WildBrain Ltd.

Please stand by. We're about to begin. Hello and welcome to WildBrain's fiscal 2021 fourth quarter and full year earnings call. Today's call is being recorded. 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. To ask a question during that time, please press star then the number one on your telephone keypad. If you'd like to withdraw your question, press star two. And I've turned the call over to Nancy Chan-Palmatier, Director, Investor Relations at WildRain. You may begin your conference.

Thank you, Operator, and thank you everyone for joining us today. Speaking on the call today are Eric Allen-Bogan, our CEO, and Aaron Ames, our CFO. Also with us and available during the question and answer session are Josh Sherba, our President, and Danielle Neath, our EBP of Finance and Chief Accounting Officer. First, we have some standard cautionary statements. The matters discussed on this call include forward-looking statements under applicable securities laws with respect to WildBrain, including but not limited to statements regarding the future growth and financial and operating performance of WildBrain and its subsidiaries, including expected revenue growth for WildBrain Spark in Q1 of the company's fiscal 2022, activation of the company's IP and results therefrom, the timing for certain product rollouts, the future, financial and operating results of the company, including revenue and adjusted EBITDA for the company's fiscal 2022, investments of the company and benefits therefrom, and the strategic priorities, business strategies, and operational activities of the company and its growth and long-term prospects. Such statements are based on information currently available and factors and assumptions which management believes are reasonable, but which may prove to be incorrect. A number of risks, uncertainties, and other important factors could cause actual events, performance results to differ materially and adversely from those described in the forward-looking statements, including the risk factors set out in the company's most recent MD&A and AIF. Please note that all currency numbers are in Canadian dollars. For the question and answer that will follow, we ask that each analyst keep to one question with one follow-up so that everyone has a chance to ask questions. If you would like to ask an additional question, please rejoin the queue. With that, I'll now turn it over to our CEO, Eric Ellenbogen.

