Let me welcome to my stage.
Thank you.
I'm happy to introduce Jon Carpenter, CEO of Comscore. He joined Comscore as a CFO in November 2021, and was promoted to CEO in July 2022. Prior to Comscore, Jon served as a CFO at Publishers Clearing House since 2016. Prior to that, Jon served in several divisional CFO roles for Nielsen, Sears, NBC Universal. Jon started his career at General Electric in financial management. I will tell you, we studied General Electric, its financials, basically, where you worked in business school. So it was such a great training ground.
Yeah, I was very fortunate-
Financial management
... to have started my career
No kidding
... there. It's a tremendous leadership development program that I was able to be a part of very early in my career.
Yeah.
No doubt about it.
I started as an investment banker for seven years, and when people, you know, people call, have something urgent, no problem. They call me at 2:00 A.M., no problem. I mean, there is something-
Yeah
... about those early years of training that gives you a new set of what you expect for the-
Yeah
... rest of the years.
Yeah.
Even if the new job shouldn't call for some of that old stuff. You're like, "Oh, I got this. Revisions overnight? Not to worry.
Totally.
Yeah. All right, so, when you think about... Let's talk about leadership. So you're and culture is where I'm going with this. You have about 1,350 employees right now, and I think one of the most, the most important things to keep, sort of hiring and then retaining high-performing employees is culture.
Yeah.
So tell me, what's the culture you're trying to build at Comscore, and what are the data points you use to track for yourself that culture, your cultural goals are being implemented and accomplished?
Yeah, great question. Look, I think it's pretty obvious to everybody that culture is key to performance. And, while setting the tone around culture starts from the top, my view is that it's everyone's responsibility to drive and carry forward the culture. And certainly, when you talk about culture, it starts with, you know, getting buy-in on the strategy, and strategy and culture certainly work hand in hand with one another.
Okay.
But I kind of view strategy as, you know, what we're working on, and culture is kind of the how we're working together. And I think my philosophy in terms of, you know, what we talk amongst the leadership team about is, you know, in order to build a culture and to get something that people in your employee base is bought into, it starts with caring. Do you care? Do you care about the people that you work with? Do you care about what's going on in their interpersonal lives, and in the world around them, and trying to understand and lead with empathy, to start with?
And then, caring in terms of, can you create a care for a shared mission of what we're trying to deliver on? And so, you know, I think, you know, for me, you know, that caring aspect of leadership is foundational to building a culture based on trust. And from there, you get bought in on the cared, shared mission, if you will, and you start from there.
This is my phone. Is that an extra phone?
Yeah.
Okay. Oh, food! You have to share.
So you know, you start from there, and then you start to create, you know, shared vision around accountability on what you're gonna deliver, and you collaborate around that. And so-
Okay
... hopefully that makes sense. But it starts with, I think, you know, the team that you're working with in that caring element, and then creating a shared vision around and caring for what you're trying to deliver as an organization.
I gotta tell you, the answers on this question today, every single guy is different. Totally different.
Yeah.
Like, this is the first time I've heard about empathy or caring or shared mission. People don't even define culture. You, 'cause you said strategy versus culture. Culture is how you work together to achieve it. Nobody would have defined it. No one else on this stage. I didn't ask them to define culture, but nobody else would have defined it. That's so, such an interesting question. Sometimes I don't realize-
I think the part you leave out, right?
Yeah
... is you gotta give, you gotta give folks a, the, you know, the, the purpose around those two things, is the why. You know, how do you, how do you communicate to everyday employees the why around what it is we're doing is so important? And look, it's a grind every day, and it's not just one individual's responsibility, and it's harder than ever in a world where I don't care, you know, you know, most companies are not 100% back to office.
That's true.
You know-
That's where we're going next, is future of work, but yeah.
If a lot of companies are like ours, they've hired a tremendous amount of people since the pandemic.
Yeah.
