Corus Entertainment Inc.

Good morning. My name is Joelle, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Chorus Entertainment Q2 2025 Analyst and Investor 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, then the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, please press star two. Thank you. As a reminder, this call has been recorded. I will now turn the call over to Mr. John Gosling, co-CEO and CFO of Chorus Entertainment. Mr. Gosling, you may begin your conference.

Thanks very much, Joelle, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to Chorus Entertainment's fiscal 2025 second quarter earnings call. Joined today by Troy Reeve, our Co-Chief Executive Officer. Before I read the cautionary statement, I would like to remind everyone that we have slides that accompany today's call, and you can find them on our website at www.corescent.com under the investor relations dash events and presentation section. Let's move on to the standard cautionary statement found on slide two. We note that forward-looking statements may be made during this call. Actual results could differ materially from forecasts, projections, or conclusions in these statements. We would also like to remind those on our call today, in addition to disclosing results in accordance with IFRS, courts also provide supplementary non-IFRS or non-GAAP measures as a method of evaluating the company's performance and to provide a better understanding of how management views the company's performance. Today, we will be referring to certain non-GAAP measures in our remarks. Additional information on these non-GAAP financial measures, the company's reported results, and factors and assumptions related to forward-looking information can be found in course of the second quarter 2025 report to shareholders and the 2024 annual report, which can be found on CDR Plus or Investor Relations-Financial Reports section of our website. All right, I'll start on slide three by sharing details of an important and significant step we have taken to progress our capital and debt plan. A few weeks ago, we completed a transaction that provides course with a more stable footing for our operations. The cooperation of lenders and constructive support of key debt investors, we assigned, amended, and extended our credit facility. The updated credit facility provides improved terms, including total debt-to-cash flow ratio of 9.5 times to 1 through December 31, 2025, an extension of the maturity date to March 20, 2027, increased access to up to $75 million of revolving credit, and a fixed interest rate of 7.29% on the entire facility compared to the prior floating rate. Effective March 21st, 2025, our debt is now comprised of the imaginary stated credit facility, which is made up of a drawn term loan and a $75 million revolver, and then along with the senior unsecured notes of $500 million due in 2028 and $250 million due in 2030. We're very pleased with this outcome, which better positions us to create sustainability in the business. provides necessary financial flexibility to adapt to ongoing shifts and factors affecting our industry in the near term as we continue efforts to right-size our cost structure through efficiency and cost reduction measures. Transaction also supports our commitment and ability to provide Canadians with the programming, news, and audio content they love and expect from Chorus. With that, I'll turn it over to Troy for our current view of the business.

