Good morning, everybody. My name is Ketan Mehta. I'm the media cable and telecom analyst at Evercore ISI. It's our pleasure to welcome today Anand Kini with Versant Media Group to our conference. Anand, thanks for being here.
Yeah. Thank you for including me.
Yeah, absolutely. Maybe to kick it off, Versant is now roughly five months into its life as an independent public company following the separation from Comcast. For me, having spent some time with the management team and at the investor day, one thing that stood out was that Versant seems to have a real sense of energy and urgency, an entrepreneurial or startup feel inside a scaled cash-generative media company. That's not necessarily the culture that I've observed with some of your peers. Maybe to start, how would you describe the internal mindset after the separation, and how's that showing up in the way that the company is making decisions, allocating capital, and pursuing growth?
Sure. I think you got the characterization exactly right. There's a scrappiness that we have, very kind of an entrepreneurial spirit. I think a lot of it was as a spin, we were attracting people, and we had people with that mindset that joined us. As a team, we're aware of, obviously, the secular changes happening in the industry, but we're also very much appreciative of the assets we have, the audience reach, the opportunity we have. I think this organization, individually and collectively, we knew to take advantage of the opportunity, we wanted to do things differently than the way they were done before. That meant, again, having a different mentality. It then shows up in terms of things you mentioned, like speed and decision-making. Again, to maybe take that from abstract to more concrete, we're still very data-driven, very analytical.
If you look at, for example, the number of growth initiatives that we have out right now, whether it's a couple D2C products with MS NOW and CNBC, or we've done some kind of bolt-on M&A like INDY Cinema, which we now call FandangoONE, and a whole host of others. We've only been in existence for six months, I'm proud of the fact that we've been able to, with discipline, execute these and recognize there's a great opportunity to grow the business. I think it's emblematic of who we are and that spirit of let's drive shareholder value in an efficient, disciplined way, with an emphasis on speed and urgency.
Perfect. Next, investor understanding. I think investors, broadly speaking, understand the high-level objective of diversifying the company beyond the traditional pay TV ecosystem. Everything I'm about to say is very interconnected. From your seat as the CFO and COO, what's the internal scoreboard that you use to judge whether that transition is working? Is it a mix of revenue outside of pay TV, the growth of platforms, EBITDA and free cash flow? Is it penetration within specific businesses like GolfNow, Fandango, CNBC, MS NOW, or anything else?
Sure. It's pretty multifaceted. I'll start with, we're very proud of our pay TV business. Like I mentioned before, we're aware of the secular changes happening. In terms of a scorecard, again, this is a very good business for us. It's going to be a very good business for a long time. We spend a lot of time making sure are we delivering great premium content that audiences love. That is still a foremost job, we're obviously looking at ratings and audience engagement and monetization. In addition, as we talked, a big plank of ours is to evolve the business. Pay TV is going to be important, we also want to take these brands and these verticals and expand into platforms and other ways for consumers to experience them.
There, again, we'll look at metrics such as how much of our business mix is coming from non-pay TV. How is our audience engagement outside of pay TV? Importantly, how is our monetization? How are we actually monetizing these audiences? Underpinning all of that across both, look at a lot about the overall financial performance in terms of EBITDA and free cash flow. We are a very cash-generative business, and as we evolve this, we're going to continue to be. That then translates, of course, to driving returns for shareholders over the long and short term. We look at every one of those components as we manage this portfolio.
Perfect. Let's talk a little bit more about the platform's business.
Yep.
Platforms grew high single digits in the first quarter, led by GolfNow and Fandango. How would you rank order the drivers of that growth, and how much of it do you view as structural versus more dependent on things like the film slate, consumer activity?
Sure
timing?
