Warner Bros. Discovery, Inc.

Warner Bros. Discovery, Inc.

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Warner Bros. Discovery, Inc. (WBD) Q1 2013 Earnings Call Transcript

Published at 2013-05-07 14:10:07
Executives
Craig Felenstein David M. Zaslav - Chief Executive Officer, President, Director and Member of Executive Committee Andrew C. Warren - Chief Financial Officer and Senior Executive Vice President
Analysts
David Bank - RBC Capital Markets, LLC, Research Division Todd Juenger - Sanford C. Bernstein & Co., LLC., Research Division Douglas D. Mitchelson - Deutsche Bank AG, Research Division Benjamin Swinburne - Morgan Stanley, Research Division Michael Nathanson - Nomura Securities Co. Ltd., Research Division Jessica Reif Cohen - BofA Merrill Lynch, Research Division Richard Greenfield - BTIG, LLC, Research Division John Janedis - UBS Investment Bank, Research Division Anthony J. DiClemente - Barclays Capital, Research Division Michael C. Morris - Davenport & Company, LLC, Research Division Tuna N. Amobi - S&P Equity Research
Operator
Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Q1 2013 Discovery Communications, Inc. Earnings Conference Call. My name is Allison, and I'll be your operator for today. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this call is being recorded for replay purposes. I'd now like to turn the call over to Mr. Craig Felenstein, Executive Vice President of Investor Relations. Please proceed, sir.
Craig Felenstein
Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us for Discovery Communications' 2013 First Quarter Earnings Call. Joining me today is David Zaslav, our President and Chief Executive Officer; and Andy Warren, our Chief Financial Officer. You should have received our earnings release. But if not, feel free to access it on our website at www.discoverycommunications.com. On today's call, we will begin with some opening comments from David and Andy, after which, we will open the call up for your questions. [Operator Instructions] Before we start, I would like to remind you that comments today regarding the company's future business plans, prospects and financial performance are forward-looking statements that we make pursuant to the Safe Harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements are made based on management's current knowledge and assumptions about future events, and they involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from our expectations. In providing projections and other forward-looking statements, the company disclaims any intent or obligation to update them. For additional information on important factors that could affect these expectations, please see our annual report for the year ended December 31, 2012 and our subsequent filings made with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. And with that, I would like to turn the call over to David. David M. Zaslav: Thank you, Craig. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. Discovery is off to another great start in 2013, building on the sustained operating momentum we generated across our balanced portfolio throughout 2012. Our unwavering belief that investing in high-quality content with real stakes, superior storytelling and compelling characters is paramount to long-term value creation continues to pay off. The larger audiences we are delivering around the world are translating into significant advertising gains, while at the same time, the appeal of our content is providing additional opportunities to capitalize on our diverse distribution platform and the further evolution of the global pay television market. As we focus on capturing market share and maximizing the full organic growth potential inherent in our asset portfolio, we're also beginning to dig into the operations of our recent acquisitions, so we can create additional value and further strengthen our long-term sustainable growth profile. With our strong market share growth and the recent acquisitions, we now reach more than 2 billion subscribers, up from 1.8 billion last year. Before I turn the call over to Andy, so he can take you through our financial results, let me take a few minutes to discuss a few of the initiatives driving our strong organic growth, as well as some of the opportunities we expect to focus on as we integrate our newly acquired businesses. I mentioned on our year-end call that we have delivered 4 consecutive years of viewership growth across our domestic portfolio, and that momentum has certainly continued into 2013 as we delivered the best first quarter in the company's history. Viewership across our U.S. Networks was up 3% this past quarter among key adult 25 to 54 demo, led by the growth at our flagship network, the Discovery Channel. Discovery built upon its record fourth quarter with 10% growth in Q1, led by Gold Rush, Bering Sea Gold and Yukon Men, all of which contributed to Discovery's #1 ranking on Friday nights in the quarter, outpacing even the broadcast networks. Several of our other networks also delivered meaningful growth this past quarter, including Animal Planet, which increased its audience another 6%, building upon the 17% growth it generated in 2012 and making it a top 20 network for men in the U.S. In fact, Animal Planet has now delivered 16 consecutive months of growth. Among its key demo and with returning hits like River Monsters capturing more viewers than it did a year