Trying to build a culture when you're hiring people remote, I mean, your onboarding processes have got to be so tight, and so consistent, and everybody's got to be bought into the mission. Because if it's not, it's so easily lost.
Okay.
Anyway.
Let's go to future of work. Tying this in, what is Comscore's current work from home versus in-office required days, and how many of your FTEs are not coming into the office on required days?
Yeah, this has been... You know, I, I'm sure others in my position have struggled with figuring out the right balance here. I, you know, my philosophy here is that, you know, the world where everybody's in the office, in the industry that we're in, certainly other industries may be different. But in the industry we're in, like, it's just not, it's just not market-
Okay
... where everybody's back to the office. That being said-
Five days a week or everyone?
Five days a week. Five days a week.
Okay.
And so we've deployed a hybrid model-
Okay
... where, you know, we've communicated that, look, I personally get a great deal of energy-... and excitement when I'm collaborating with-
Mm-hmm
Folks in office. Let's be honest, we've got some really hard things that we're trying to solve on behalf of our, our clients that we serve.
Sure.
To do those things going from one Zoom meeting to the next, it's just not possible. So that's one, and then two, just from a career development and career advancement standpoint, you know, I look back on my own personal development, and gosh, if I, you know, if I didn't have the interactions with senior leadership on—with some level of regularity on, you know, whatever it may be, from a project standpoint, my career would not be where it is today. And so I think that's what a lot of—especially new employees coming in, don't, you know, don't appreciate. And so we've encouraged, we've asked people to be back in the office two days a week. I think the adherence to that has been really strong. And, you know, I think we'll continue to see folks gravitate towards the office.
Off the top, you know, I think we've got more than 50—so the mandate, I use that loosely, but the ask was, if you're within a 50-mi or commuting radius, and we define that for all of our locations, the ask was that you're in the office two days a week, and I think that represents roughly 50% of the company that encapsulates. And, you know the adherence that we're getting to that is, you know, pretty consistent with that 50%.
I had two CEOs this morning say that in the last month, they've lowered it by a day. One guy went from five days to four, another one went from three to two.
Yeah.
Do you- your two days is working? You don't feel like you have-
Yeah
... to go to less?
Look, I'm not gonna ask, you know, my teams to do something that I'm not willing to do myself.
Yeah.
You know, I think five days, I'll be honest, like, I don't want to be in the office five days a week.
Right.
I've got young kids at home, and so, you know, my wife and I are managing our own kind of, you know, personal dynamic there. And I certainly appreciate the challenges that, you know, others with similar circumstances or different circumstances have, and you know, just the sheer amount of time that gets wasted in commute. So again, I think two days is good. You know, I'm personally in the office typically four days a week. That's just because I, you know, I'm either meeting with clients. We've got a lot of, you know, stuff that we're trying to accomplish as an organization. But, you know, I wouldn't be surprised if we creep that up a day here over the course of the next year.
So new normal, seven years from now, your guess is hybrid-
Yeah.
Here to stay. Sounds like only 50% of your actual employees are hybrid, most of them are just out of office.
Yeah, and I mean, I got to recognize too, like, you know, for younger generations, they come at it with a different attitude, and you've got to be responsive to that and make sure that you've got a culture and an organization where people are bought into what you're delivering in terms of solutions to the client set. But they also feel like it's a great place to work, where they've got career advancement, it's flexible enough to meet their demands outside of the office, and, you know, I'm aligned with that.
Okay, very interesting. Okay, cool. Let's go to Comscore specific questions. So you and I are gonna be sitting here a year from now, what do you want to have accomplished between now and sitting there? And I'm writing it down. So be sure you can, I'm gonna pull up this page and say-
Yeah, yeah
... "Jon, what you said was?
Well, I'm not ready to give financial guidance yet.
No, no, just goals.
But I think what we can talk about is solid revenue. Look, in order for us to extract the value out of this company that I think we all believe exists in terms of internally, and what our clients expect, we've got to drive top-line revenue growth.