Yeah. I think the biggest driver in the quarter, as well as I think long term, is just overall transaction volume. That is the total number of golf rounds that are booked in GolfNow, the total number of courses that we're in who are using our software, or in Fandango, it would be ticketing volume, home entertainment purchases at home. This transaction volume is really about more and more people engaging with these platforms. It's a great thing. It's exactly what we want to see because as you have more and more folks engaged, there's more ways that we can obviously share new services with them. We can monetize them more broadly, and that's been the fundamental driver. Now, in terms of the, as you mentioned, whether there's a cyclical component or it's like, I'll almost call it more foundational.
There's going to be certain elements, yes, where there's a cyclical component, but it's really focused perhaps mostly on Fandango, where there's the theatrical slate, which obviously as a theatrical slate, some years are bigger, broader, and some years are not. There's a little bit of quarter-to-quarter volatility and sometimes a little year to year. I think the key, though, is that A, in golf, it's a different story where golf doesn't really have that. We've developed this multifaceted business model where there's tee times, there's software, there's subscription services. In that, it's more of a play on the overall golf ecosystem. There's not one thing that's really driving it in isolation. In Fandango as well, where, yes, there's an element which has this impact on the slate. We're broadening that, too. We've extended into software for cinema operators. We're launching an AVOD service.
Again, those are not dependent on the slate. I think the key here is it's foundational what's driving it. While there may be a little bit of quarter-to-quarter volatility because of some of the cyclicality, over time, the long-term growth is foundational in nature, and I think even over time, you'll see even that cyclical nature kind of start to diminish, where the dependency, say, on Fandango and the slate becomes less because we're developing these other revenue streams.
That makes sense. Let's unpack golf a little bit more, because that seems to me as one of the clearer proof points of the broader vertical strategy. Maybe you could talk a little bit about what needs to happen for GolfNow to materially increase penetration from here.
Sure. I think there's really two big things on GolfNow. First, just to put the context. Market leader, we're very proud of our golf performance, but we still represent less than 10% of all tee times booked. One is that is a metric that we think there's a ton of room to grow, and that's probably in many ways the most important one. Who we compete with is we don't really compete with other digital competitors. We're competing with the telephone.
Yeah.
We have an advantaged way for consumers to book their tee times. This is all about driving that higher, and then that's also related to the second component, which is how many golf courses are we in? We're in about 25% of golf courses. Again, there's an opportunity for that number to be a lot higher, and importantly, that's 25% of golf courses, traditional golf courses you play, and we call on-grass. There's a lot of now off-grass. This would be the simulator experiences that are really popping up in a lot of environments where, again, our service is very relevant. Again, it's getting our service into those areas, into those venues to a greater and greater extent. I think those two work hand-in-hand.
As we are in more and more venues, you'll see us get more and more rounds, and then within each venue, we can increase the share. We're going to do that fundamentally by investing in some sales efforts. This is an area pre-spin. We, again, as part of a bigger company with other priorities, we didn't really have as much of some of the resources which we're now investing in because it's very much about working with the golf operators, working with the courses to get into them, and also to have a greater share of their tee times, which is really beneficial for us and beneficial for the course operators.
Yeah. Perfect. Maybe switching gears a little bit to Fandango. Seems like there's a lot going on over there because you have ticketing, home entertainment, FandangoONE, Rotten Tomatoes, and as you alluded to, the upcoming AVOD service. What's the long-term financial model that you're trying to build around that brand, and how much of that opportunity can become recurring software or ad-supported versus purely transactional?
Sure. The overall framework for Fandango is where we really want to take it, and we are taking it from a business that was movie ticketing, and that was the origins of Fandango. Maybe five, six years ago, as part of Comcast, we added on a home entertainment where you could buy and rent movies and television series at home. Our strategy is to make it a broader general entertainment platform. The AVOD service that I mentioned before in terms of enabling customers to now watch things at no cost for ads. In addition, as again, as part of this entertainment platform, we have a business-to-business component with what we call now FandangoONE, which was INDY Cinema previously.
