email to ir.emis.com. A playback of the call will be available until Thursday, October 20th by dialing 402-998-1734. This conference call may include forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Please refer to MS's public filings with the SEC for more information on the various risks and uncertainties. Additional disclosure related to non-GAAP financial measures has been posted under the Investors tab of our website, MS.com. Jeff, we're ready to begin.

Okay, thanks. There's not much to say about this quarter other than in one word, and that is it was disappointing. It was disappointing for us for several reasons. According to Miller Kaplan, our radio revenues were down 3.8 while our markets were up 1%. So, is encouraging the industry was up a bit. We had several particular things that affected that. In New York, our largest event, Summer Jam, was impacted by a very severe storm, and that sort of skewed New York's quarter. At the same time, we were finally ending the anniversary of the challenging comps for our new competitor in Los Angeles. So we knew that we would be challenged. The good news is, obviously, is that the next quarter is – is pacing flat to up slightly. And also, I think a shout out to our people in St. Louis. They had a spectacular quarter, actually beating the market by, I think, 12 or 13 points. So very good news there, but generally challenging and disappointing. I won't get on to the asset sales or the go private because I know that we have questions on that Q&A, so I'll deal with that later. The other thing I want to say is it was a landmark quarter for Next Radio. During the quarter, we added Samsung phones on every carrier, and that includes Verizon. So at this point, we now are on every carrier in the United States, Sprint, T-Mobile, AT&T, U.S. Cellular, and Verizon. In addition, unlocked phones, Alcatel has joined Blue in now that fast-growing part of the market. We've also had very, very good interest globally. We launched this quarter in Canada and in Peru and coming launches also in Mexico and Colombia. And I think the most gratifying thing is that the unity that I've seen in the industry coming out of our radio convention, that this is really, really important. And to underscore that, when you look at what's happening with Hurricane Matthew, and you see the rallying that we've had for broadcasters in Florida and Georgia to say this is a very, very important initiative because when that storm hits and the power grid goes out, radio will be the only answer. And it underscores what really we've been saying for quite a while and what just about every regulator, every safety official, just about every member of Congress that we know has said this is an important initiative and we're very proud to lead it. So, Even in quarters that are challenging, our people provide leadership. We are pleased that our third quarter looks better. But to summarize, this one was a challenging quarter. So with that, I'll turn it over to Ryan. Ryan?