Greetings! Welcome to the USA TODAY Co., Inc. Q4 2025 earnings call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. Please note, this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the conference over to your host, Matt Esposito, Head of Investor Relations. You may begin.
Thank you. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining our call today to discuss USA TODAY Co.'s fourth quarter 2025 financial results. Presenting on today's call will be Mike Reed, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Trisha Gosser, Chief Financial Officer, and Kristin Roberts, President of USA TODAY Media. If you navigate to the USA TODAY Co. website, you will find that we have posted an earnings supplement in addition to our earlier press release. We'll be referencing it today on the call as it provides you with additional detail on this quarter's performance and our 2026 business outlook. Before we begin, please let me remind you that this call is being recorded.
In addition, certain statements made during this call are or may be deemed to be forward-looking statements as defined under the U.S. federal securities laws, including those with respect to future results and events, and are based upon current expectations. These statements involve risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results and events to differ materially from those discussed today. We encourage you to read the cautionary statement regarding forward-looking statements in the earnings supplement, as well as the risk factors described in our filings made with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Except as required by law, we undertake no obligation to publicly update or correct any of the forward-looking statements made during this call. Please keep in mind all comparisons are a year-over-year basis unless otherwise noted.
In addition, we will be discussing non-GAAP financial information during the call, including same-store revenues, free cash flow, total Adjusted EBITDA, total Adjusted EBITDA margin, segment Adjusted EBITDA, segment Adjusted EBITDA margin, and adjusted net income attributable to USA TODAY Co. You can find reconciliations of our non-GAAP measures to the most comparable U.S. GAAP measures in the earnings supplement. Lastly, I would like to remind you that nothing on this call constitutes an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to purchase any USA TODAY Co. securities. The webcast and audiocast are copyrighted material of USA TODAY Co. and may not be duplicated, reproduced, or rebroadcasted without our prior written consent. I would like to turn the call over to Mike Reed, Chairman and CEO of USA TODAY Co.
I am pleased to report that Q4 was by far our strongest quarter in recent years, and we are excited to share our progress with you today. I want to begin by highlighting some very important themes that you will hear throughout this morning's call. We delivered our strongest profitability in four years, with total Adjusted EBITDA surpassing $90 million and growing approximately 17% over the prior year period. Margin expanded 300 basis points to approximately 16% and represents our highest margin percentage in five years. Same-store revenue trends also achieved their strongest performance in nearly four years, driven by an expansion of digital revenues, which importantly returned to year-over-year growth on a same-store basis. Digital revenues represented more than 47% of total revenues, an all-time high. We also generated $32 million in free cash flow, reflecting significant growth over the prior year period.
At the same time, we continued to strengthen our balance sheet with an increased cash position, further debt repayment, and firstly, net leverage reduced to 2.4x . We exited 2025 with good momentum across the business, reflecting our strategy to scale the largest audience in the nation, improve engagement, and maximize revenue growth. We expect this momentum to carry into 2026, including full-year growth in net income, total Adjusted EBITDA, and free cash flow, improving same-store revenue trends, total digital revenue growth, and continued deleveraging. Furthermore, our fourth quarter performance capped off what we believe was a defining year for USA TODAY Co., highlighted by significant milestones and a successful rebrand that fully embraces the ethos of a dynamic media company.
Before turning to our quarterly results, I want to highlight some of these milestones that help to reinforce our confidence as we move into 2026. We delivered our third consecutive year of free cash flow growth over the prior year. We achieved positive net income for the first time since our merger in 2019. We saw further expansion in our digital revenue mix, as I just mentioned. Over 47% of our revenue is digital, and we are well positioned to surpass 50% during 2026. We executed several AI licensing agreements that we expect to improve digital revenue trends and be highly accretive to total Adjusted EBITDA, including a recently signed partnership with Meta, which represents our largest AI licensing deal to date. These agreements contributed positively to our fourth quarter results and position us for further growth in 2026.
With regard to total Adjusted EBITDA for full year 2025, keep in mind that our results reflect some larger asset sales completed during the year, including the Austin American-Statesman. Without those sales, total Adjusted EBITDA would have essentially been flat year-over-year. We continued to strengthen our capital structure by repaying approximately $136 million of long-term debt and repurchasing $14 million of convertible notes. We reduced our First Lien Net Leverage by 11% versus the prior year. In the second half of the year, we also took meaningful actions to create a lower and more flexible cost base, which resulted in $100 million in annualized savings, some of which we expect to flow into the first half of 2026.