Thank you, John. Moving to slide four. Given recent events in our country and abroad, we have witnessed a remarkable change in Canadians' consumer behaviour. The response to US tariffs and threats has created concerns, challenges and opportunities for brands. As a proud Canadian company, we are undertaking important initiatives to help rally our audiences to shop Canadian and protect our economy and Canadian workers. We believe it's our responsibility to champion this message and to ensure that Canadians have a trusted and reliable source of news and information. We were one of the first major media organizations to marshal all of our platforms, brands, and local programs to encourage listeners and viewers to support the local businesses that provide jobs in their communities. Porus is also working closely with our clients, offering them a variety of ways to show their support of the Buy Canadian movement. We do not expect our content supply to be disrupted by any potential tariffs should they actually materialize, and we have seen incredible response to our programming this year, providing an attractive multi-platform environment for advertisers to reach our highly engaged audiences. In addition to existing opportunities within the Corus ecosystem, we are also working with our clients to create custom content and help them connect with their Canadian customers during this pivotal moment of national resilience. We have leaned into our hundreds of weekly hours of Canadian original programming and homegrown brands like Flavor Network and Home Network to create new integration opportunities for clients who want to fly their Canadian colors across digital and digital environments alike. At the same time, there has never been a better time to re-examine the breadth and depth of our extensive multi-platform video and audio offerings. Investing in Canadian media supports our efforts to provide entertainment, critical news, and information for Canadians by Canadians. Over to slide five. Global news has witnessed tremendous gains in viewership, which is not surprising given the increased interest in events south of the border and globally, and the impact of the current federal election cycle. Audiences are embracing global news as a trusted source of information, driving 12% growth in total minutes viewed across both broadcast and streaming platforms. This increase reflects increased viewing to both linear and digital, up 11% and 18% respectively. On Linear TV, Global National is the number one national news broadcast in Canada, and we are number one in morning news. Additionally, Global News has the highest number of subscribers on YouTube compared to any other national Canadian news broadcaster. We're incredibly proud of our teams and their commitment to keeping Canadians informed during these turbulent times. Moving to slide six. Chorus is experiencing significant audience momentum on conventional television overall. Since January, Global's overall audience is tracking 11% ahead of last year and 25% ahead in core prime time. Global owns 11 of the top 20 shows, including the number one reality show, Survivor, number one comedy, Ghosts, number one late night show, Saturday Night Live, now celebrating its 50th anniversary. Turning to slide seven and our specialty portfolio, We own 16 of the top 20 specialty entertainment programs, including two programs from each of Flavor Network and Home Network. Impressively, Home and Flavor have landed as the number one and number two specialty lifestyle networks in only a few short months, with almost 11 million Canadians tuning into the network's attractive programming. This is a testament to our strong legacy of popular Canadian lifestyle programming and the strength of our team who built these all-Canadian brands from scratch in just a few short months. Audience momentum is building in our streaming portfolio as well, with the strongest Q2 ever for both monthly active users and hours streamed, the latter of which was up 18% over last year. Stack TV delivers the highest engagement of our digital platforms, drawing in audiences with its extensive offering of bingeable content and live streams. Our subscriptions also remain relatively resilient following our recent retail pricing increase of $2 a month on our standalone Stack TV product across platforms. On the advertising front, we are still experiencing low visibility given tariff-related activity and potential economic impacts and how that trickles down to advertising spend. We are beginning to see some benefits from the strong performance of our content. Sales on global were resilient in the second quarter, but we are still seeing some challenges in our specialty portfolio as a result of an oversupply of digital video inventory in the broader market and generally lower advertising demand on linear television. The Buy Canadian movement I referenced earlier is helping to mitigate some of the industry-wide advertising trends as companies adjust their business strategies and marketing campaigns to build on the increased interest in Canadian products from consumers. The federal election is also expected to provide a tailwind given the heightened interest in news and information in the current environment. However, increasingly we are seeing last-minute spending, particularly related to the uncertainty caused by the implementation of new tariffs. We remain committed to supporting our advertisers as they make necessary adjustments along the way. I'll now pass it over to John for the financial results of the quarter.

Great. Thanks, Troy. I'm on slide eight. As Troy mentioned, industry-wide advertising trends persist and continue to impact television advertising demand overall. This, combined with lower subscription revenue, contributed to consolidated revenue of $270 million in the quarter, a 10% decrease from the prior year. Consolidated segment profit was $18 million for the quarter, and that reflects the impact of the lower revenue and a 14% increase in amortization and program rights due to the late quarter return of scripted programming in the prior year quarter. This was partially offset by our cost-saving initiatives, which helped to drive total G&A expense reductions of $14 million or 12% in the quarter, including a meaningful decrease of 15% in employee costs. We are pleased with the progress we are making on this front, delivering a result that was slightly ahead of our prior outlook for Q2. Consolidated segment profit margins for the quarter were 6% compared to 18% last year. Free cash flow of $46 million in the quarter increased 40% from last year, and that exceeded our expectations. Higher working capital contribution, lower net program rights and film investment, as well as reduced cash taxes were the main contributors this quarter, and that was more than enough to offset the impact of the lower segment profit. This result underscores the ongoing careful management of our cash as we implement additional cost reduction measures. At the end of the second quarter, we were in compliance with all loan covenants and had $92 million of cash and cash equivalents, and approximately $64 million was available to be drawn under the previous $65 million revolving credit facility. Net debt to segment profit was 5.04 times at the end of the second quarter compared to 3.84 times at August 31, 2024, primarily reflecting the impact of the lower segment profits. Looking ahead to the third quarter of fiscal 2025, oversupply of digital advertising inventory from foreign competitors coupled with lower demand for traditional television advertising and the potential impact of U.S. tariffs on the overall economy are factored into our outlook. As a result, the year-over-year percentage decline in television advertising revenue for Q3 of fiscal 2025 is expected to be in the mid-teens. We anticipate amortization of TV program rights will be relatively flat compared to the prior year quarter as the impact of last year's Hollywood strikes move into the rearview mirror. In addition, we anticipate another decline in consolidated G&A expenses in the range of 5% to 10% compared to Q3 last year as a result of the continued implementation of cost reduction initiatives to help further offset the lower expected revenue. Over to slide nine now. TV segment revenues were $252 million for the quarter, and that's down 9%. This was mainly driven by lower TV advertising revenue, which declined 13% in Q1 and was modestly ahead of the outlook we gave the last quarter, benefiting from the strength of our programming and audiences. Subscriber revenue of $112 million for the quarter was down 5%, reflecting declines in the traditional distribution system, partially offset by modest growth in streaming subscribers. Excluding the impact of rightsizing initiatives in our specialty TV portfolio, subscriber revenue was down 2%. Distribution, production, and other revenue was lower for the quarter, driven by fewer episode deliveries and reduced service work. On our Q1 call, we highlighted the expected increase in amortization of program rights in the second quarter, which is related to late quarter return of programming in the prior year. The results were generally in line with this Q2 outlook, and importantly, we will finally return to an apples to apples comparison in the third quarter. Our cost reduction initiatives resulted in a significant decrease in TV employee costs in the quarter. They were down 15% as a result of significant headcount reduction initiatives over the past year, as well as a 4% decline in other G&A expenses. Overall, TV segment profit was down $36 million in the second quarter as we contended with the expected increase in the amortization of program rights. This, combined with the contraction in advertising demand as well as lower subscription distribution, production and other revenue exceeded the benefit of G&A expense savings from our numerous cost reduction initiatives. TV segment profit margins were 9% in the quarter and that compares to 21% in the prior period. All right, moving to slide 10, radio segment revenue of $19 million for the quarter decreased 14% for the prior year due to lower advertising demand and the impacts of audience declines in the sector. Radio segment profit, however, of $1.4 million increased over the prior year quarter with a 17% expense decline from cost containment measures, more than offsetting the lower advertising demand. Radio segment profit margin increased to 8% from 4% in the prior year period. And with that, I'll turn over to Troy for closing comments.