ago, the network is poised for continued success. Two of our recently re-branded networks are also continuing to show real audience gains. Destination America is quickly becoming a lifestyle destination for viewers, with double-digit growth this past quarter, following its 35% growth in 2012. And Velocity, while in only 45 million homes, grew its viewership by over 50% year-on-year, delivering a highly coveted upscale audience to our advertisers. Driving the potential of our valuable distribution real estate by investing in new brands and breaking new ground that ignites viewers' curiosity remains a priority, and we will continue to invest incrementally in these new networks if they demonstrate the ability to attract larger audiences and deliver real value to our advertisers. Similarly, our domestic joint ventures are also continuing to develop their audiences. The Hub was up over 50% this past quarter among kids 2 to 11 for total day. Separately, OWN viewership was up 3% in its key women 25 to 54 demo despite the difficult comparisons to a year ago, which included the highest viewed program in the network's history, Oprah's interview with Whitney Houston's daughter. OWN's viewership momentum ratcheted up again in April as viewership grew 9%, led by returning favorite, Iyanla: Fix My Life, and new hits such us Life with La Toya and Raising Whitley. In fact, these 3 series helped propel OWN to a top 10 ranking among all cable networks for the month on Saturday nights in its key women 25 to 54 demo, and #1 in African-American women, including the broadcasters. And that is without Oprah on Saturday. It's a great achievement. Looking forward, OWN has a great slate of new content scheduled for the remainder of the year, including 2 new series from our partner, Tyler Perry, set to launch at the end of May, and they both look strong. Tyler has been working very hard down in Atlanta to bring us 2 great new series. We are very confident we will reach our previously stated goal of cash flow breakeven during the second half of this year. The ratings momentum we are generating across our portfolio and the sustained health of the ad market have not only give us a terrific start to 2013, but it also puts us in a great position heading into what we hope will be a robust upfront. We recently completed our upfront presentations to advertisers. And while it is too early to predict where we ultimately will end up, with strong scatter volumes, scatter pricing well above last year's upfront, sustained ratings momentum across our networks, from what I think is unquestionably the best ad sales team in the business, we expect to see significant increases in this year's upfront. The market share and sustained financial growth we are seeing domestically is playing out even more dramatically internationally, where we have made targeted content investments to capitalize on our unparalleled distribution platform and the further penetration of pay television. We are certainly benefiting from our expanding subscriber base, with overall subs up 12% versus a year ago, led by Latin America as well as India and Russia. But we are also driving viewership with a more robust content offering due to the global investment we have made over the last several years. We've worked hard to capitalize on opportunities that our broad distribution provides, whether it is expanding the reach of our female flagship, TLC, now in 160 countries, including the U.K. as of April 30, and 300 million homes, making TLC the most distributed women's TV brand in the world; or capitalizing on the global demand for investigative and forensic content by broadening ID's reach to over 150 countries in just the last 12 months; or by recognizing the opportunity for kids programming across Asia and leveraging our top-rated channel in Brazil, Discovery Kids. The combination of a stronger programming portfolio, along with double-digit subscriber growth, resulted in overall viewership growth of 16% across our international portfolio. And this expansion is not confined to one geographic area. We generated double-digit increases across nearly every region, led by Italy and Spain in Western Europe, Mexico and Brazil in Latin America, and Russia and South Africa in our CEEMEA region. The success we have had in growing our audiences speaks to the local market experience we have gained from operating in many of these markets for nearly 25 years. And we are now utilizing that knowledge base to help drive real synergies from our recent transactions. Having launched our first international network in the Nordic region over 2 decades ago, we have deep-rooted experience in these countries. Aside from having built a broad distribution base, we have fostered brand loyalty and developed the critical relationships that come from working in local markets for many, many years. The networks we acquired from SBS are also extremely well positioned and provide an excellent complement to our nonfiction channels in terms of genre appeal and demographic reach. Combined, the newly created SBS Discovery Media business in the Nordics has significant market power. The acquisition closed last month, and I was in Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Finland last week. And we are already exploring ways to expand our content portfolio and take significant advantage of the attractive consumer demographics these networks deliver. On the