WideOpenWest, Inc.

Thank you for standing by. My name is Tamika and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Wide Open West Q1 2023 Earnings Conference Call. All lines have been placed on 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 1 again. Thank you. I will now hand today's call over to Andrew Posen, Vice President, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining our first quarter 2023 earnings call. With me today is Teresa 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 and 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 the press release we issued this morning, we may refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures. While the company believes these non-GAAP financial measures 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 our historical reported 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 our call over to WOW's Chief Executive Officer, Theresa Elder.

Thanks, Andrew. Welcome to WOW's first quarter earnings call. I'm pleased with our results this quarter, especially as we continue to execute on our expansion strategy. Our 2021 asset sales built a solid foundation and a clean balance sheet, which enabled us to focus on our strategy with a clear vision to drive growth. As we report our first quarter results, we are seeing significant progress on our greenfield initiatives in Central Florida and South Carolina. as well as in our fiber to the home edge out in Alabama, all while delivering financial results that were in line with our expectations. Importantly, we continue to do this with cash from operations while maintaining a very low leverage ratio. In the first quarter, our total revenue decreased 1% from the same period last year as a 5% increase in high-speed data revenue was more than offset by declines in video and telephony, which dropped 13% and 9% respectively. Our adjusted EBITDA decreased 2% to $65.2 million, largely reflecting the upfront costs associated with our expansion in Central Florida and South Carolina. The adjusted EBITDA margin was 37.9%. During the first quarter, we lost 2,900 high-speed data RGUs, bringing our total HSD subscribers to approximately 509,000. The reduction in HSD RGUs also drove a decline in our total number of subscribers, ending the quarter with more than 527,000. Despite a reduction in HSD RGUs, our operating metrics continue to be strong. For the 11th consecutive quarter, we maintained an average sell-in rate of approximately 87% or higher of our customers purchasing HSD only. Also consistent with past quarters, new customers are buying higher data speeds, with approximately 75% taking speeds above 500 megs, including further momentum in customers taking our 1.2 gig service. We are seeing an even stronger dynamic in our new greenfield market, where more than 90% of customers are buying speeds of 500 meg and above, including a number of customers taking either our 3 or 5 gig services. These statistics demonstrate the strong demand for faster and higher speeds and the superior quality and reliability of our networks. It also reinforces our confidence in our ability to continue taking share in our new market. HSD ARPU increased year over year from last quarter's normalized figure to $68.70, driven by customers purchasing higher data speeds and the full effect of the rate increase that was introduced to a portion of our base last October. We believe we will continue to see HSD ARPU increase as we add fiber customers in new markets, including Greenfield and Edge Out, and as existing customers continue to upgrade to higher speeds. Our expansion strategy continues to show positive results and build momentum, especially in our most recent vintages. Our 2023 vintage, which includes our new Greenfield market in Central Florida, reported an early penetration rate of 23.5%. Our 2023 edge-out vintage is showing early promise with a penetration rate of 10.7%. The 2022 vintage increased its penetration rate to 27.6%. And the 2021 edge-out vintage continues to be particularly strong with penetration rates staying constant at 45%. As we have said before, our expansion strategy remains an engine of growth for our business, and the performance in those markets further supports our confidence in our ability to grow quickly in new markets. Now I would like to spend the next couple of minutes providing an update on our Greenfield expansion initiative. As we said last quarter, we're making significant progress in Central Florida, where as of March 31st, We passed 1,700 homes and have seen fantastic reception in the market, achieving a penetration rate of 23.5% in less than three months. In fact, considering that we added our first customer on January 25th, I'm particularly pleased with our progress and proud of the effort of our team driving this exceptional momentum. We expect the pace of adding homes past to increase significantly throughout the year. We have continued to build out our footprint with construction well underway in additional Central Florida communities. Construction is also advancing in Greenville County, South Carolina, where we expect to begin providing services to consumers in several communities in the near future. The progress in these new markets represents the first phase of our commitment to bring our reliable, state-of-the-art fiber network to 400,000 homes passed in new service areas by 2027. We are excited about the initial returns in our greenfield markets and new fiber edge-outs. The core aspects of our strategy remain strong. And importantly, we are doing all of this with cash from operations, which enables us to maintain our low leverage profile. Now, I'll turn the call over to John, who will go over our financial results in more detail.