All right. Thank you, John. Finally, over to slide 11. Looking ahead to Q3, we're planning to build on our latest operational and financial achievements. The updated credit facility represents a key milestone for Chorus, and it better positions us to deliver on our longer-term plan to create a more sustainable business. Although headwinds certainly persist in the broader industry and economy, we have confidence in our position as a leader in Canadian media. We will forge ahead to build even stronger connections with audiences and our advertising partners, buoyed by the strength of our brands and attractive upcoming programming, including Canadian favorites like Renovation Resort and the premiere of New Chorus Studios' original Big Burger Battle. We, along with our domestic broadcast counterparts, are also taking every opportunity to reinforce that buying Canadian means investing in Canadian media, too. This means repatriating ad dollars to Canadian companies who have robust multi-platform offerings and a proven ability to effectively reach audiences. We want to thank our teams for maintaining focus on the road ahead as we work to build a stronger Canadian media industry, take the necessary steps to continue to right-size our business, and to pursue new opportunities. Back over to you, operator.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. Should you have a question, please press star, followed by the one on your touch-tone phone. You will hear a prompt that your hand has been raised. Should you wish to decline from the polling process, please press star, followed by the two. If you are using a speakerphone, please lift the handset before pressing any keys. One moment, please, for your first question.

Operator, we're getting some noise in the line. Can we just pause for a second and make sure it's not affecting the participants? All right, it looks like it's okay. We can proceed.

Okay, your first question comes from Vince Valentini with TD Cowan. Your line is now open.

Thanks very much. Can you hear me okay, John and Troy?

Yep.

Great. Let me start on subscription revenue, try to unpack that a little bit and make sure I understand. Minus 2% would be if you back out the impact of the channels you deliberately shut down as opposed to the minus 5% reported. Is that correct? Correct, yes. And how does the free view period for home and flavor factor into that? Because you were giving it away for free for the first of the law, right? So there shouldn't have been much subscription revenue or do I have that wrong?

No, in the case of those channels, because they were existing channels, the revenue from those channels of the existing subscribers continues. The free view applies to people that weren't receiving the channels, you know, going into it. So we don't give up all the subscriber revenue on those channels. Oh, okay.

Gotcha. So what you were getting before from people who were subscribing, you still got. So no impact there. Perfect.

And the... Free previews, Vince, basically open up the channel to the full cable, to all cable subscribers or satellite subscribers. So there's sort of no lock on the channel anymore, but the existing subscribers continue to remit.

Perfect. And then looking forward with the... the stack TV price increase, would that, you would think that would have an immediate impact on Q3 and Q4 subscription revenue and maybe take that minus two closer to zero?