revenue side, we have met with advertisers throughout the region, and it is readily apparent that the depth and quality of our content portfolio will enable us to drive ad revenues across these platforms over time. And on the core side, we are already seeing the benefit of promoting Discovery's wide range of programming across the reach of our newly acquired content assets. We have also begun to deliver on the opportunities associated with owning a 20% interest in Eurosport Group, including the creation of a joint affiliate sales organization to capitalize on the local distribution relationships Discovery has established over the last 20 years. Similarly, in a number of markets, we are starting to explore how Discovery's local ad sales knowledge can provide a rich complement to Eurosport's almost solely pan-European sales capability. The good news is, we are just beginning to scratch the surface of the benefits associated with these new assets. And we're confident that we will further strengthen the tremendous platform Discovery has built over the last 2 decades. It's important to note that our international organic growth story remains totally intact. And these transactions further bolster our long-term outlook by deepening our geographic footprint, broadening our portfolio with new networks and brands and enhancing our creative pipeline with new talent, personalities and formats. Overall, Discovery is off to another strong start in 2013. And given the market share we are capturing worldwide, the organic growth opportunities across our global distribution platform and the synergies we expect to exploit due to our recent acquisitions, we fully expect to build on our momentum for the foreseeable future. And now, let me turn the call over to Andy. Andrew C. Warren: Thanks, David, and thank you, everyone, for joining us today. As David mentioned, Discovery is off to a great start to the year, building upon the strong results we delivered throughout 2012 as we leverage both the large audiences that we're generating around the globe, as well as our increasing international subscriber base. On a reported basis, total company revenue in the first quarter increased 7%, led by 17% international growth and 1% domestic growth. Note that domestically, the prior year included $45 million of additional licensing revenue primarily related to our licensing deal with Amazon. Excluding licensing revenue and the impact of foreign currency, the total company revenue growth was 12%, with double-digit gains in both advertising and affiliate revenue. Total operating expenses on a reported basis increased 14%, primarily due to higher content amortization that we have previously discussed. The current quarter also included a onetime compensation expense, as well as additional duty-related costs associated with our acquisition of the SBS Nordic business. Eliminating $8 million of licensing costs in the prior year and the impact from foreign currency movements, total company expenses increased 13% versus the first quarter last year. Importantly, given the higher content amortization and the timing of anticipated marketing spend, it is expected that operating expense growth excluding the impact of wholly-owned acquisitions will remain in the mid-teen range for the next 2 quarters before meaningfully abating in Q4. On a reported basis, adjusted OIBDA in the first quarter declined slightly. But excluding the licensing agreements and the impact of foreign exchange, Discovery's continued ability to generate revenue growth in excess of expenses translated into an 8% increase in adjusted OIBDA for the quarter. Net income from continuing operations increased to $231 million in the first quarter, driven by the strong operating performance, as well as the $92 million gain associated with raising our ownership interest in Discovery Japan to 80%. The quarter also included $46 million of higher equity earnings, primarily due to significantly improved results at OWN. These items were partially offset by $59 million of losses associated with foreign exchange contracts implemented to hedge the purchase of SBS Nordic, $21 million of higher mark-to-market equity-based compensation due to the increase in the stock price and $26 million of higher tax expense. As I mentioned last quarter, we are in the process of restructuring our international operations to ultimately lower our effective tax rate over time. But the current year, we still anticipate an ETR of around 38%. Free cash flow decreased to $105 million in the first quarter, primarily due to higher content investment, as well as increased equity compensation payments and the timing of cash taxes. The programming spend continues to pay off in terms of ratings momentum and higher advertising revenue, but we still anticipate content spend growth to slow down considerably for the full year, which should contribute to significant free cash flow growth for 2013. Turning now to the operating units. The U.S. Networks continued to perform well during the first quarter. On a reported basis, total domestic revenue increased only 1%, as 8% advertising revenue growth from viewership gains across our portfolio and a favorable ad sales pricing and demand environment were partially offset by 9% lower affiliate revenue due to the additional $45 million of licensing revenue in last year's first quarter that I spoke about earlier. Excluding licensing