That's an opportunity for us to service exhibitors and really service them and we have a cloud software solution that helps them run their business. You'll see even more opportunities when Fandango, again, now looking at it from a consumer lens to watch everything they want. Again, if you think about it with Fandango, one of the reasons we're so excited about this evolution is we're the only company that can offer a consumer, do you want to watch a first-run film in theater? We got you. You can buy the tickets through us. Do you want to watch something at home that may have just been in the theater just a few weeks ago? You can do that, and it could be a TV series or a film for a fee without ads.
Do you want to watch something at home with a few ads that may be a different type of title, may have been released a little longer ago? We're giving consumers full choice, and they can access content however they want. Nobody else can do that. We think, again, in terms of creating this broader entertainment platform for consumers on various different types of content with a tremendous brand that they love, along with Rotten Tomatoes, which gives you perspective on what do other people think about what you're watching and helps you discover great content. It's a very unique value proposition that we're very excited about.
Is there anything more you could share about the AVOD platform and just how you're thinking about its competitive positioning with some pretty meaningful operators out there?
Sure. We have a lot of respect for some of the competitors. They've done very well. We think that also, A, validates the opportunity. This is one thing broadly, structurally, AVOD is growing. There is clearly some wallet fatigue that's with consumers between the various SVOD services and pay TV. This notion of watching good content for free with some ads, consumers have accepted. It's a growing market. In terms of our positioning with it, we think we have some notable advantages. First, we're ubiquitously already distributed on connected TVs, and that's a big deal because that's obviously how consumers want to access it. B, we have a brand that consumers know and love. I already mentioned Rotten Tomatoes from a discovery perspective, another brand they know and love and trust. We also then have relationships with studios to secure programming that's not our own.
Again, we're starting with a great base of programming that we're going to harness on the platform. Great library content and new content that we develop. It gives us a window to establish it and again, give consumers a window to access it. If you look at that, and I already mentioned the use case in a way from a consumer where we're going to have the AVOD as part of a broader ecosystem that really nobody else has. You put all that together and I will say, finally, we're not going to just be a me-too service. We're going to have representing genres that we are particularly strong at. We're going to have a point of view and kind of a curated approach that'll be a little different than others, or frankly, very different than others.
I think you put all of that together, it's a very unique value proposition that we would argue really nobody else has in a market that's growing. Also finally, I'll just wrap up by saying this is foundationally done by a lot of our own research with our own customers. We have a ton of Fandango customers. We've asked, and they've told us they want this service. We know there's rock-solid consumer demand that we're not guessing on, that it's proven.
Yeah. Personally, I think almost all my theatrical decision-making is tied to Rotten Tomatoes, and so there you go.
Excellent.
There you go.
Great. Love to hear it. Glad you're a customer.
Yeah. Maybe switching over to the CNBC side, I want to ask about Stock Story.
Maybe you could talk a little bit about how it helps to expand the direct consumer opportunity beyond what CNBC could build organically, and what financial lever matters most to you in terms of higher paid conversion, higher ARPU, better retention, deeper engagement? Is this really about reaching a broader retail investor audience?
Sure. StockStory was fundamentally about not changing what CNBC, and particularly the CNBC D2C is going to be, but accelerating the development of it. Just if you're not familiar with what StockStory is, it's a service that leverages AI to develop investor tools, some stock recommendations, really be able to provide the wealth of financial information in a way that's easy for consumers to access it at their fingertips. Those capabilities, as we're building the D2C service for CNBC, are obviously front and center of what we want to do. Again, this accelerated the development of it. Importantly, it's not only about the feature sets that StockStory has today. We have a team now on board that is very familiar with using AI and using technology to create these consumer experiences.
As you can imagine, AI is evolving so rapidly, we are going to continue to develop more and more ways for consumers to subscribe to our service to be able to get tremendous amounts of information in ways that they can digest, and very importantly, also personalized for them, which I think is a big benefit of AI. Now, as you were asking, I guess the other part of this was, well, how do we look at what's most important as we build the D2C?
Yeah.