Yeah, it will definitely help the ARPU. I'd say, you know, we're going to have to deal with a little bit of initial churn on that, you know, as some customers decide to rebalance their streaming revenue. But, yes, we think longer term, maybe not right away in Q3, that it will have a positive impact on that line.

Okay. Second, you mentioned no content supply disruption from tariffs. I just want to make sure we fully understand it. What about on exports of shows that you're making and selling into the U.S. and internationally? Are those exempt from the current tariffs as you understand it?

Well, most of our U.S. content supply is locked up on a previous deal with one supplier, so we don't have a lot for sale that would be in any way a meaningful line item. So most of our sales would be ex-U.S. at this point for our generated content, even if Canadian programming was tariffed. We don't have clarity on whether that's the case or not.

Oh, you don't have clarity, but even if there is some sort of tariff, the contract still exists and the counterparty has to still buy that content. Okay. Good. And sorry, two more, because I'm just not sure how many people will be on the line. So I'm going to make sure I get them across. Working capital, John, obviously a substantial inflow of cash in Q2 after a pretty substantial outflow in Q1. Can you level set us on what's going on there and what happens in the second half?

Yeah, look, there's always the sort of normal seasonality that comes from the revenue seasonality. So, you know, we build receivables in Q1, we collect them in Q2, but that wasn't the whole story in Q2. So the other thing that was going on was related to one of our large suppliers. We had, as you'll see, there was a resolution in the quarter of some of the ownership requirements minority ownership stakes in a few of our larger channels. So related to that, there are some programming payments that didn't happen until March. So there was a benefit in Q2 of holding those. That was around $20 million that will turn around in Q3. Now, the other thing to watch for, of course, in Q3 is we've now got deferrals on certain government remittances around HST and Ontario Employer Health Tax and tax installments. So that's obviously going to help us going forward. Those will reverse within the year in the case of the larger ones, but that's going to benefit Q3.

But 20 million negative in the third quarter for the programming.

Yeah, I think that's a good estimate.

Sorry, is that cleaning up the minority interest in former HGTV and food that they've paid you to wash their hands of that?

No, no, no. It just had to do with some of the payments under those previous deals.

And my last one will be on advertising. Let me start with the big picture. The Buy Canadian, great strategy and theme. Can you give us any sense of people really buying into that, saying we're going to take ads away from these companies? these digital platforms where we've been putting all our money for the past 10 years and, and repatriate it to, to a Canadian player that, you know, I think you'd argue, you'd admit doesn't quite have the scale in digital that, that some of those, uh, us giants would have is, are you getting some feedback from brands that they're actually willing to do that? And can you reinforce this strategy with potentially a partnership with bell? If, if the two of you are going out together with the same message and say, Decide how you want to split it between Bell Media and Chorus, but collectively, we can offer you some pretty good scale across linear and digital by Canadian.

I won't comment too much on the second part of your question, other than to say I think the entire industry needs to continue to reinforce this message. And I think we're all pleased to see some version of it coming up through, you know, whether, you know, print legacy companies, broadcast legacy companies, et cetera. And we are hearing lots of intent from Canadian advertisers to try to support these goals. But, you know, there is always a gap between intent and action. I think it's too early to say if this is a meaningful shift. We've certainly seen some. We have certainly assisted some Canadian advertisers already in with campaigns that we have packaged by Canadian messaging around and they have come back. and sought out partnerships on that messaging, specifically because of the ongoing situation, but how meaningful a shift that will be in the overall advertising line, I think it's too early to tell.

Thanks. Thanks, Vince.

Your next question comes from Mayor Yagi with Scotiabank. Your line is now open.

Great. Thank you for taking my questions. Always happy to join chorus calls. So I wanted to first ask you about the new lending agreement that you signed. Congratulations on that. So just trying to make sure we have the right calculation. The way I'm reading the contract, it's essentially... very similar to EBITDA when I start with net income, add back interest, depreciation, amortization, stock price compensation, non-recurring items, et cetera, et cetera. Is it essentially a very close, the cash flow definition in that contract, how far is it from EBITDA?

It's basically trying to mirror that. It's not exactly the same, but the difference is fairly small. There used to be two differences, Myra. One is that we would effectively be trying to solve for proportionate EBITDA, but the impact of that has largely gone away because the minority interest increased. in the former food and HG channels has gone away. So I think you're on the right track. The other difference was always that it's a gross leverage calculation. It's not a net leverage calculation. So any of the cash on hand doesn't factor into the calculation. But I think you're pretty close if that's the way you approach it.