Yeah.
That is gonna be a major focus.
Okay.
We made some changes at the leadership level to address that, and I'm excited about the momentum that we had down the second half-
Right
... of last year, and what that bodes for our business here in the early innings of 2024. So top-line revenue growth 100%-
Yeah
... is priority numero uno.
Quarter-over-quarter, some guys... Everybody said this, by the way. Everybody has said this answer. So quarter-over-quarter, year-over-year, how do you think about it?
Quarter-over-quarter is really difficult from-
Okay, so year-over-year.
We don't manage the business that way.
The full year over the full year?
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.
Cool.
And then, in terms of just other financial metrics, look, we've made a lot of great progress on the overall operating discipline within the organization that has generated a better, a margin profile for the company.
Okay.
I don't anticipate margins expanding from a margin rate standpoint.
Okay.
I think you can expect the margin rate to remain healthy, double digit, in the year.
Okay.
What that affords us to do is throw off enough incremental free cash flow to reinvest back into the product set, and do some of the things that we want to do on products and employee retention and investment. Those things from a pure play financial perspective, stronger balance sheet, right? Many of the investor, common shareholder, investor base wanna see a cleaner balance sheet in terms of the capital structure specifically.
Right. So wouldn't you be using these expanded margin not to invest in product, but to, you know, strengthen your balance sheet?
No, not necessarily. I mean,
Okay
... and so it's a balance, right? When I'm talking about strengthening the balance sheet, it's working with my preferred shareholders to simplify the capital table. You know, there are economic actors like, like many of us, and that's a negotiation in terms of how that plays out. But it is a goal of mine to try and simplify the capital structure, so that investors who are bought into the story, like the execution that they're seeing, but get distracted by the capital structure we take that off the table, and that-
Okay
... that's a focus area for us. Then, look, from a product standpoint, it's all about cross-platform execution and leveraging the assets that this company has in traditional television assets, in our digital assets, and bringing those to life in a way that answers the market's ask of companies like ours, which is: Give me a holistic view of what's going on in audiences-
Okay
... and help me reach them credibly, with the right frequency, and let's start there. So those are, those are the, the-
Okay. So cross-platform execution, how do I measure that a year from now, to figure out if you did a good job on that?
I think it'll come down to two pretty clear focus areas. We've got a product called Cross-Platform Campaign Ratings.
Yeah.
We fully anticipate that to scale based on the wins that we had in the second half of last year and what we're seeing in the early innings. So scaling our cross-platform-
Scaling, meaning revenue growth?
Revenue growth. Revenue growth.
Or new client acquisition?
Both. Both. It's a product that is largely under penetrated-
Okay
... across the ecosystem.
Okay.
That's one. That measurement product tied to our predictive audience activation business-
Okay
... are areas where we're anticipating continued,
Okay
... strong double-digit growth. We'll start to highlight that in terms of the way we present the company going forward.
Okay
... so that it's clear for-
Replace this with this.
... investors to
By the way, AdTheorent was on our stage, and he's all about predictive algorithms, scoring impressions, and not measuring. He's a-
Sure
... he's a DSP, but okay, and the other one, so cross-platform, we've got Campaign Ratings. What's my second?
And then the activation business that rides along with that, right? So if you think about what advertisers and publishers are looking for, they're looking for this kind of closed loop, cross-platform optimization and measurement. And the beauty of what Comscore can provide, based on the data assets that we have, is the ability for advertisers to plan and activate their campaigns across linear, digital, connected TV, in programmatic environments, in traditional environments, and then attach the measurement that is a cross-platform ad campaign measurement to that, that then demonstrates the reach and frequency outcomes that come off of that.
Okay.
Then creates a nice flywheel for the company in terms of how we're able to deliver for our clients.