revenue, total domestic revenue improved 8% versus a year ago, with affiliate revenue increasing 6% due to higher rates and to a lesser extent, additional digital subscribers. It is important to note, though our licensing revenues were down in the first quarter, we do anticipate a meaningful increase in either the second or third quarters due to the third year of the Netflix agreement. Current ad market trends continue to be encouraging, with double-digit scatter pricing, above the gains that we garnered during last year's upfront negotiations. We have some nice ratings momentum across many of our networks. With the healthy macro environment continuing, we anticipate continued high single-digit ad growth in the second quarter of 2013. Turning to the cost side. Domestic operating expenses were up 8% from the first quarter 2012, which included $8 million of additional costs associated with digital licensing agreements. Excluding these costs, operating expenses increased 11% compared to a year ago, primarily due to the expected higher content amortization associated with the increased programming cash spend over the past 2 years. On a reported basis, domestic adjusted OIBDA declined 5% versus last year's first quarter. But excluding the impact of licensing agreements, adjusted OIBDA increased 6% year-on-year. Turning now to our international operations. We continue to deliver strong momentum across our global operations, with reported revenues expanding 17%, led by 23% ad and 15% affiliate growth. Excluding the impact of exchange rates as well as additional advertising sales from the acquisitions of wholly-owned businesses, total revenue growth was 16%, with advertising and affiliate revenues increasing 17% and 15%, respectively. The advertising revenue growth was broad-based, with double-digit growth across nearly every region, led by Western Europe, mainly from the continued success of several of our free-to-air initiatives, particularly in Italy and Spain. On the affiliate front, the revenue increase was driven by subscriber growth, especially in Latin America, from the continued growth in Brazil and Mexico, as well as from the consolidation of Discovery Japan. Operating costs internationally were up 24% on a reported basis. Excluding costs in the acquisitions of wholly-owned businesses and the impact of foreign exchange, operating expense growth was up 17%, primarily driven by the anticipated increase in content amortization, as well as from the consolidation of Discovery Japan. Our international segment delivered 13% adjusted OIBDA growth in the first quarter excluding foreign currency and the impact of acquiring wholly-owned businesses, as our international team continued to generate strong revenue increases while thoughtfully investing in key growth initiatives. Before we look forward to the remainder of 2013, I do want to mention that the first quarter also included a couple onetime corporate costs related to compensation and the SBS transaction, which we closed at the beginning of April this year. Turning to the full year, we are encouraged by the sustained momentum across the portfolio and the continued strong ad sales pricing and demand environment in many of our key markets. As a result, we were leaving our guidance unchanged despite the SBS transaction closing over 1 month later than originally planned. For the full year 2013, we still expect total revenues to be between $5.575 billion and $5.7 billion, adjusted OIBDA between $2.425 billion and $2.525 billion and an income between $1.2 billion and $1.3 billion. Given the delayed timing of the SBS close, it is now less likely that we will be towards the top end of these ranges, but given the momentum across our businesses, these ranges remain possible outcomes. We do anticipate narrowing these guidance ranges on our second quarter earnings call. Turning to our financial position. With a strong balance sheet and continued financial and operating momentum, we remain committed to further building our core businesses so that we can drive additional long-term growth and enhance shareholder returns, be it through investing in existing networks and platforms or through exploring external initiatives. While that is our first priority, given the strong free cash flow that we are generating, our gross leverage targets and our long-range free cash flow per share growth assumptions, we have the unique opportunity to both continue returning capital to shareholders and also investing in our businesses. As previously discussed, given the capital needs associated with the timing and closing of the SBS transaction, we did not begin buying back shares this year until the second quarter. But we still anticipate returning similar amounts of capital to shareholders through buybacks in 2013 that we did in 2012. Our buyback activity during the second quarter includes $256 million of preferred stock associated with the advanced Newhouse transaction that we announced last quarter, which is part of the total anticipated share repurchases this year but was not done under the existing $4 billion authorized share repurchase plan. Since we began buying back shares towards the end of 2010, we have spent over $3 billion buying back shares, reducing the outstanding share count by over 78 million shares or 18%. Thanks again for your time this morning. Now David and I will be happy to answer any questions that you may have.