Okay. Maybe to get us even closer, can you provide what was the last four quarters number for under the definition of the contract for cash flow?

I don't have that at hand, but it was typically between 25 and 40 basis points higher. It's more this quarter because there's a lot more cash on hand, but I don't have it off the top.

Okay. And your leverage ratio as stipulated under the contract, you're quite well below it, right, at this point in time. Is there any indication that you will get close, anywhere close to that level before the end of the year?

No, it was designed to make sure that that didn't happen.

Yeah, yeah, it seems like it. So now that you have this new credit agreement in place, putting aside all risks to continuing operations, etc. What does that give you in terms of ability to operate that you didn't have before? How does that change the outlook on the business?

It gives us a longer runway. You can see that we've got that higher covenant through the end of the calendar year. That's very helpful. We were operating with either short-term, very short-term, or kind of medium-term relief under the former credit agreement. So if you think back to what happened last year, we went from... When this all started last summer, we went to a mid-October date, to a one-week extension or so, to an extension to March. This gives us a lot more breathing space. That's designed to deal with the capital structure. It effectively takes the pressure off the business and the uncertainty off the business because that permeates through everything day-to-day. It permeates through the employees. It permeates through our clients. It permeates through the studios. Everybody wants to make sure that we're on a very solid footing, and that's what it gives us. It gives us that certainty and ability to now go forward. And look, the question that you're probably going to ask, because everybody's asked this question, so what happens after December? The covenant's going to step back down to 425, and that's correct. So that's why between now and December 31st, we're working on other solutions for the balance sheet. I can't say what those are because they're not determined yet, but rest assured there are conversations that are going on And that's what we're working towards is to have a solution there. That's probably all I can say.

Yeah, I have no doubt your ability to manage these issues, John. So maybe a few questions on the operations themselves. As you said, you know, viewership is up a lot, you know, At some point, how do you translate that into dollars? I know there's a lot of inventory. You discussed that there's a lot of inventory out there for sale. Is there a point or at some point could there be a repricing of how much you charge on your channels to place advertisements, you know, become a little bit more competitive on price versus the digital platforms? How can we move the needle on that front?

Well, right now, we've talked about the explosion in premium digital video inventory that's taken place over the last sort of seven to eight quarters. And if you use the estimates that were provided by Google, there's 200% more video inventory in the marketplace now than there was two years ago. So when you have that kind of disparity between supply and demand, it obviously puts downward pressure on pricing overall. Pricing is an elastic thing in this industry, as it is in most industries. But I will say this, we do have higher sellout rates across our platforms than certainly the upstart digital competitors do. And we keep a close eye on that as to sellout levels. There was a time not that long ago, the more inventory you could create on a Canadian media platform, the more you could sell. That demand was incredibly high. And that has obviously changed. So part of our rightsizing efforts that John and I have talked about on previous calls is to basically try to match our inventory availability with the actual demand from advertisers while still leaving us some room for growth. It's why we've taken such aggressive cost control measures because we don't – as fantastic as it is to have growing audiences, if you can't monetize them, that makes it very difficult for the business. So the good news is that we're able to create these growing audiences with a lower cost structure. and how we actually equal supply and demand. It's probably going to take a little while, a few more quarters, before those two things start to equalize. What we do know is there's not a lot of additional new demand being created, so the explosion of additional inventory I talked about, it's not like it's getting bigger, but it's going to take a while for the demand to catch up to all the available inventory.

Perfect. Okay, thank you. And in terms of regulation, I mean, now that we are in an election cycle, you know, with the caretaker conventions, you know, in place, nothing is probably moving on the regulatory front. What's your take on what's next? You know, can we, under a new government, from your experience, What is it going to mean in terms of the path that the regulator was on? Would that completely change, or the view is that we will continue on with that direction in order to give Canadian broadcasters some regulatory relief? Or do we go back to the starting point?

Look, I think you're correct that because of the election being called, a number of CRTC processes, which were in full flight, have been delayed. But we're pleased that the commission has put them back on the table. So we have firm schedules now for the three delayed hearings. One in May on Canadian content, one in June on sort of structural relationships between streamers, broadcasters, and distributors, and then one in September on the audio industry. So those are back on the calendar. They have clear parameters built around them that have been based on previous mandate letters that have been given to the CRTC. we will continue to work with the expectation that those hearings are going to move forward and we will be meaningful participants in them. And no one can ever predict what a new government might do, but we're encouraged that the bureaucracy, at least, sees its responsibility to move forward and is doing so.