One of the answers, well, all of the things you mentioned are obviously important, whether it's audience or engagement or monetization. I think in the early days, we're very focused on audience conversion and engagement. Because I think once we have folks, and we know there's, again, a big population that really loves our brand and wants this service, our ability to bring them in, for them to use the platform significantly, that's then going to lead to audience scale and then financial scale. Those are the metrics, and part of that is bringing them in and then retaining them. Again, a service like StockStory is a big part of it because it both gives them an ability to access a ton of information in ways they want, and it keeps the daily habit of them using the service. It reinforces that.
If I was to pick three in the early days, number of converting audience to bringing them on board, how much they're watching, and then how well we're doing retaining them.
Perfect. Maybe just sticking with direct-to-consumer and maybe roping in MS NOW. You said previously that investments here are not substantial.
Maybe from a CFO standpoint, where are the major spend buckets between product, technology, content, marketing, or anything else that you'd call out? What milestones would cause you to maybe step up or moderate those investments? As part of this direct-to-consumer conversation, how do you make sure that the product is additive to the ecosystem rather than cannibalistic to the linear networks that you have?
Sure. I'll take them in pieces. First is the economics.
Yeah.
We're starting off where we have a lot of the infrastructure in place. Let's just from a technology perspective. We have video services existing with CNBC has CNBC Pro and CNBC+. We have some big digital publishing businesses in MS NOW and CNBC, and we have Fandango, which we just talked about, which has a big video infrastructure. We're harnessing what we already have. Then we also obviously have a lot of our own programming and talent that we will harness for these, that are cost that we've already incurred. There's not really that much incremental cost. Where we will spend, and that's one of the reasons why the total investment is not huge. Where we will spend and where we spend some is, A, on product and design.
We want to create an interface and a way for consumers to interact, which is bespoke to the needs of this product. Also on marketing and acquiring customers. A lot of where I think you typically see a ton of the money spent, we've already have those capabilities in-house. That's what makes this inherently a very efficient model. What was the second part of that?
The second part was about how do you make sure that it's additive to the ecosystem.
Yeah
as opposed to cannibalistic to the linear network?
Sure. I think the key here is that we're not replicating the linear bundle and just moving it online. It's not what we want to do. It's not, frankly, what we think consumers want. These are going to be bespoke experiences that are attracting customers with a value proposition that's different, that again, that's true to the brand. Let's take CNBC just to start there. It is a service targeted at a retail investor. Will it have some of our programming that CNBC has? Sure, it'll have some, but it's not just going to be that. It's going to be tools and recommendations and unique editorial that's going to help investors make smarter and smarter decisions, with a brand they trust, with talent that they know. And we talked about StockStory, that's some AI capabilities.
As you can imagine, that inherently, because it's a different experience complementary to what they can, in this case, see on CNBC, our television network, but it's not the same.
Yeah.
With that, it almost inherently is not going to be cannibalistic, and it's very similar with MS NOW, too. With MS NOW, it fundamentally is a service that's going to be built around community. It's about community currently loyal MS NOW viewers and even non-viewers who really love the brand. Again, a brand and talent that really resonate with people. The thing we've heard from our customers is they want ways to, A, interact with one another, and they also want ways to have experiences with the talent. That could be like a virtual lunch where they get to ask a question. As you can imagine, as I talk about that, those are not capabilities that you would get watching MS NOW on TV. It's a unique experience, and we've seen this already. If you think about other ways of products we've built, like on MS NOW.
We have podcasts on MS NOW, like Rachel Maddow has a highly successful podcast, for example. That provides a different experience than what you're going to get watching Rachel on MS NOW, the network. We've seen every time we develop these, we're able to take our loyal viewers and give them more and capture new customers, and that's exactly what we're going to do with the D2C.
Yeah. Be interesting to use AI and offer consumers ability to argue with Sorkin and give us ups. I'm sure we'll get there eventually. Let's switch gears to the linear side, even though I know that you're trying to diversify and grow outside the linear ecosystem. For investors, I think pay TV headwinds remain a big concern. You've talked about before planning conservatively around those headwinds. What does conservative mean in practice to your distribution revenue assumptions, programming commitments, SG&A structure, and free cash flow planning?