Okay, well, that is a good list of... Love the revenue, love the cost, love you know, sorting out the balance sheet so it's not a gating factor to getting the next investor in. We'll keep track of these two cross-platform execution. I mean, this is the reason for the merger 10 years ago-
100%
... practically. So it's good we're finally. We'll see if we can-
Well, the market's in a lot different place than it was, you know, 10 years ago.
This was always a good idea, though, even 10 years ago.
It was always a good idea. I think, you know, there, there's an argument to be made that perhaps at that point in time, where consumer engagement was across media, wasn't where it is today, obviously.
Yes.
I think the acceleration of converged media from a consumer standpoint has put a lot more pressure on companies like ours, who have the assets to accelerate this cross-platform unlock on behalf of advertisers and publishers.
Yeah. I agree 100% with that. Okay, let's talk about local, which is your healthiest business, which is the old Rentrak business. Double-digit revenue growth for the last four quarters, it's a key growth driver. When we think about upside from here, I do worry that even when I was covering Rentrak separately, you know, they were 80% penetrated back then. So I guess my question becomes, now that you're in local, like, how close are we to maturity, where the only increases you get are when these contracts come up for renewals?
Yeah.
'Cause there's not really greenfield clients.
Interesting question. I mean, I think one of the strengths that we have is that we are across, you know, 1,000+ broadcasters on the-
Yep
... on the local front. Local is foundational to... And that's been the case, you know, before my tenure. We had 1,000 clients-
Yep
... on the broadcast side when I started.
Yep.
We have roughly that today. So the growth that we have driven has come on the backs of the product enhancements that's now... You know, I don't like it, but it's currency grade, meaning like-
Yep
... it is used for transactions in market.
Yep.
So if you think about the local broadcast market, you know, $20 billion in a non-political year, $25 billion-ish in a political year.
Yep.
Nielsen's been the number one player in that market for as long as they've been around. We've largely been the only other player that can deliver a local measurement product of any substance, and their TAM is, call it, $500 million. Even if that TAM gets cut in half over the course of the next couple of years through clients like our ma-- You know, my business is $50 million today. So think about, as clients continue to lean into Comscore from a local currency perspective, my upside in that scenario is significant from a total addressable market standpoint. You know, we've seen that when clients have started to lean in. We've been penetrated because clients have used us to plan-
Yes
... and largely use us as a counterbalance to Nielsen.
Yeah, yep.
So they'll guarantee their audience based off of Nielsen.
Yeah
... but they'll use Comscore to
I'm not sure.
... to gate check it.
Yeah, yeah.
What we're seeing happen with more and more clients is that dynamic is shifting. They're starting to use us as currency, which means the rates at which I'm able to command start to look a lot different.
Right. And it used to be like you were a tenth the cost of Nielsen.
Hundred percent.
Is your price still way down there, or have you been able to close it up?
It's still, it's still significantly discounted versus Nielsen, but the upside that I have, and just in terms of... Again, if I just look at the pure TAM, only in the local broadcast arena, that even if it's cut in 50%, the upside from where I'm at to-
But that's been true for a decade. It's been true even before the merger.
100%, but you're also seeing a very deliberate shift in the marketplace away from the traditional panel-based measurement. Because think about a-
Okay
... think about a network partner like... Well, Nexstar is a good example. Largest broadcaster in the country, but they also have large national networks and a big digital footprint.
Right.
They don't wanna just sell their local audiences in each one of the local... They want to take a step back and look, and sell their total audience. So what Comscore can do that others can't is I've got one single methodology that starts at the household level, the most granular level, personifies it at the household level.
Yeah
... that then ladders to all 41,704 ZIP Codes, to all markets, to a national picture. So my methodology, you can add up all of Nexstar's local markets, it adds up to a national number. Now, I can give them a total picture that their sales teams can go and sell a total audience, not just-
... local.
Local, local.
Okay, and you're saying you can't do-
That's a massive differentiator.