Okay, great. Thank you very much.

Thanks, Mayor. Your next question comes from... Aravinda Galapati with Canaccord Genuity. Your line is now open.

Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. I just wanted to focus a little bit on the new networks, home and flavor. Obviously, that was what everybody's focused on, what the outcome would be during the transition. Maybe can you just talk to the impact on advertising? I apologize, I missed the first couple of minutes if you indicated this. The advertising decline, is there any way you could have ballparked what the impact was from the transition to the legacy channels to these two?

Sure, I'll take a crack at that without getting too specific. Like last quarter, Q1, within TV advertising revenue, it's mostly linear, obviously. When we look at the split between conventional and specialty, not a big surprise given we had strikes last year, but global is performing well. in Q2 quite well. It's not quite flat, but it's close to flat year-over-year, which would tell you then that specialty is performing worse than what you see in the reporting. That's a function of what we've been talking about for the last little while, just the proliferation of all this digital inventory, which tends to eat away at the demand for specialty, especially on some of the lower-tier networks that we have. Under sort of that whole context, I think you can say that home and flavor from an audience perspective, and Troy can fill this in a bit more, but from an audience perspective, it's doing incredibly well. From a revenue perspective, it's performing at – those two are performing at very similar levels to our top five specialty channels, which shouldn't be a big surprise given what we said in our prepared remarks, which is that they're kind of top one and two in terms of entertainment networks. So that's probably the way to think about it is they're doing – fine in the context of our other top specialty networks, but specialty overall is down pretty significantly, and that's really the big challenge we have.

Yeah, and I would just add, when we launched those networks, we knew we would have new competitors, and so we adjusted the budgets accordingly. We've been very pleased with the performance, not only from an audience standpoint, but we're achieving our estimates on those channels in terms of advertising as well. But again, those are unadjusted budgets because we knew we would be facing some aggressive new competitions.

Okay, that's helpful. So when you say it's number one and number two, especially lifestyle networks, so basically it's outperforming the two legacy networks in terms of ratings because you're taking the whole kind of the numerous numbers here, right?

Yes, yeah, by a very wide margin, like four to five to one.

Four or five to one. Okay. All right. It's good to know. And then in terms of subscriber revenues, you know, thank you for the clarity. That's helpful. Is it fair to say, I mean, you've given forward guidance on advertising. Is it fair to say that, you know, despite this, I mean, Q2 obviously still has a month under the prior deal. Is it fair to say that mid-single digits is still kind of achievable? you know, on the subscriber side, notwithstanding what you mentioned about pressure on the specialty front.

So you're talking about mid-single-digit decline?

Yes.

Yeah, no, I think that's a good way to think about it.

Okay, okay. And then lastly, just on the balance sheet, You know, I've asked this question before, but in terms of asset sales, as you kind of sort of browse through your portfolios, is there anything that sort of emerged that you feel could sort of translate to some, you know, divestitures? Any update there would be helpful.

Yeah, I don't think there's anything more to say. I mean, we talked about there's some transmitter land. You know, you saw us do one in Edmonton in the first quarter. I think there's other opportunities there. In terms of other obvious things, some of these assets come with a fairly high degree of difficulty given regulatory constraints and other things. And you've seen what we've tried to do in the past, for example, with the French Channel. So I'd say other than the land, we're not necessarily counting on anything to happen, but we'll be opportunistic if there is an ability to do something. at the right price, then we would certainly entertain that.

All right. Thank you very much. I'll pass the line. Thanks a lot. Thanks, Ervin.

Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder, should you have a question, please press star 1. Your next question comes from Drew McReynolds with RBC. Your line is now open.

Yeah, thanks very much. Good morning. Just a few random ones for me. Just back to the channel optimization issue. John, in terms of what was just discussed on the outlook or trajectory for subscription revenues, is the optimization process do a couple of channels a year? How fluid is your portfolio from that perspective or what you've already done or what you're doing right now looks to be what's required, let's just say, over the next two to three years?

I think it's fair to say, Drew, it is fluid. There are a lot of moving pieces, obviously, in terms of audience demand and distributor requirements and content supply. It's very difficult to predict how all those things will come together, but we're still working on it. Obviously, as we look to optimize our cost structure, then we'll look at all these things. But for now, it's hard to get specific because there are a lot of moving pieces.