A couple other factors that will further improve 2026 results were completed in January of this year. First, we completed the transfer of The Detroit News. This strategic transaction strengthens the USA TODAY Network's audience across more than 200 local publications nationwide and reinforces our commitment to local journalism in the Detroit metropolitan area. Second, as part of the transaction, we were able to reduce our first lien interest rate by 50 basis points, or about $3.5 million annually, which will generate cash interest savings in 2026. We believe the strength of our results demonstrates the traction we have gained and the long-term potential of the business we are building. I'll turn to the operational highlights from the fourth quarter. Our digital strategy focuses on expanding our audience, deepening engagement, and maximizing monetization across the customer journey.
In the fourth quarter, we continued to attract one of the largest digital audiences in the media industry, with 179 million average monthly unique visitors coming to our platforms. That scale, combined with our ability to stay closely aligned with our readers' preferences, drove another quarter of at least 1 billion page views per month domestically. As a result, digital advertising revenues delivered a third consecutive quarter of year-over-year growth. Turning to our digital-only subscription business. As many of you know, we made a pivot in early 2025 on our digital-only subscription strategy. We felt some pain on volume and revenue from that pivot early in the year. However, we have conviction around the merits of that pivot. We saw some early signs in Q3, and those were further reinforced in Q4. Our digital-only subscription business delivered its strongest quarterly performance for the year.
Digital-only ARPU reached a new high of $9.81 in the fourth quarter, up 24% year-over-year and 11% sequentially. Digital-only subscription revenues also grew sequentially for the second consecutive quarter, and we realized year-over-year growth in December. We believe the actions we took in early 2025 are creating a more sustainable, predictable, and growth-oriented subscriber base. Importantly, we expect digital-only subscription revenues to continue to grow year-over-year, contributing to the overall growth we expect in total digital revenue per user in our ecosystem. We see additional upside through pricing optimization, leveraging our full product portfolio, including our newly launched gaming hub, Play, and doubling down on local growth.
Combine this with the outstanding work our content team delivers through our high-quality journalism and broader content and experiences in categories consumers engage deeply with, we believe we have a compelling value proposition for both consumers and advertisers. With that, I'll turn the call to Kristin to outline some of the exciting initiatives underway to expand our content experiences and product portfolio. Kristin?
Thank you, Mike. 2025 was a year defined by innovation, resilience, and strong collaboration across our media business. We rallied around new ideas, new approaches, new opportunities, and we implemented meaningful change across the organization that generated strong momentum in our key metrics. We sustained one of the largest digital audiences in the media industry, generated more than 1 billion page views per month, marking two consecutive years at that level, and maintained our overall reach even as we implemented a new subscription strategy. We also closed the year as the number one news and information provider among content producers in the country, based on unique visitors as measured by Comscore. Together, these results reinforce our position as the preferred platform for relevant and essential content, and that includes sports.
In the fourth quarter, we continued to enhance our NFL and NCAA sports hubs with new features and richer data designed to deliver more immersive mobile-first experiences. As a result, we're driving stronger engagement as well as increased time spent with our content. More broadly, these enhancements are elevating how we cover sports every day and how we show up during the moments that matter most to our sports readers and viewers. For marquee events, that means activating the full strength of our platform to drive scale, to deepen engagement, to maximize monetization across the consumer journey. That approach was evident during the Winter Olympics, NCAA Football Championship, and the Super Bowl. We generated millions of dollars in revenue across advertising, e-commerce, subscriptions, and merchandise, as well as visibility for the beloved USA TODAY Ad Meter.
This is the tool recognized in the advertising industry for gauging consumer sentiment related to Super Bowl commercials. Importantly, we see similar opportunities with global events such as the FIFA World Cup. Entertainment is another vertical where we're building meaningful momentum. We continue to execute strongly on our strategy to create standout experiences around topics our readers love, so celebrities, fashion, style, and doing so in the formats and platforms they prefer. In the fourth quarter, we launched a reimagined entertainment hub designed to be more immersive and visually dynamic, with a focus on vertical video, prominent photography, and richer storytelling formats as we deliver scoops and exclusive content. Importantly, these enhancements are driving deeper engagement and audience connection across our platform. As we've seen in sports, entertainment also attracts robust advertiser demand, and it creates incremental opportunities to expand our commerce platform.