Operator
[Operator Instructions] And your first question comes from the line of David Bank of RBC Capital Markets. David Bank - RBC Capital Markets, LLC, Research Division: Two questions, I guess the first is under the category of no good deed goes unpunished. 8% ad revenue growth is obviously really strong, but when you think about the pricing you achieved in the upfront, the pricing in the scatter market, the ratings momentum you've achieved, I'm kind of curious, like, what are the other factors that are sort of arguably maybe holding back that ad revenue from being a little bit stronger given all those factors? And the second question is, I guess more for Andy, can you just clarify the impact of the Japan consolidation on both the revenue and expenses in the international division? David M. Zaslav: Great. Thanks, David. Well, we delivered a little over 8% this quarter, which we felt very good about. We had market share growth of 3%. The market was strong, it was up about 20% from the upfront. But we also began seeding a number of our new networks with advertisers, and we still have a ways to go in terms of bringing up the CPM on some channels like Animal Planet, that's now a top 20 channel for men; ID, that's the #9 channel in America and continues to grow. So it's going to -- we'll continue to get some additional growth out of that. This quarter continues to look strong, maybe even a little bit stronger than last quarter in terms of pricing. So if we continue to grow our market share, I think you'll see us in the high single, low double in domestic. Andrew C. Warren: Okay. And David, just to add to that, just remember, last year, U.S. ad sales was up 13%. So on a 2-year basis, it's tremendous year-over-year growth. And to answer your question about Japan, we're not actually separating or splitting it out separately or quantifying it because it is a business we were in before with 50% investment, and we only increased that to 80%. So on a very bottom line basis, it's a fairly de minimis impact. But broadly speaking, as far as the impact on revenue and expenses, for the whole company, it's less than 1 point. So I'd just give you a sense of its size, it's relatively insignificant on a total company basis. David Bank - RBC Capital Markets, LLC, Research Division: Okay. So you wouldn't say it really impacted international operations then, is that... Andrew C. Warren: Well, it is consolidated within those numbers, but the impact is fairly small. As I said, it's really less than 1 point for the total company on both revenue, expense and profit.
Operator
And your next question comes from the line of Todd Juenger of Sanford Bernstein. Todd Juenger - Sanford C. Bernstein & Co., LLC., Research Division: If I could follow up just a little bit back to domestic ad growth. I know you don't -- and I'm not expecting that you would disclose anything sort of at a network level, but I wondered if you just would share any comments about sort of the difference between what I'd call the flagship networks versus your digital tier networks. A lot of the ratings growth, as you pointed out, is coming from the digital tier networks. We know they have lower CPMs. I just wonder, when you think about the whole growth of 8%, would you be willing to characterize sort of was the mid-tier networks growing sort of faster than that and the flagship networks growing slower, or any way you can help us decompose how we think about the growth rates of those different life cycles of networks? David M. Zaslav: Sure, thanks, Todd. First, Discovery had a good quarter. It was up about 10%, which was very strong, with a lot of new series. And Discovery's mostly male, and we were able to take advantage of that. TLC was down about 1% or essentially flat. The industry itself was down 2%, so TLC did a little bit better than the industry, but we had less premieres in the first quarter. We're coming back with Long Island Medium, we're coming back with Breaking Amish in the summer, Honey Boo Boo will come in. So I think that we expect that we'll see a little bit more momentum on the women's side with TLC. I think that would have helped us. The broadcasters were down significantly in prime and in daytime, and that put a little bit of a squeeze on the women's side. And so we were able to take advantage of that with TLC, but not as much as we would have liked to, and we're hoping to in this next quarter. ID continued to grow because of that. And when you say digital networks, we have TLC and Discovery that are fully distributed. But we also have Animal Planet that's fully distributed. And Animal Planet now is a top 20 network. It's going to take us some time in order to get our CPM up, but we're getting double growth there. It's growing significantly, but also our CPM is growing. So that is a fully distributed network. And when you say digital, we now have ID in over 80 million homes. So 80 million homes, the #9 network in America, #6 network in daytime, #5 in late night, yet we're still not getting the full premium for that. So those would be what I would call kind of our big networks, with Animal Planet and ID providing some meaningful growth no matter what over the next couple of years. And then the smaller networks, one -- we call them emerging because they're continuing to be very fast-growing, but Destination America, Velocity, those do have lower CPMs. And when I said we're seeding, we're trying to get advertisers