Okay, that's fine. On the new channel, so great to kind of hear the success on the transition and migration. Can you remind us when the free preview period ended? I don't know if it's the typical three months, and so it has ended. Just what's the update there?

It has ended. It ended as of the end of March. Our audiences really have seen no significant change since then, so we continue to be very encouraged. Obviously, we love it when we get some sampling from current non-subscribers, but it is our core fans and those services of that kind of content that drive most of the viewing, and clearly the subscribers are sticking with us.

Super. Just shifting gears a little bit to radio and, you know, a bunch of on this call cover, you know, a couple of the other radio folks just, you know, characterize the radio industry. Like we're all aware of the structural headwinds, you know, just in terms of percentage of ad dollars that radio gets. There's obviously the national local piece over the years. And of course on radio, you know, just tends to kind of, Like everyone, underperform in certain markets, outperform in other markets. What is happening here on your radio business from your perspective?

We've seen some improvements in EBITDA this quarter, and that's largely from cost reductions and credit to our audio team, which has gotten very creative. and how we can continue to meet the programming needs and demands of our audiences while still looking for cost efficiencies. We think there's some more opportunity to continue to do that while we make investments in the brands themselves. You're correct that radio has a specific challenge in that, unlike television, there's not a subscription requirement. revenue line. We have seen some success in our audio division in podcasting and increasingly with DAI revenues. So there's been some pickup in digital revenues there and we think digital revenues will become a more meaningful piece of the overall audio revenue line going forward. But there's no doubt that radio as a terrestrial medium faces challenges going forward. And it's one of the reasons I think we're looking for the regulator to be more flexible as we head into a fall hearing. The entire industry wrote a pretty strongly worded letter to the CRTC recently. saying that its parameters for that hearing were not nearly wide enough. And I think we're all concerned that without some regulatory change, this will continue to be a challenged medium.

Drew, I'm not sure that the other data points you can get in industry, I don't know that they're apples to apples. I think there's some different revenue items that are included. It's in radio for some of our competitors. I will say this as well. Look, we don't give a specific outlook for radio for the next quarter just because it's relatively small and not as big a driver. Obviously, it's the TV advertising line. But radio for Q3 is looking much, much better. So I think that's giving us a bit of a tailwind there that we're not stuck in this kind of minus 14 mode forever here.

Okay. Yeah, definitely, John, we're aware of not apples to apples for sure. So thanks for flagging that.

I'm just going to make one last quick comment, too. It's notable as we go through an election cycle how much all of the political parties are using radio for their advertising campaigns. So it's nice to know that some folks in Ottawa understand the value of radio for reaching Canadian audiences. Okay.

Understood, Troy. Okay, just two last ones for me. John, just maybe on a full-year basis, what you've penciled in for the change in working capital for the fiscal 2025 year, and then bigger picture, you know, we're all trying to figure out the EBITDA trajectory of the business, and obviously you guys have done what I think is a great job with all the challenges you've faced. do we get at some point to John or Troy, you know, some, some incremental kind of guidance, so to speak on just 30,000 foot views of, of where kind of EBITDA begins to kind of stabilize if that's in the cards or just kind of premature to do that. And the only reason I asked, and it's pretty obvious is just the, spread of street estimates out there are still pretty wide and have been wide for the better part of the last year or so. I'm just wondering if, from your perspective, visibility on where you think that trajectory is headed is improving to the point where you can begin to discuss it a little bit more with us.

Yeah, I'd say it's probably right now, just given everything that's happening in the world and, you know, potential impact on the economy, there's less visibility, Drew, than we've had, and that's been fairly limited in the past, as you know. We only give that outlook for the next quarter because, frankly, we're halfway through it, and we have a pretty good sense of how it's going to play. But beyond that, it's really hard to say. And, of course, as revenue goes, that's how EBITDA is going to go. So we'll continue to work on the cost side, and that will include programming. But it's just very, very difficult now. um to be able to to give any kind of an outlook beyond what we've given okay and just on the working capital side john oh yeah look working capital typically would be i'd say slightly negative structurally in any given year uh this year's obviously been a bit of an unusual year given what you know has happened with some of the channels and uh given you know our our sort of very high profile financial situation that uh put some pressure on us from suppliers who want to make sure they're going to see their remittances on a more than timely basis. So I think for the full year, if you consider us slightly negative on working capital, that's probably the place to be, and we'll see how things go. I feel like with the announcement a couple weeks ago, we're feeling sort of much better that we're sort of back to normal in terms of the way that we're going to see things flow. So that's probably the best. the best estimate at this point.