Yeah. You guys have always had a huge advantage in local over Nielsen, because they were disaccredited, and like, out of the 200 markets, they had lost their accreditation-
Yeah
... like, 100. So I just don't understand why we haven't gained pricing power, or why they're even using Nielsen anymore after being non-accredited-
Well-
for six years.
Yeah. And I think that's a fair point. Although I would point to the last eight quarters, where that side of the business has just been growing gangbusters. And I think it's because-
For you.
Because it's been... you know, and I think the market has changed, right? The market is very different today than it was just five years ago.
Because of this undermining of panels, w hat's changed?
... the panels just aren't enough. There's just not enough. So, a great example, in any individual market, Nielsen may be measuring one in 2,000.
Yeah, but this has always been a problem for them. That's why you guys were taking share.
And we are-
I'm just surprised it hasn't inverted. I'm still surprised.
We can argue that it should go faster? Can I-
Yeah
... But, you know, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna sit here and suggest that we shouldn't have gone. We are where we are. I think what you're seeing is an acceleration against what I'm talking about, especially over the last eight quarters. And what I'm saying is, you can expect that to continue to accelerate.
By the way, that makes sense, because they've now got VC ownership or private equity ownership, and they've had to cut costs, so they had to focus. And my guess is they're focusing on their national, which is really a monopoly, and driving their national into digital. And they're probably completely ignoring local, which is small.
Look, it's -- we started with local. If you look at every major-
I know
... competitor that we're-
Yeah
... up against, everybody else started-
At national
... at 30,000 feet-
Yeah
... and are trying to get down. And if you look at how we, as consumers, engage with content, our own purchase behavior, it's hyper, hyper local.
Yeah.
Where you shop, the weather you care about, the sports teams you root for the political affiliations you often are tied back to hyperlocal markets. And I think that's where you're starting to see our value proposition with clients that didn't exist before is starting to resonate. Because everything is more hyperlocal in today's world than it ever has been before.
That's interesting. Okay, so let's go to Cross-Platform. Cross-Platform reported flat year-over-year revenue. You said that Cross-Platform is a big focus for next year. But you said that you're coupling your activation product with your Cross-Platform capabilities will be a key to driving revenue growth in 2024. Just now you said it was your key product goal for next year. Can you expand on that? Why does coupling them drive revenue faster? How big a growth, how big could this be to the top line?
Yeah, it goes back to, I think one of the things I said earlier, which is this notion of creating kind of a closed loop, if you will, of a closed loop flywheel of-
Okay
... you know, a cross-platform activation in-flight optimization, and then the measurement that then informs, again, the activation, how you activate. And so our activation product is both ID-based, meaning it does leverage cookies, but we've got a big contextual privacy predictive audience business that doesn't rely on cookies at all. That allows advertisers to reach, you know, key segments of enriched audiences on platforms of their choice. Whether it be on linear, through advanced audiences, or programmatic through the likes of The Trade Desk. The combination of being able, as an agency or an advertiser, activating that media against those audiences-
Right
... and then coupling the cross-platform measurement, that then allows you to get real visibility into: Did I reach my right audience? Did I reach it with the right level of frequency, and was it, was it duplicated or not? And one of the things that we're able to do, because we've got linear and digital with significant scale, is we can show, with a high degree of confidence to, any one of our clients that we work with, the deduplicated nature of what, what they're delivering. And that, in today's environment-
That's a big deal.
... is incredibly important.
Yeah, they do.
Everything from, you know, traditional clients to, you know, even platforms like Uber, who, by the way, is inherently local in terms of their own advertising-
Yeah.
... business to Google. It's about demonstrating the incremental reach that an advertiser is getting on their platform.
Yeah.
They come to Comscore to help them deliver that measurement-
The deduplicated extra reach.
Yeah.