Sure. When we say conservative, we're not assuming that there is a pay TV industry recovery. What we're assuming is the trends that we've seen, which have been pretty consistent over the last several years, continue. We think that's a safe bet. You could make arguments that it could be better than that. We've seen some signs of some folks, some distributors are seeing some more favorable and positive subscriber momentum. We think the better way for us to run our business is to assume that it continues. It's possible that just in reality, it does, and frankly, we want to manage our cost base, assuming that the continued trends that they don't change.
What that means, maybe more specifically, is that on linear distribution revenue, you'd have the subscriber, the cord cutting that we've been seeing, then it would be partially offset by some rate changes on our wholesale deals with our pay TV partners. That's exactly what you've seen over the last several years in our financials. We're managing the cost base in response to that. On programming costs, the key there is, yes, sports rights are more fixed, but everything else is pretty flexible, and we will modify programming costs in response to the overall revenue outlook. SG&A, again, also, we recognize the realities of the secular changes impacting pay TV. We're very focused on efficiency, and we've set up the company on day one to be very shared services focused. Not a lot of resources at each brand other than editorial.
We're leveraging technology and automation to continue to drive as much efficiency out of the cost base as possible. That's how we're running it, and the focus as you put all of that together is this is a very cash generative business, and we're running it to continue to be very cash generating for a long time. I think that shows up in our numbers, and we think that's the best way to drive long-term shareholder value.
Absolutely. Before we get to capital allocation and M&A, just two more on linear pay TV. A meaningful portion of your subscriber base is covered by distribution agreements extending into 2028 and beyond, which is really encouraging. I guess, how should investors think about the renewal cadence between now and then, especially as skinny bundles and vMVPD packages continue to evolve?
Sure. Just to put the numbers out there, we have about 16% of our subscriber base is up in this year. We got roughly about a quarter up next year, the balance is 2028 and beyond. The fact that we have such a large percentage secured 2028 and beyond obviously gives us a lot of confidence in the business. One important point is many of those deals in 2028 and beyond were secured after the spin was announced. It highlights that the counterparties knew we were spinning, and with that, our brands and our networks are powerful, and we were able to secure terms we're very pleased with. It leads into the second part of that, which is the skinny bundle. I think as you go forward in these negotiations, we've seen it.
In the old days, the primary negotiating points were, "Okay, I have this big bundle," and we'll negotiate terms around that, what the rate side is, what the duration is. Increasingly, it's more about these other packages. I think in those other packages, you want to be heavy on news and sports. It's what audiences love, it's what distributors love, it's what advertisers love. 60% of our total ratings are news and sports, and our biggest networks are in news and sports. MS NOW, CNBC, USA, Golf. We're very well-positioned for this environment, and you've seen it in reality. Those deals that we did, say, on YouTube and some of the different packaging contracts they have, our biggest networks are within them. We're very confident about our portfolio as we go into these negotiations in the quarters and years to come.
Perfect. You mentioned advertising, so that's a good segue. Maybe you could talk a little bit about what you're seeing in the underlying ad market today across Versant's portfolio, and what gives you confidence that the company can grow its share of advertiser budgets over time?
I think the ad market right now is solid. We're seeing strong demand, and if you look at it, again, strong demand in news and sports. We've got great ratings there kind of across the portfolio as well, and we're monetizing those ratings. Like just to pick on one, like MS NOW ratings are way up year over year. We're very pleased by that, and we're able to monetize it. As you look again, if you're an advertiser, you want to be on MS NOW, you want to be on CNBC, it is the place for business. You want golf, we're synonymous with golf and our sports you can't get anywhere else. Again, premium entertainment as well. We've seen strength across the portfolio. We feel very good about where things are at on advertising.