Okay, perfect. Thank you both.

Thanks.

Your next question comes from Adam Schein with National Bank Financial. Your line is now open.

Thanks a lot. Good morning. Just two questions. Speaking of the election cycle, as Troy referenced, you've got the Liberals. Maybe it's just pure you know, posturing amidst the campaign, but talking about, you know, significantly funding the CBC going forward, you know, in an environment where clearly the private broadcasters like yourselves are really taking it hard on the chin. So maybe just a few comments from you guys around that and how you react to those types of election campaigning statements. And then I'll circle back on the back of, you know, maybe one of Drew's last questions to hit you, John, a little bit more on program Amort going forward.

Just on the first point, maybe if we tried to see a glass half full here, it's that you have a party leader who is recognizing that Canadian media is very important and needs to be supported. We certainly would say that more than the public broadcaster needs to be supported in new and different ways. And we would echo what the Canadian Association of Broadcasters has said is that any increase in funding for the CBC should come along with a reduction in the amount of advertising that it's able to sell so that some of those ad dollars could be repatriated to the private sector. But I think, as I say, if I try to be an optimist here, what we really want from all the parties is an acknowledgement that in a time when two-thirds of advertising dollars are going to digital platforms, most of them outside of this country, that there needs to be support from government for things that will redirect those dollars back into the Canadian media ecosystem because it's very important for our culture, for our news and information, and for our economy.

Okay, fair enough. You should be out on the campaign trail, Troy. John, we're probably a month away from upfront, and then you'll deal with LA screenings, but I'm sure you've had some preliminary discussions with Hollywood already. When we think about the lookout to program Amort next year, just preliminarily, do we see the prospect of net savings? Or is there just the usual inflationary dynamic where flat to up would be a good starting point to assume?

Yeah, again, it's a bit early, as you noted, Adam, just given the sort of place we are in the cycle right now. But I'd say sort of the big moving pieces are, yeah, there'll be some inflation on some of the top-rated programming and, you know, we're taking a hard look at that cost. So, you know, there are certain of the output deals that are going to have to adjust as they come up and that's what we're doing right now. So it's hard to kind of roll that all together right now until we really see what the schedules are going to look like kind of mid-May. But, you know, the absolute goal is that we need to reduce that line and that'll be a combo of foreign and Canadian. Although Canadian amortization is is starting to kind of I'd say bottom out a little bit.

And I would say strategically we are focused on ensuring that we go and get those big acquisition titles that ensure customers want to sign up for our subscription services, whether that be traditional cable networks or stack TV. But at the same time, I think there's a recognition even from the studios that the amount of program that they can continue to turn into the system is probably declining. So our focus is on that. So yes, making sure that we still get those tentpole acquisition titles, but looking at the overall portfolio as one of opportunity to be able to spend less.

Is there anything in the transition, you know, September to December, going forward into the new fiscal, where, you know, because in theory, I would say you probably have less expensive programming in the transition to the new channels from the WBD Bravo content that... you know, it gives Troy a bit more money to spend on some of that marquee programming, but with, you know, some offsetting lower costs related to some of that WBD transition, or is that just a false presumption?

No, no, I think generally that's what's happened. I mean, look, those output deals with Warner were very expensive, and they performed well, and they were, you know, high margin channels. But yeah, I think You know, that sort of cash requirement now behind us, you know, and we've obviously reprogrammed the channels quite successfully. I think overall our view is, yes, that should be less expensive. I don't think it's going to be that material that, you know, given just sort of all the general noise around programming and timing, that it's going to be super noticeable, but there's definitely a benefit there.

Okay. All right. Thank you very much.

Thanks, Adam.

There are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call over to Mr. Troy Reeb, Co-CEO, for closing remarks.

Thank you, Operator. I would just close by giving the acknowledgement to all of our chorus team members across the country. There is no doubt that as we have pursued our right-sizing efforts over the last year, there have been impacts in most of our locations and on some of our brands and certainly in our people. And one thing that has remained incredibly resilient about this business is the morale and willingness of our people to step up because they believe in this content, they believe in these brands, and they believe in the future of Canadian media the same way that John and I do. So a big thank you to all of our teams for their contributions, and thank you, operator, for assisting us and to everyone who joined the call today.

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. This concludes your conference call for today. We thank you for participating and ask that you please disconnect your lines.