On that note, our digital-only subscription volumes in the fourth quarter reinforce that there is meaningful opportunity to further strengthen our core business, which in turn will allow us to unlock the company's full potential. I'm encouraged that our subscription strategy drove both sequential and year-over-year growth in digital-only ARPU. As I emphasized throughout the year, local is our key differentiator for generating unique content, attracting subscribers, and connecting with communities in more profound ways, where local stories feed national news and national news connects with local relevance. With a combined reach of 125 million average monthly unique visitors coming from our U.S. media network, we are well positioned to be essential and relevant in the local communities we serve. Our extensive portfolio of local brands allows us to deliver non-commoditized, hyper-local content that cannot be found anywhere else.
From local government and politics to high school sports and community events, these are the stories that matter most to our readers, and we are uniquely positioned to deliver them at scale. Looking ahead to 2026, we plan to further expand our subscription portfolio around high-interest areas and differentiated content experiences. Play is an example of that strategy in action. The launch is off to a solid start, with early indicators showing audience expansion, deeper engagement, and growth in registrations and subscription starts. More broadly, games complement our sports and entertainment portfolio by driving habitual engagement, opening new monetization pathways, and supporting long-term growth. To recap, our progress in 2025 was a result of strong collaboration across the organization, and I want to thank the entire team. We see significant opportunities ahead, and we believe our strategic actions have positioned us for sustainable long-term revenue growth.
Back to you, Mike.
Thanks, Kristin. It's exciting to see the key initiatives underway to deepen engagement and enhance the overall monetization across our platform. It's so important to our overall digital revenue growth strategy. I want to turn to AI. High-quality, trustworthy content is foundational to a healthy open web, particularly as AI agents become more common to how people discover and consume information. Our strategy in this evolving landscape is straightforward: engage early with foundational partners, help shape the framework, maintain flexibility as monetization models evolve, and protect our long-term upside of this emerging ecosystem. Consistent with that approach, in the fourth quarter, we entered into a multiyear strategic partnership with Meta to license both new and archival content from the USA TODAY Network. This partnership enables Meta's family of apps and devices to incorporate accurate, timely information rooted in credible local and national journalism.
This multiyear AI licensing agreement, as well as the agreement we signed with Microsoft back in October, are high margin and will contribute meaningfully to expected year-over-year revenue growth in digital other revenue. While we continue to engage with foundational partners and evaluate additional opportunities in this space, we are doing so with a disciplined long-term lens. Excluding Google, we currently block more than 99% of verified and unverified AI bots attempting to scrape our content without licensing agreements in place. As we look ahead to 2026, we will continue to take an aggressive approach by actively sourcing AI-related revenue opportunities while continuing to protect the value of our content. Given the scale of our national and local footprint across the U.S. and the U.K., we are uniquely positioned to be a leading provider of real-time, trusted content to these various technology companies.
Now, turning to our LocaliQ segment. In the fourth quarter, segment Adjusted EBITDA totaled approximately $17 million, while core platform ARPU remained near record highs and grew over the prior year period. There is still work ahead with regard to customer count and revenue. However, the progress we made last year to strengthen our product foundation and sales strategy positions us well to drive stronger results across our key metrics, and we expect to return to revenue growth during the back half of 2026. Let me highlight a couple of important initiatives underway. These initiatives include expanding our CRM integrations, strengthening our search optimization capabilities, and advancing the features and functionalities of our AI-powered software solution, Dash. These product enhancements are expected to increase client retention, deepen customer engagement, and improve measurable ROI across our platform.
We also recognize that consumers are engaging with social media more than ever, and as a result, we are proactively expanding our social offerings to meet that demand. In January of this year, LocaliQ became a badged TikTok marketing partner, joining a select group of companies recognized for quality, scale, and innovation in driving advertiser success. Being part of this exciting program means we have enhanced tools, deeper integration, and direct collaboration with a platform where over 1 billion people come to discover, connect, and take action. In 2026, we plan to further align with evolving consumer behavior by improving and expanding our AI solutions across all parts of the sales funnel, which in turn will strengthen our ability to help SMBs achieve their goals by driving measurable results and unlocking the full value of their digital investments.
I'd now like to turn the call over to Trisha to provide additional details and color around our 2025 fourth quarter financials and 2026 business outlook. Trisha?