That's a great product. Questions from the audience? Okay, great. You said on your third quarter call, that emerging areas of the market are looking to move from traditional, pure performance part of the funnel to more mid-funnel brands. Boy, is this not the view of most CEOs on my stage today! So tell me what... I think the opposite trend is in evidence when we think about the rise of RMNs, which is retail media networks and CTV. I'm getting a lot of performance-based CTV, which I would have thought stayed upper funnel, and it's just not actually true.
Right.
CTV is moving down market. So explain why you think that new areas are moving up funnel rather than down funnel?
No, I think what our view of the world is, again, it's the value of the incremental reach that you're getting on these platforms.
Okay.
And so-
Gotcha
... if you're a retail media network, whether it's Amazon Ads, whether it's Walmart Connect, you know, demonstrating the incremental reach that an advertiser is able to get by participating on their platform, is where Comscore comes in.
I see.
Because we can tell you, if you're also running a linear—if you're a brand that's also running a linear campaign, we can suppress the linear eyeballs and show true deduplicated reach on those platforms. It's no different than the work that we do with Google. If you look at, you know, what you know, even a platform like The Trade Desk, who's trying to drive as much connected TV ad spend through their platform. Well, if we can tell The Trade Desk, you know, how to help their advertisers reach households that didn't see the linear ad that they were also running that's a powerful message to deliver. So we agree with you that this performative nature of these platforms fits directly into the strategy that we're running.
So one of the things I would've said about RMNs, which is where somebody, basically, the convergence, somebody puts an ad, and then they know it's sold. Who gives a shit whether it was linear—this duplicated reach or not? To me, that doesn't require Comscore, because the whole reason you're doing it is 'cause you're gonna drive a purchase. That's how you decide whether to fund the next ad. Why does it matter whether it's duplicated reach?
Well, I think there's still an element here where, one, there's this, the trusted independent third party component that Comscore brings to the table. So if you're an advertiser, many of them still today, don't wanna just trust, you know, you know, major walled gardens grading their own homework on the outcome.
Okay.
Now-
Okay
... you can say, you can then say: "Well, it did deliver me a sale.
Yeah.
But I think the first, the most important, again, from our perspective, the most important outcome at first is, did you reach the right audience as efficiently as you could have? So perhaps you did get the sale, but what, where were you, kind of, where were you flighting media, and how many times did you reach that consumer before you actually got the outcome that you desired? And if Comscore can tell you, well, if you had planned it differently, or you reached Laura when she was in the walled garden, she was on, you know-
Yeah
... pick your favorite publisher network-
Yeah
... at a lower CPM. Well, that's a, that's a very powerful message in terms of return on ad spend, and how you, how do you maximize the ad, your ad campaign working holistically across all platforms.
So your Proximic product tells how many duplicated reach, or it stops duplicated reach from being delivered?
We'll be able to demonstrate to you. It won't stop d-
Okay.
It'll tell you how much incremental-
So DoubleVerify stops it. Like, if it sees something it doesn't like, it stops the ad from being served. You don't do that?
In their brand-safe environment, in their view, yeah, 100%.
Okay.
We're appearing...
You're just measuring.
Think about it as reach. We're...
Okay
... we're, you know, you want true reach with confidence that you're not gonna reach Laura or John-
10x.
-10x-
Yeah
... on the same platform to get the outcome that you're desiring. That's, that's where the benefit-
Okay
... that we come in.
The other thing you said in your comment, 'cause I wrote it down, is real-time in-campaign, in-flight. You said in-flight optimization.
Yeah.
You can't do real time. You have a two-week delay. So how do you do this?
Well, no, no. Well, let's be clear. Our cross-platform product, digital, digital is 100% virtually real time. Our linear-
100% virtually real time doesn't sound like it's real time.
It's-
What does that mean?
So it's not real time in the sense that it's, it's real time enough for the optimization to happen. In fact, in linear, we're the only company that has the ability to deliver with 95% accuracy to final posting, how your linear campaign is performing within 48 hours. And for the vast majority of our clients, that's all they need.
