WideOpenWest, Inc.

Good morning. My name is Regina, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Wide Open West first quarter 2022 earnings conference call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remark, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star, then the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, press star one again. I would now like to turn the conference over to Andrew Posen, Vice President, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for our first quarter 2022 earnings call. With me today is Theresa Elder, WOW's Chief Executive Officer, and John Rego, WOW's Chief Financial Officer. Before we get started, I would like to remind everyone that during our call, we will make some forward-looking statements about our expected operating results, our business strategy, and other matters relating to our business. These forward-looking statements are made in reliance on the Safe Harbor provisions of the Federal Securities Laws that are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors that may cause our actual operating results, financial position, or performance to be materially different from those expressed or implied in our forward-looking statements. You are cautioned not to place undue reliance on such forward-looking statements. We disclaim any obligation to update such forward-looking statements. For additional information concerning factors that could affect our financial results or cause actual results to differ materially from our forward-looking statements, please refer to our filings with the SEC, including the risk factors section of our Form 10-K filed with the SEC, as well as the forward-looking statement section of our press release. In addition, please note that on today's call and in the press release we issued this morning, we may refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures, While the company believes these non-GAAP financial metrics provide useful information for investors, the presentation of this information is not intended to be considered in isolation or as a substitute for the financial information presented in accordance with GAAP. Reconciliations between GAAP and non-GAAP metrics for historical results can be found in our earnings releases and our trending schedules, which can be found on our website. We have also included a presentation this morning to complement our prepared remarks. Now I'll turn the call over to WOW's Chief Executive Officer, Teresa Elder.

Thanks, Andrew. Welcome to WOW's first quarter earnings call. Our business has gotten off to a great start in 2022, picking up right where we left off at the end of last year, successfully executing our plan to grow our high-speed data business. We have shared our path forward and outlined the steps we're taking to get there, expanding our footprint through continued edge-outs, greenfield expansion, and increasing the contribution from our commercial business. I'm pleased to report we are making progress on all three fronts, and they're beginning to show up in our results. For the first quarter, our high-speed data revenue increased nearly 4% on a pro forma basis. while video and telephony revenue declined 14% and 11% respectively from the same period last year. Our pro forma adjusted EBITDA increased nearly 8% to $66.4 million, driven largely by the growth in our high-margin, high-speed data business. The pro forma adjusted EBITDA margin was 38% for the quarter, The metrics in our high-speed data business also continue to show strength. During the first quarter, we added 3,300 high-speed data RGUs, bringing our total number of HSD RGUs to 515,000. With consistent levels of low churn, we once again increased the total number of subscribers, both year over year and sequentially, ending the quarter with 535,000. Our focus on adding HSD-only customers also continues to pay off as we have once again maintained a sell-in rate of approximately 87% of new customers purchasing our HSD-only service for the seventh consecutive quarter. Consistent with last quarter, a majority of new customers are buying speeds above 500 meg and 85% of new customers are buying speeds over 200 meg. High-speed data ARPU of $65 is up marginally from the same period last year, but slightly lower than last quarter. The year-over-year increase predominantly reflects customers purchasing higher data speeds, while the sequential decline was driven by an increase in promotions in the first quarter. Our edge-out strategy continues to deliver growth in homes past and higher penetration rates. Penetration for the 2020 vintage increased to 23.5%, and the 2021 vintage grew to 35%. We are pleased with the growth of our edge-out vintages, which continue to be increasingly productive. As we said before, we believe the performance from our edge-out investments reflects the strength of our core business. and supports our confidence in our ability to grow penetration quickly in future greenfield markets. This morning, in a separate press release, we announced that we are doubling our greenfield expansion plans for homes passed to 400,000 by 2027, a 21% increase to our current footprint, and now expect to invest a total of $400 million as a part of this process. The increase reflects the momentum we're seeing in Central Florida, where we identified an additional 50,000 homes, and our latest greenfield market, Greenville County, South Carolina, where we plan to add nearly 30,000 homes past. The combined success of our efforts in Central Florida and South Carolina led us to increase our investment plans and long-term targets, which John will review in his comments. We are also quickly moving forward with our entrance into the mobile market with WOW Mobile powered by Reach. We are on target to officially launch the offering in one of our southern markets later this month, followed by an enterprise-wide launch earlier in the third quarter. We're excited to provide our customers additional flexibility to stay connected on a reliable, no-contract cell phone plan with unlimited talk and text. Our partnership with REACH enables WOW to quickly enter the mobile market with minimal operational or developmental work on our part. We believe this additional service offering will further enhance customer acquisition and retention while providing a great service that our customers have been looking for. To conclude, I'm pleased with our first quarter results. A strong start to the year and our significantly increased expectations of our greenfield plans. Well, 2021 capped off a significant transformation of the company. 2022 is the beginning of the next stage of our continued growth through the execution of our broadband-first strategy as a low-leverage, high-growth company. We're excited about the opportunity in front of us as we drive further growth in our organic footprint, including both residential and commercial customers, and expanding our footprint through self-funding Greenfield Builds. Now I'll turn the call over to John, who will go over our financial results in more detail.