Thank you, Mike. Good morning, everyone. Please keep in mind, all comparisons are on a year-over-year basis, unless otherwise noted. In the fourth quarter, total revenues were $585 million, a decrease of 5.8% or 3.9% on a same-store basis, which marks a 290 basis point improvement over Q3 same-store trends. The strength in revenue was driven by renewed momentum across our digital portfolio, with three of four categories growing over the prior quarter. Importantly, this progress reflects both the early success and long-term potential of the strategic initiatives we've been building in 2025, including AI licensing agreements, more targeted subscription efforts, and expanded content in high-interest verticals such as sports and entertainment, where advertising performance and audience engagement remain strong.
Together, these initiatives reinforce our integrated model, enabling us to drive the highest possible digital revenue per user across all streams. Total Adjusted EBITDA was $91.1 million in the fourth quarter, an increase of 16.6% or $13 million. Total Adjusted EBITDA margin expanded to 15.6% in Q4, compared to 12.6% in the prior year quarter. The growth in total Adjusted EBITDA was driven by the improving revenue trends, ongoing cost discipline, and continued execution against our operational priorities. Expense management remains a critical priority, and in the fourth quarter, we drove a 9% reduction in operating costs and SG&A expenses compared to the prior year. Total digital revenues in the fourth quarter were $277.5 million, growing 5.6% sequentially and up slightly on a same-store basis.
In the fourth quarter, total digital revenues surpassed 47% of total revenues. Digital advertising revenues increased 1.8% in the fourth quarter, marking the third consecutive quarter of year-over-year growth. This momentum was primarily driven by improved sell-through and stronger yield performance as our B2B sales teams more effectively leverage the USA TODAY co-brand, attract new national advertisers to our platform, and deliver highly relevant, scaled audiences. This is an encouraging signal as we look ahead to digital revenue growth in 2026. In the fourth quarter, digital-only subscription revenues totaled $45.6 million, up 4.4% over Q3, and marks the second consecutive quarter of sequential growth. Digital-only subscription volumes continue to reflect the intentional actions to optimize sustainable and predictable profitability by prioritizing long-term monetization over short-term volume.
As a result, digital-only ARPU reached a record high of $9.81, up 23.7% year-over-year. We expect digital-only ARPU to continue to grow in 2026 as we remain focused on attracting and retaining higher value subscribers, while remaining smart in our pricing across the portfolio. In the fourth quarter, our digital other revenues, which includes digital content syndication, affiliate, content, and AI partnerships and licensing revenues, grew 27.1% and grew approximately $10 million over Q3. This growth reflects our recent agreement with Meta, as well as the shift of revenue from Perplexity into the fourth quarter. As we continue to expand these AI licensing relationships, we expect variability in timing and recognition, given the structure of these agreements relative to our more traditional revenue streams.
Our strategic efforts to enhance the quality and the overall value proposition of our print product continued to deliver encouraging results. While print and commercial revenues remained in secular decline, we are actively managing the long tail. The actions taken to improve the subscriber experience have helped moderate decreases over the past several quarters. We remain focused on managing the print portfolio efficiently and profitably, and we expect this disciplined approach to continue into the year ahead. Turning to the USA TODAY Media segment revenue decreased 7.3% in the fourth quarter. Segment Adjusted EBITDA totaled $69.9 million, increasing 19.3% year-over-year, while segment adjusted EBITDA margin expanded 340 basis points to 15.6%.
Turning to Newsquest, total revenues in the fourth quarter were GBP 60.1 million, up 3.1% year-over-year, representing the third consecutive quarter of revenue growth. In the fourth quarter, segment Adjusted EBITDA was GBP 13.5 million, up 20.7% year-over-year, while segment Adjusted EBITDA margin expanded 330 basis points to 22.5%. Looking at our LocaliQ segment, core platform revenue in the fourth quarter was $107.3 million, and segment Adjusted EBITDA totaled $16.6 million. We ended the quarter with approximately 12,700 core platform average customer count, and core platform ARPU remained near record highs at approximately $2,800, reflecting growth of 1.4%. Let's now turn to the balance sheet.
At the end of 2025, our cash balance was $90.2 million, and net debt stood at $887.1 million. Free cash flow in the fourth quarter increased by $27.7 million to $31.5 million, and for the full year, free cash flow totaled $64.2 million, an increase of approximately 10% versus the prior year. We ended 2025 with $977.3 million of total debt, reducing First Lien Net Leverage by 11% to 2.4 x. In the fourth quarter, we repaid $19.1 million of long-term debt, and for the full year, we repaid approximately $136 million of total long-term debt.