Thank you, Nancy, and thanks, everyone, for joining us today. Fiscal 21 was a turning point for Wildbrain, during which we turned to growth driven by our focus on creativity, digital media, and IP. Aaron's going to talk to you about the numbers in a few minutes, but what I'd like to highlight at the outset is that compared to last year, in both Q4 and the full fiscal, we saw growth in revenue, adjusted EBITDA, and free cash flow. Now, this growth reflects the work that we've been focused on over the last two years. When I joined Wildbrain in late August 2019, I set the goal of turning the company around and propelling it on a path of sustainable growth and profitability. And I'm pleased to see that the 360-degree IP strategy that we put in place is starting to show results as more of our IP is switched on and we maximize the earnings power of our assets. The management team and I will be providing a deeper dive into how that strategy has transformed the company for the future at our Investor Day on October 5th. But today, I'd like to highlight some of our key achievements and then take a closer look at a few of our more recent announcements. First, we've executed against numerous high-profile content partnerships, including two major deals with Apple TV+, our new original series, making the streaming service home to both Peanuts, and more recently, Yo Gabba Gabba. We struck a partnership with Netflix and Sega to launch a brand-new Sonic the Hedgehog series. And also for Netflix, we delivered three original series, Johnny Test, Chip and Potato, and Go Dog Go. We also repatriated the U.S. rights for Caillou and have since licensed the series to Warner's Cartoon Network exclusively for that market. In brand management, licensing, and digital, we relaunched just announced Strawberry Shortcake for a new generation of kids. We are seeing early success with the relaunch of Teletubbies for the adult Gen Z audience. And at our licensing agency, Wildbrain CPLG, we expanded our operations in the US, India, Germany, and Italy. At our AVOD network, Wildbrain Spark, we forged partnerships with Emoji Company and Moose Toys to launch a new series for original IP. with licensing representation by WildRain CPLG. And in addition to these commercial achievements, we've realigned our senior management team, built our bench strength, we've hired top executive talent across content, distribution, and licensing, and we've also successfully refinanced our debt on favorable terms, removing the financial maintenance covenant from our senior secured term loan. I'm really proud of the team's accomplishments in the last two years and can tell you there's a lot more to come. We've been working steadfastly, executing on exactly the goals that I set from the start, and we're majorly hitting our stride now, which is starting to show in our results. I'd like to speak to you now about some detail about a few of the partnerships and initiatives, including our just-announced deal with Apple TV Plus on Yo Gabba Gabba, our relaunch on Strawberry Shortcake, and our activities around Teletubbies and Caillou, and our partnership with Moose Toys and Akato through Wild Rain Spark and CPLG. Last week, as I mentioned, we announced another partnership with Apple TV Plus for that platform to become the global home for our highly popular show, Yo Gabba Gabba. With the show's creators, we're co-producing a brand new 20-episode series for Apple TV Plus. We also licensed our full Yo Gabba Gabba library of 66 episodes and two specials. And like our prior Apple TV Plus agreement, we saw the platform become the home for our new Peanuts content, as well as Peanuts Classic Specials. This Yo Gabba Gabba partnership is an excellent example of how having successful branded IP in our portfolio can drive larger deals for new content with premium SVOD platforms. Yo Gabba Gabba is a perennial family favorite, We previously licensed the Gabba Library to Telecasters worldwide, and it's been adored by millions on screen and sold out live stage shows and through innovative toys and consumer products. And as we've seen with Peanuts, we believe that the global platform of Apple TV Plus will help power our consumer products licensing and live experiences for the brand. Igniting kids' IP is what we do at BioBrain. With our integrated capabilities, we take our brands all the way from new content development and production, to global distribution and audience delivery through Wildbrain Spark, and to consumer products by our licensing agency, Wildbrain CPLG. We are truly unique in the marketplace as the only independent media company with all of these kids' assets and capabilities under one roof. Yo Gabba Gabba is not the only legacy brand from our vault that we've been busy at in the last quarter. Just last week, we announced an ambitious relaunch for Strawberry Shortcake, a wholly owned Wild Rain property. First introduced in 1973 as just a greeting card, Strawberry Shortcake became a wildly popular brand in the early 1980s as a line of toys, apparel, consumer products, and multiple TV series. The brand has tremendous history at retail, selling over $500 million per year, U.S. dollars, of licensed consumer products annually at its peak, including over 5 million of its famous strawberry-scented dolls. The franchise to date has generated more than $4 billion at retail. Our relaunch marks the beginning of a new era for Strawberry Shortcake as we take these beloved characters into the future, fully engaging our expertise in brand management, knighting the franchise with new original content, digital distribution through Wild Brain Spark, and a robust consumer products program through Wild Brain CPLG. The licensing program rolling out through 2022 includes a new toy line from Moose Toys, 10 original songs, new books from Penguin Random House, and retail partnerships with name brands such as Sunkist, among others. So please watch out for our new Strawberry Shortcake animated series, titled Berry in the Big City, which launches this Saturday on Wildbrain Spark in five languages around the world. And consistent with our always-on strategy of content across every media, a second 40-episode season of Berry in the Big City has been greenlit. Wildbrain Studios is developing a slate of new CG-animated Strawberry Shortcake family specials for a major streaming platform. And in early October, we're premiering our first-ever Roblox game, starring Strawberry Shortcake. And Roblox, as many know, is one of the most popular 3D digital gaming platforms for kids and teens, with every day more than 20 million kids playing games on that platform. The Strawberry Shortcake brand relaunch has been a labor of love for our creative teams. While staying true to what makes Strawberry Shortcake special, sweetness or scent, strawberry motif, This new vision aims to inspire today's kids with relevant, pro-social, and empowering themes of diversity, sustainability, and entrepreneurship. And this digital first we launch at Strawberry is designed to appeal to today's kids wherever they're playing games or watching content. We're ready to return Strawberry Shortcake to our past glory, and we believe today's kids are going to make Strawberry Shortcake a big part of their lives. We're also reinvigorating the Teletubbies as a pop culture icon for Gen Z, today's young adults who were the original loyal Teletubbies audience when they were toddlers. These adults have a great fondness and nostalgia for Teletubbies, and we've been successfully engaging them through PR stunts, marketing campaigns, and character appearances at events like Pride Month and New York Fashion Week going on just now. Our goal is to amplify the brand and to create a stream of licensing opportunities that will allow these fans to engage with the brand through events and consumer products. Another evergreen title we're bringing to new life is Caillou. Earlier in the year, we consolidated the U.S. rights to Caillou in line with our strategy to aggregate ownership and perfect the chain of title for our IP. We've seen immediate returns on our investment as we licensed the show's entire back catalog to WarnerMedia's Cartoon Network, as well as multiple seasons of new Caillou shorts being made by Wild Brain Spark. And in addition to that, we've also now greenlit five new CG animated Caillou specials. Caillou remains a massively popular show worldwide, evidenced by the fact that its Wild Brain Spark channel ranks among the top 1% of kids' channels on all of YouTube. So, to paraphrase Mark Twain, reports of Caillou's demise are greatly exaggerated. He's alive and well, perhaps still annoying to adults, but absolutely beloved by preschoolers, and there are great things to come. Turning on a Wild Brain Spark, which is our AVOD network, it continues to add commercial partnerships and to create and manage digital content that drives revenue across all of our business units. We recently announced a content and licensing partnership with Moose Toys to produce, again, a digital first series with their new ACADO toy brand. WildBrain handles worldwide distribution of the new series, and WildBrain CPLG is managing the ACADO global licensing program. We will also enjoy a share of revenues from toys, distribution, and consumer products. We also saw a normalization of views and watch times in Q4 compared to last year, reflecting the end of COVID-19 lockdowns. This hit a bottom in April 21 and has been improving sequentially month to month since then. Views and watch times increased 26% and 20% respectively from April to August. Advertising rates also trended up, showing an average increase of 163% since April. And in terms of views, Spark has been outperforming its peers and the overall kid genre on YouTube. We're also focused on growing higher value views, promoting content where we have IP ownership or sharing consumer products. And our core audience is watching longer on Wild Brain Spark, as shown in the growing average duration of views, which is up 17% over the last year. Kids and families are spending more time on our network, enjoying our premium, full-length content, which is replicating the TV experience. Wild Brain Spark's revenues were up 81% in the current quarter, reflecting ongoing improvements in advertising rates and ad placements. And if these positive trends continue, together with our focus on higher value views and holistic partnerships, We expect to see continued growth at Wild Brain Spark for the full year, and we forecast Q1 2022 revenue increasing by at least 60% over last year's Q1. So I'm confident that we're on track with our strategy, doing exactly what we set out to do when I joined the company two years ago. We're leveraging our 360-degree capabilities for our own and partner IP across content, distribution, and audience delivery. building franchises that fuel consumer products upside and drive revenue across all of our business lines. This momentum provides excellent visibility on and confidence in our future revenue and earnings, and it positions us for long-term growth. So now I'll turn the call over to Aaron to tell you what this means for our output.