I think for us too, as we go forward, it's not just about television, it's also about digital and we're creating new inventory in digital. I'd mentioned going forward, the AVOD, for example, will produce new inventory. We have free TV networks, which is not digital per se, but it's a different type of inventory that we have. The D2C services will have new digital inventory. I think again, we feel good on where the ad market is now, and then as you look at the evolution in the business going forward, we think we're going to continue to be a must-buy for advertisers, both in the traditional network world and increasingly in the digital and platform world as well.
You're presumably fairly well-positioned into year-end with political. As I think about it now, when we look at some of the capital markets activity that seems to be coming in the tape in the coming months, a lot of retail-heavy deals.
Yeah.
All that bodes well for ratings and monetization.
Yeah, particularly. You're right. On both, like on the political side, that will really help MS NOW ratings. We'll get some political advertising. To be fair, political advertising, a lot is local station driven, which we don't have. A lot of it is just gives us overall ratings, more ratings to sell, and we're seeing a lot of demand for that ratings. You're 100% right on CNBC. The retail investor orientation, some of the IPOs will drive ratings. If you just look also at CNBC, just to maybe toot our own horn for a bit, like some of the access we've had where we just interviewed people in the administration, Donald Trump was on. We've interviewed, obviously, Jeff Bezos, we interviewed Warren Buffett just over the last several months.
That access is really showing up in terms of people are watching. Brands also love the ability to say, "This is the kind of content I want to be associated with." It helps with ratings. It also really drives advertiser demand.
Perfect. I want to hit on capital allocation and M&A, because I think that's certainly an interesting and important part of the story. You initiated a dividend, you completed a $100 million buyback in Q1 and announced $100 million ASR. What should investors infer from this cadence, and how do you decide the pace of repurchases versus preserving flexibility for organic investments in M&A?
Sure. I'm going to start with saying we've had a consistent and disciplined capital allocation methodology or strategy. That's been from the day we were formed, even before, it's what we will, what we have, and it's what's, I think, always going to be. Three prongs to that. First, we want a conservative and great balance sheet, and I say first just in order, but they're not in order. We're going to do all three of them, and we have been doing all three concurrently. Second, we're going to invest behind growth and really evolving the business model. Third, we're going to return capital to shareholders. That's exactly what we've done, and I think one of the key parts of Versant is that those are not ors between those three statements, they're ands.
I think what you've seen, for example, in the share buyback in Q1 or the ASR or the dividend, as well as the investments we talked about earlier in terms of the organic growth and some of the bolt-on M&A, they represent that that's our ability to do that, and that's what we're going to do going forward as well. Your question about share buybacks. Our methodology is it's not mechanical when we look at share buybacks. We look at a whole host of factors. We looked at the overall market environment. We'll look at growth opportunities for us and what's the best way to drive long-term value for shareholders. We consider all that when we make those decisions. I think the biggest thing is those three principles I mentioned upfront, we're firmly committed to.
Perfect. Two on M&A. Maybe first, you've talked about bolt-ons that strengthen the existing verticals and potentially more transformational moves that could diversify your revenue base. How do the return thresholds differ between those two types of deals, and what financial discipline should investors expect you to apply?
Sure. I think I know. We are very disciplined and really two factors in any M&A. A, it has to be strategically aligned with what we just talked about in terms of our strategies. Just to reiterate, we're focused on the four core markets we're in. Again, just to repeat them, personal finance, business news, political news and opinion, golf, and then general entertainment and sports. We have big brands, really success and market leadership in them. That prism is, we think there's a lot more opportunity there, so we'll look for M&A in those areas. Again, within those areas, we want to extend our audience reach and evolve our business model. That's prism one strategy-wise. Financially, it can hit all those boxes, but it also has to generate very strong returns for us and with high degree of confidence.