Our net loss of $30.1 million for the quarter reflects a tax provision of $73.6 million, reflecting the expected large quarterly variances in our provision. For the full year of 2025, our tax benefit was $3 million, and our full year net income was $1.7 million. Subsequent to year-end, we completed the transfer of the Detroit News. This follows the conclusion of the long-running joint operating agreement between the Detroit Free Press and the Detroit News, which ended on December 28th, 2025, under which the results for both titles were consolidated into our financial results. Now, with common ownership, we can operate more seamlessly in a strategically important market, creating opportunities to better scale audience, strengthen local journalism, and accelerate digital growth while continuing to support distinct newsroom voices for both titles.
The transfer of The Detroit News was funded in part by cash on hand and $15 million of additional principal under our 2029 Term Loan facility. In connection with the transaction, we also secured a half percentage point reduction in the interest rate on the 2029 Term Loan, and the first required amortization payment, as per the amendment agreement, shifted to June 30th. As we look forward to 2026, we intend to build on the successes of 2025. In Q4, total Adjusted EBITDA grew approximately 17% over the prior year, and we expect higher levels of total Adjusted EBITDA growth in Q1 as revenue trends improve, in part due to the impact of AI licensing, and as we cycle the impact of the sale of the Austin American-Statesman.
As new revenue streams scale, we expect to have more consistent total Adjusted EBITDA across the quarters in 2026, which may result in greater year-over-year variances by quarter than has been typical. We finished 2025 with a market improvement in our same-store revenue trends, and we expect to continue to improve on that trend throughout the year, which we believe will lead us to same-store revenue growth late in 2026. For the full year, we expect total digital revenues to remain at year-over-year growth on a same-store basis, driving more meaningful growth and exceeding 50% of total revenues during the year. We expect total revenues to be flat to down in the low single digits on a same-store basis and expect to continue to drive ongoing improvement in year-over-year trends through the year.
With the expectation of improving revenue trends and the impact of the cost reductions made in 2025, we expect full year growth in net income attributable to USA TODAY Co. and in total Adjusted EBITDA. These year-over-year gains in profitability still allow us to invest in our business, in data, technology, product development, and people, which we believe enables us to create a sustainably growing media company. We also expect double-digit year-over-year growth in cash provided by operating activities as well as free cash flow, with a slight usage of cash in the first quarter and more meaningful free cash flow generation occurring over the remaining three quarters of the year. Overall, our strong finish to 2025 reinforces the confidence we have in our strategy and we believe positions us well to build further momentum in 2026.
I will now hand it back to the operator for questions, and then we will go back to Mike for some closing thoughts.
Thank you. At this time, we'll be conducting a question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star two if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. One moment, please, while we pull for questions. The first question today is coming from Giuliano Bologna from Compass Point. Giuliano, your line is live.
Thank you. Good morning. You know, great to see the continued performance. As a first question, you know, the fourth quarter showed great revenue improvement. Do you expect that to continue in 2026, and what do you think will drive that?
Hey, yeah, good morning, Giuliano. Thanks. The answer is yes. You know, from a high level, the driver is continued digital revenue growth, digital revenue improvement. Let me be a little more specific, and these are all items that we actually covered in the call this morning. First is our focus on, you know, the scale, the size of our audience and continuing to grow that audience, but more importantly, improved engagement with those folks coming to our platform. That is leading and will continue in 2026 to lead to improve consumer revenue.
We look at total ARPU across the platform, which comes from advertising, subscription, and affiliate, and we're looking to continue to grow that total ARPU per consumer on the platform through improved engagement as well as growing the number of users on the platform. Second, we talked about it a bit in our remarks here this morning, is both our current AI licensing deals and any new AI deals we do this year will all be growth, lead to growth here in 2026 and improving our revenue trends. Third, I'd highlight our improved digital subscription revenue trends. We started to really see that shine in the fourth quarter, including growth that we saw in December from a year-over-year perspective.
With that return to growth, we expect those revenue trends to be much improved in 2026, leading to overall revenue improvement in, on the digital side. Finally, we do expect to improve our DMS revenue trends. We expect to return to growth later in the year, second half of 2026, and we outlined the various action items we have underway in the DMS business as well. I think to summarize this, it's all the good news here is these are all action items that we have been putting in place during 2024 and 2025. They're not things that we yet need to do. They're things that we're starting to reap the rewards for in our financial statements now, as we really started to see in Q4.
These things will all drive growth for better improved trends and growth in 2026. Pretty excited about the outlook.