I would say in linear, where you have an insertion order, it doesn't matter 'cause it takes two weeks-
In digital, we're-
... to buy a ton of time.
We're-
It doesn't help you to be 48, 'cause it might take two weeks out to get the ad in.
No, but you're pairing your linear campaign with your digital campaign, 48 hours is 100%. That no one else, no one else can do it faster than we can. No one. Not across all 210 markets against all advanced audiences. We're the fastest in the market as it relates to linear optimization.
Linear, but the digital world-
And digital.
is real time.
No, digital is real time.
Yeah, I know.
Yeah.
Okay. You're saying your digital is real time, too?
Yes.
Okay, cool.
Our cross-platform offering, yes.
Okay. Okay, that is different. 'Cause a year ago, we were sitting at this conference, and everything took two weeks, so you couldn't do optimization in flight.
And that, and that is true, but we've been-- we've also been very public about the enhancements that we made to the product offering. And one of the, one of the first goals that we had out of the gate, in particular, around our, our TV audience product, the linear product, was 48-hour delivery across all 210 markets, and we pushed that out third... th-- oh, I can't remember, third quarter of 2022.
That's super fast for linear. Well, you're not getting any pushback from me on linear, but real time is what's needed in the digital world.
I think, you know, you-- we've got to, we've got to, you know, look at this with a grain of salt. Those that say they can do it in real time, I think there's a real challenge with the accuracy and how granular they can get to make it an effective-
It's true
... enough outcome
It's a different quality.
to act on.
Like, real time for the startups is a really different quality from what-
Hundred percent
... Comscore is delivering, even 48 hours.
100% .
Okay, that's fair. That's a fair point. JIC certification.
Yeah. Oh, sorry.
Yeah, no, go, go. Yes.
You're just going for you were put up recent, correct?
It was, yeah, nominated.
Nominated.
Yes. Yep.
Yeah. But I think the sharehold-
Yeah.
Have things calmed down with that activist? Like, got to say, one of the things I got when they are resigning, they apparently, like, in one of their filings, they said they wanted to work with you or something like that. Has that calmed down a bit, or are they taking up some of your valuable time? Anything you can comfortably share.
Look, I think we're in a pretty good spot in terms of you know, where we're going. I have a tremendous amount of respect for the individuals that I have on my board. Many of them, I can point to a number of occasions where they've helped me deliver a specific deal. And so, I'm excited to be nominated to join the board. I think the CEO needs to be on the board, and you know, my voice will only be more heard in that scenario. But look, we've had some really productive conversations with many of our shareholders, and I expect those to continue when you've got... Look, everybody, I think-...
The beauty of it is, people see the value of the assets that this company has, and they wanna see us win, and our clients wanna see us win, and they wanna see us execute and deliver on the things that we've outlined. And when those things aren't happening fast enough, I can appreciate the level that that creates some friction. And so, you know, I look at what's in my control, and what's in my control is executing on the strategy, and executing on driving top line and better operating performance. And then, as it relates to things that have to do with the capital structure, making sure that I'm balancing any trade-offs that get made on deals that would change the capital structure, with what's in the best interest of the company and shareholders.
You know, that's facilitated a lot of really productive conversations. So I, you know, I think we're in a good spot.
Other questions? Okay, let's talk about syndicated. Let's talk about the ball and chain, man. Comscore's syndicated business been down double digits. Third quarter, it was down 5%.
Yeah
... year-over-year. Are we getting to the point where—like, I thought it had stabilized, but now it's shrinking again?
Yeah.
Is it get to a point where it's at least neutral, so if you're growing in other businesses, we see growth?
I think so. Look, the second half of the year, I've been really pleased with the churn rates that we monitor-
Okay
... on that side of the business, and have been encouraged by the progress that the commercial team has made on that front.
Okay.