Needs to really be able to drive. We need to be confident in the synergies we're going to be realizing through it, cost and revenue.It also needs to fit within that capital allocation criteria that I mentioned, where one of the planks is for us to maintain a conservative, very strong balance sheet. That's going to be, frankly, the discipline, whether it's a small deal or a larger deal. We don't really modulate that. I think the M&A that we've done to date, which is not the really big ones that you referred to, are smaller, but they all go through that exact same methodology. I think you'll see basically every single box that I just articulated is checked. If it happened to be a bigger deal, we'd have the same kind of approach and the same discipline that would be applied.
Perfect. The last one on M&A, I think a question I keep getting is around horizontal M&A.
I think, maybe pre-spin, the expectations or the thought process from the outside was a little bit different. Now it seems as though you guys have been very consistent and very clear.
Yeah
that you're very focused on vertical M&A and kind of strengthening the verticals that, the different brands that you have, as opposed to cobbling up more cable networks.
Yep
Growing that way. Maybe talk a little bit about that approach and why is that the right approach.
Sure.
Any interest in some of these.
Yeah
linear assets.
I'll start with, we feel very confident about our strategy on, as you said, verticals or looking at the four core markets we're in. We think, again, each of those markets is really large in terms of the total available market. We have great brands within them. We have established huge audiences and leadership, and we've demonstrated our success or our ability to be very successful with golf. It's not just academic. There's a reality of what we've done. I want to start with that we think there's a ton of value to be generated there, and again, with the proof point that we just talked about in golf. I think as you then go to how do you compare that to horizontal M&A and our own feelings there.
One, I think sometimes some may overestimate, in my opinion, maybe some of the synergy potential. A lot of the synergies are talked about in terms of big-time cost savings. I know how we have run our portfolio. When we were part of Comcast, we ran it today. We've been very disciplined and focused on costs for years, and we'll continue to be that way. I would presume a lot of the other linear portfolios have similarly managed their business that way. Again, not being there, I can only speak from what I can observe or based on our own experience. I'm not sure then as you look at that, there's maybe that much cost opportunity that is really remaining as you maybe try to combine portfolios.
The other aspect, which may be just more unique to us, is we talked a lot earlier about distribution and how we're positioned or ad market as well. However you want to look at it, sports and news orientation we think is really beneficial and it serves us well. There's obviously a competitor, one of our competitors, whose results speak for themselves with a heavy sports and news focus. I think anything as you look at M&A that dilutes from that is something that we'd have to be pretty careful about. We don't really want to dilute from that. We think that mix serves us well, and I think that's another consideration that has to be in the mix as you think about horizontal M&A.
Makes perfect sense. Maybe just to slowly wrap up, if we look out 12 months from now, what are the two or three proof points that you want investors to point to and say that this vertical platform thesis has worked?
Sure. Maybe I'll just mention three.
Yeah.
I think first, we've talked a lot about the evolution of the business model. I think we'll see that in terms of the percentage of our total revenues that come from outside of pay TV. We've talked about that metric and it's 19% for 2025, and we've put out there that we want that to be 33% over three to five years and long-term, 50/50. Over a 12-month horizon, seeing continued progress on that. Within the same category, I think that'll show up in terms of platform revenue growth, and seeing continued. You mentioned earlier that we saw very strong performance in Q1 and we're very bullish here and continued strong performance in that area. Those are one category.
Two may be related to that, but also now thinking more audience, really about customer engagement, both on pay TV but also outside of pay TV. We've talked a lot about extending our reach and extending engagement. Another thing, say over 12 months, is that we're successfully reaching people and people are engaging across all these platforms. They're listening to more podcasts. We've launched the D2C services and they're engaging there. They're continuing to watch good amounts of television, and we're delivering great content there. That's another to me on the evolution to, again, to see that audience reach extension and to see the multi-platform engagement. The third component as you bring those first two things together in some ways is to demonstrate that we have a very cash-generating, very resilient business model and to show.
That means EBITDA, free cash flow, and to show very strong results there. That's exactly how we're running the business is to do all three of those things, and I think that that's how I'll be looking at it.
Perfect. Well, Anand, this was very insightful. I really appreciate it. Thanks so much.
Great. Thank you very much.
Yeah, thanks.