That's very helpful. You know, just as a follow-up, you know, you get strong guidance for 1Q and 2026 free cash flow and also, you know, 2026 free cash flow guidance. What was indicated was slight usage of cash in the first quarter. Can you some what's driving that?
Hey, good morning, Giuliano. This is Tricia. Yeah, that usage of cash in Q1, it's largely seasonality and timing. It's consistent, I think, with what you've seen historically from a working capital perspective from us. Year-over-year, there's also some minor timing changes in our interest payments. You're right, we did guide to a pretty strong quarter for Q1. We took a really meaningful step forward in our same-store revenue trends in Q4, almost 3 percentage points, and we expect, as Mike mentioned, to take another step forward here in Q1. If you look at our Q4 Adjusted EBITDA, we grew about 17% year-over-year and above 20% if you take out that impact of the asset sales we made earlier this year, mainly, Austin.
We'll cycle Austin, the sale of Austin, mid-quarter in Q1. You take that with the strong revenue and the flow through of the cost actions that we put in place in Q3, we expect similar to higher EBITDA growth in Q1 on a percentage basis than Q4. As Mike said, you know, we've been building on this for 2024 and 2025, and it's really encouraging that we're starting to see the impacts of our strategy play out in our results. The steps we took on subscription revenue is resulting in more sustainably growing digital business. The efforts we've taken to monetize our content in multiple ways, including these licensing deals, leading to improving revenue trends and what we think is gonna be a really strong Q1 and over the long term, sustainable growth.
That's very helpful. Yeah, congrats on the, you know, the new high-end digital ARPU. You know, as it approaches $10, you know, do you see more upside from there?
Mike, I'm gonna take this one. Giuliano, it's Kristin.
Yep.
We feel really great about the progress. You know, digital-only ARPU hitting $9.81 in Q4, and that's up 24% year-over-year, and digital-only subscription revenue growing sequentially again. In terms of upside, I think we continue to see room to grow ARPU in 2026, and I think we're gonna do that through a couple of levers. There's smarter pricing, smarter packaging across the portfolio. There's better retention and lifecycle marketing. I think there's also an expanding product set, like Play, right? We're using Play and these other products to drive habitual engagement and in turn, some incremental monetization there. On the ARPU versus volume issue, our philosophy remains: optimize long-term value, optimize long-term predictability.
We did intentionally trade off some short-term volume earlier in 2025, but what you're seeing now is a healthier and a more sustainable subscriber base, and we do expect that digital-only subscription revenue will continue to grow year-over-year as we execute on this strategy. I hope that helps, Giuliano.
That's very helpful. You know, and, you know, switching over to, kind of the Meta topic, but you announced, you know, the Meta AI deal in 4Q. How should we think about AI licensing revenue in 2026?
Giuliano, it'll be a good growth category, and I would think about it, you know, in terms of 2026 and beyond. It's a, it's a multiyear good growth category for us, we believe. I would like to introduce just a little bit of caution here as we think about, you know, the AI licensing revenue opportunity. We do expect significant growth in 2026, but also it's still a developing marketplace. We're learning a lot as we go forward. We have learned that the deals can be lumpy, and they can take some time to get done. The past 12 months, we've made a lot of progress.
We have some great deals in place now, we do expect nice growth in 2026, but, you know, our eye on the prize here is the longer-term opportunity, which we see from, you know, more deals to come as this overall business model and this ecosystem continues to evolve. Pretty excited, but a little bit of cautiousness in the near term. It's a growth category, but also, you know, it's still an evolving category, and we're playing the long game here, too.
It's helpful. When you talk about kind of like the growth expected in 2026, is that mostly from the existing contracts you've already signed, or is, are you know, considering, you know, potential new deals that you could sign down in 2026?
Yeah, it's both, Giuliano. It's, it's existing deals, so we have some banked growth already with the deals we've signed, but we do expect additional growth through more deals to be signed and more deals to come. Both.
That's very helpful. There's a final one. You made very strong progress on debt reduction in 2025. Can you provide a little more detail on, you know, 2026 debt paydown expectations and what you're targeting from a First Lien Net Leverage perspective?
Yeah, absolutely. You're right, we did make great progress in 2025. We repaid approximately $135 million of long-term debt in the year. That brought us down to about 2.4 x First Lien Net Leverage at the end of the year. We're remaining focused on bringing that number down again in 2026. Our approach this year is going to be that debt is funded primarily through our operating performance and our free cash flow. We did guide to double-digit growth in free cash flow in 2026. Less reliance on asset sales and more reliance on the cash flow that we're throwing off. You know, we guided to full year growth in total Adjusted EBITDA and in free cash flow, you know, based on those improving revenue trends. All of that's going to support our deleveraging.