You know, it's amazing when you start measuring something-
It's a big number, so down 5%-
Yeah, it's a nine-figure business.
... means a lot.
It's a-
Yeah
... it's a significant driver. And, so, you know, that business is, you know, I don't see a path to it, you know, returning to, you know, a high revenue growth. But I think a path towards stabilization is very, very much in the cards. And what I wanna make sure that people understand is that that asset foundationally, which includes, what? 11,000 publisher integrations across the ecosystem, is such a core foundation to the catalyst here for this company, which is the cross-platform discussion that we've been having.
Right.
What we do sell, that syndicated business, directly, but its importance to the future of this company is what it does for our cross-platform capability. That is really the catalyst for growth going forward.
Okay. That I believe. Movies is my favorite business, 'cause it's a monopoly, and I have been really surprised, given the Hollywood strikes, that your movie business has been so healthy. I don't get it. Why? The movie strikes between the actors and the writers, seven months of last year, there were no new films, de facto, and everything's moving to streaming.
Yeah.
Anyway, just as a secular thing, why has movies held up so well?
Look, I think the... You know, it was unfortunate that the industry had to go through the you know, a strike here last year, especially on the heels of just rebounding from the pandemic-
Yeah
... which, you know, absolutely decimated-
Yeah, which closed a lot of box office.
... that industry. We'll exit 2023 with, you know, the box office here in the U.S. at just over-
Nine billion
... $9 billion. W hich was, you know, it's up-
Thank you to two films.
... up over 2022, which was $8 billion-ish. Pre-pandemic 2019, the U.S. box office a little over $11 billion. So even 2023, that was a strong year, not fully rebounded yet. I anticipate the US box office to be in the $8 billion-ish range.
No way! I'm gonna take the over. I bet it's over 10.
In 2024-
For certain.
In 2024?
Yeah.
Yeah, in the first quarters, there's not gonna be a lot of films in market.
Tell me why 2023 was so strong for movies, when you had two films that made the entire $9 billion?
Yeah, I mean, you had, you had Super Mario, which knocked it out of the park.
Okay, that's right.
You finished the year well.
Maybe $5.
You had, you know, Mission Impossible, Oppenheimer, Bar- obviously, those were huge catalysts. We ended the year strong. I think that theatrical business still serves a very valuable place for studios and how they think about the profitability and marketing capability.
Oh, so studio revenue, that's really keeping it... Okay.
Yeah.
It's like content.
And so our-
Okay
... deals are long term in nature.
Yeah.
It's not tied to how many releases there are in market.
Yeah.
You know, the releases that are in market, the studios wanna have visibility to the performance of those.
Okay
... so, I fully anticipate that, you know, it's a business that's not growing, like we grow with the industry.
Yeah.
It's low single digits, but it's very attractive. Our position in that, in that part of the world is... That part of the portfolio is-
Do you ever think about selling that business? 'Cause it's just such a great business.
I don't know that the company has ever formally kind of try... You know, we get inbound, you know—
Yeah
... interest all the time. Everything has a price to it, but I think it... You know, we view it as a valuable asset. I think we're just at the tip of the spear in terms of that connectivity between what's going on theatrically and streaming, and how to maximize, you know, what-
The balance.
... the balance between those two.
Yeah.
And so, I, you know, I think that there's opportunity there. For us, it's just a capital allocation decision in terms of how much we want to invest in that part of the business.
I mean, strategy is what you say no to. So cross-platform is the future, and movie sits over here, totally understands.
I think for us, it's a wonderful asset. It throws off attractive cash. It's stable. You know, we can afford to sit there and look at it and say, when the timing is right, from a cross-platform perspective, should the market ever go that way, we're in a great position to take advantage of having that theatrical view of the world, and what it means to streaming, and then-
Yeah
... the other windowing that stream.
I love that business, I gotta say.
It's great business.
Great business. Okay, I'm gonna call it there, 'cause we're right on time. So-