We're thinking about 2026 as the year that we continue to improve the business, and we use that cash to bring down our debt. I think that will put us much closer to that 2 x First Lien Net Leverage to end the year here in 2026.
That's very helpful. I've hit time, and I will jump back in the queue.
Thank you. The next question will be from Matt Condon from Citizens. Matt, your line is live.
Thank you so much for taking my questions. My first one, just some of your peers, just in the publishing industry have called out just AI Overviews impact to just programmatic revenue. Are you seeing any sort of impact or click-through rates or traffic or, is there anything to call out there? I have some follow-ups.
Hey, Matt, good morning. Good to talk to you. You know, our click-throughs from Google from the search perspective have remained flat. You know, we've done a pretty good job of continuing to have a great ranking in the search ecosystem there with regard to Google. You know, with regard to AI Overviews, you know, pretty much all of the AI platforms, there's not... The amount of traffic that comes back to publishers is almost nothing. The user stays on the AI platform and those experiences. You know, our path to monetization is by licensing content for use in those AI platforms. It's not through clickbacks to us.
With regard to the publishing industry has seen a lot of declines in traffic from search. We've been fortunate enough to be proactive from a strategy perspective over the last two years, that we've been able to maintain a flat number with regard to search from Google blue links, and then we've been really good at growing traffic to our platform from other means, social media being one of the biggest drivers, and then also, more direct engagement with consumers coming directly to our platform. Overall, our page views remain strong, audience remains strong, and we're battling through some of the changes the challenges the industry is facing from declining search.
That's very helpful. A follow-up, Stan, you know, there's more and more AI is just, it's improving internal workflows across, you know, I think all companies. As you look at the business, obviously, you've implemented the $100 million in annual cost savings. Just, are you seeing increased opportunity to implement AI internally, just to further those cost reductions and run the business leaner?
Matt, the answer is yes. We, we do have an AI task force that's working on deploying AI in every single facet of our business. We do see future cost efficiency opportunities that come from the use of AI technology. I would say, Matt, we're actually more excited about the use of AI technology to improve our revenue performance, our ability to do better lead gen work, our ability to do better presentations with customers, to tell the story better, to improve ROIs for customer usage on our platform. We're frankly more excited about the long-term revenue opportunity from deployment of AI technology inside of our company. That'll be the big win for us, but to answer your question, we do see further cost efficiencies as well.
Great, maybe just the last one, you know, could we just get an update on the Google lawsuit? I don't know if there's anything to update there, I think investors would just love to hear, just a timetable and where we sit here today. Thank you so much.
Yeah, Matt, thanks. Yeah, Judge Castel, the Judge in our case last October, he granted our partial summary judgment in the case, which was great. Important step for us because it established liability on certain claims. We were really excited about that. You know, in January of this year, Google filed their own motion for summary judgment. We expected that. It was all in normal course. We believe their motion, you know, lacks any merit. We expect a favorable ruling on that motion, favorable for us. We anticipate that motion being ruled on later spring or summer of this year. You know, we expect to have our jury trial set later this year. We expect the jury trial to be set for end of 2026 or early 2027 at the latest.
As far as other milestones in the case, similar to what we talked about on previous calls, you know, we do expect the remedies ruling to be issued very soon for the DOJ case. We expect once the remedies are ruled on, we expect the case out of Texas to go to trial. That should happen shortly after the remedies are announced. We are expecting quite a bit of progress here, or quite a few milestone announcements to come over the next several months. You know, the DOJ remedies ruling, the Texas case going to trial, summary judgment ruling on Google's summary judgment filing in our case, and then a jury trial being set. We feel very, very positive about our case.
That hasn't changed, and we think there's a lot of good momentum to come here in 2026.
Great. Thank you so much.
Thank you. The next question is coming from Barton Crockett from Rosenblatt. Barton, your line is live.
Okay, thanks for taking the question. I wanted to ask about the steps that Google took earlier this year to make a blog post saying that they would take some steps to allow separation of presence in AI Overviews from search. Seemed to be in response to some U.K. actions, but it seemed to be a global statement of ambition to do something that was applauded by your trade group here. That would seem to be, you know, potentially very interesting, you know, maybe providing some leverage to maybe have a bit stronger licensing conversation with them if that proceeded.
I was wondering if you could give us your thoughts on what you think about that, and if you have any reason for optimism, that could be something that could move the needle forward there.
Yeah, thanks, Barton. We, we are encouraged by that blog post, and, you know, nothing has happened to date. We, we probably should be clear about that. But the blog post was encouraging. You know, we think it's the right move. It would move the playing field toward, you know, clearer publisher control, and directionally, it'd be constructive for sure. You know, our guiding principle remains the same: trusted, high-quality journalism has real value, and, you know, if that content is being used to power AI experiences with no compensation to the publishers, it's illegal.
You know, we believe there should be a level playing field, fair compensation for our content, and certainly Google distinguishing between blue link search and usage in their AI products is it would be a really positive development. You know, we're encouraged by that. We think it's the right thing to do. You're right, it would lead to, we think, a better licensing discussion, you know, around licensing our content for usage in AI. It could be a real positive development. We're, you know, hesitant to say anything too optimistic right now because we just don't really know what they'll do.
Yeah. I mean, to follow up on that, they made a blog post. Is there an opening for a discussion with them on your part or industry-wide or not at this point, do you think?
I wouldn't say that we don't have discussions. I wouldn't wanna get into any kind of confidential information for ongoing discussions we have with any potential AI licensing partners. You know, I would suffice it to say that we do have a lot of conversations going on with a lot of different technology companies.
Okay. One of the things I was also curious about was your monthly unique visitors. I think the number was 179 million, I think, which is down a bit from the third quarter, down year-over-year. What's driving the dip there? You know, you said search is steady, you know, what is it that's driving that?
Kristin, you wanna take that?
Yeah, I'm happy to. We made some intentional steps over the course of 2025 to maintain our audience reach at more than 1 billion page views per month, so that we could begin to turn the dials on our subscription strategy and begin to do some testing and some experimenting around various tactics that would improve engagement, improve registration, and then improve take-up and then pay-up on our subscription offers. This is, I think what you're seeing is a reflection of some deliberate actions that we're taking to stabilize around 1 billion page views per month, which gives us the breathing room to be testing around different subscriber thresholds in the attempt to build back a healthier, long-term subscriber base in the digital-only category. Does that help answer the question?
Yeah, that helps. One other topic I was wondering about in terms of the court schedule, if I could. You know, I was wondering if there's also one other key milestone that would, you know, that you can see in terms of timing and that might be important in terms of getting your jury seated, and that is a decision by the Judge of which witnesses would be allowed, you know, for a trial proceeding. You know, there's a term of art for that, and I'm not a lawyer, I forget what it is. Is that something that, you know, we should also be looking for as a marker that, you know, would signal that things are about to get started?
Yeah, I do. I'd say, you know, late summer, fall, we should have more clarity on that. You know, it's right to look for. I would say that's another, you know, milestone to look for, you know, as we get to the summer this year.
Okay. All right, great. Thank you.
Thank you. That concludes today's Q&A session. I will now hand the call over to Mike Reed for closing remarks.
Thanks, everybody, for joining us this morning. Let me just quickly recap a few of the most important highlights from this morning's call. I'll start with, as mentioned, Q4, well, it felt good because it was the best quarter we've had in several years, and so many of the initiatives that we've been working on really started to show up in the financials, and we're encouraged by that and how that's gonna roll into 2026. We delivered our strongest profitability in 4 years, and as a result, in the fourth quarter, Adjusted EBITDA returned to meaningful year-over-year growth. Also on the total digital revenue side, we returned to growth, which was great on a same-store basis. More than 47% of our revenue came from digital, and we do expect to surpass 50% here in 2026.
You saw a real step forward on same-store revenue trends in the fourth quarter, improving by about 300 basis points, and it was the best trend we've had in several years. You heard this morning, we expect that to continue into the 2026 and Q1 as well. We did deliver our third straight year of free cash flow growth, and that was great, and we continue to expect double-digit growth again in 2026 for free cash flow. When you take all these things together, they reflect improving revenue momentum, expanding margins, strong cash generation, deleveraging, and we continue to think we're gonna create great value for shareholders.
Finally, I would just say, as you heard from Trisha, we are expecting a stronger Q1 across most all trends, feeding off of the Q4 we just delivered. So we look forward to getting together with you all in two months to update you on our progress and fill you in on our Q1 results. Thanks for joining us this morning, and everyone, have a great day.
Thank you. This does conclude today's conference, and you may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.