into them, so they could feel the value of being on those platforms. They could see that we can put up some very strong ratings when we have original content. And once we get them hooked into those channels, we'll be able to drive the CPM on that. So I can't really break it out except to say that I think if we can drive a little bit more of our female demo in the next 6 months, given where a lot of the viewership and advertisers are looking for female, we could maybe over-index more. Todd Juenger - Sanford C. Bernstein & Co., LLC., Research Division: That's very helpful. A quick follow-up, if you don't mind. Back to the -- on the emerging networks, in terms of distribution growth, and there's been a lot of focus on affiliate fees and reset of your negotiations, all that, what is the opportunity there? You've got ratings up strongly at a lot of these emerging networks. You've invested a lot to re-brand a few of them. How real is the opportunity to grow the distribution further, some of those that are in 40 million, 50 million, 60 million homes? David M. Zaslav: Well, we redid only a few of our deals this year. We've talked about the fact that they feather in over the next 5 years. This year was less than 20%, a little bit more than 10%. So it was a lesser percentage, but we were able to get higher increases in those deals. We were able to get more distribution for Science, more distribution for Destination America, more distribution for Military. So when we can pick up higher fees and get more distribution, that's a formula that works very well for us because we get the guaranteed revenue on that extra distribution. But also, we had 2 of the -- 3 of the fastest-growing cable networks in America over the last 3 years has been ID, which has gone from 50 to over 80; Science, which went from 45 to over 72; and Velocity continues to grow aggressively. So if we can get the per sub fees on that, then not only do we get the guaranteed economics, we get the asset value and the ability to get advertising. So we will be looking for that in addition to the very simple what is our actual CAGR on our total sub fee base.
Operator
And your next question comes from the line of Doug Mitchelson of Deutsche Bank. Douglas D. Mitchelson - Deutsche Bank AG, Research Division: I was trying to get to that CAGR on your total sub base. So I wanted to make sure I had the math correct around the domestic affiliate renewals. In the fourth quarter, you had $288 million of domestic affiliate revenue and in the first quarter, you had $308 million, so that's $20 million of growth in 1Q versus 4Q, so that's 6.9%. And in theory, your sub base is, between the 2 quarters, should have been relatively similar and that should have been mostly price. So am I thinking about that right? Did your renewals drive that kind of price acceleration, or is there something unusual on either one of those quarters that hampers the comparison? David M. Zaslav: Well, our renewals, as I've said, it's -- we did very well. But in terms of the percentage, it would bring it up. It wouldn't bring it up dramatically because in terms of the scale of deals that we did, the number of subs that were under it were not that significant. There would also be in there, Doug, some additional digital. We have deals where every time a digital box is deployed, every operator has to carry every one of our channels and has to pay us on those channels, but that's been true every quarter. And we -- to your point, we really haven't seen any better sub growth this quarter than we've seen last. In fact, it's pretty flat. So kind of agree with you. Douglas D. Mitchelson - Deutsche Bank AG, Research Division: And then on the -- there's a little bit of a lag, right, when you cut a new deal with your distributors and you improve the distribution of some of your digital channels by moving them to more broadly distributed tiers. And maybe the Nielsen data lags, but we sort of show some of that take up happening in April versus the year-end deal timing. Is that right or is the Nielsen data just lag in the take up to immediate? David M. Zaslav: I think there's a little lag, but the deals don't necessarily mean that we closed the deal at the end of December and they have to launch January 1. In fact, they can't. There's a 60-day requirement. That's pretty standard under the franchise rules where they have to notify customers of what's coming. So the actual launch of more subscribers for our channels would have happened, at the very earliest, 60 days afterward. And sometimes it's really just a commitment to launch the channels during the year for a longer -- when deals are 4 or 5 years long. So that -- you'll see it coming in. Douglas D. Mitchelson - Deutsche Bank AG, Research Division: So there could be a little bit of tail to it, because I know relative to international growth you're seeing, we're sort of parsing basis points, but we're still curious.
Operator
And your next question comes from the line of Ben Swinburne of Morgan Stanley. Benjamin Swinburne - Morgan Stanley, Research Division: I just have one sort of housekeeping for Andy, then a question for David. Andy, the net income guidance, that includes all of the below-the-line stuff this quarter, all the good and the bad guys, right? Andrew C. Warren: Correct. Benjamin Swinburne - Morgan Stanley, Research Division: Okay, great. David, just picking up on this advertising theme, you've been in the broadcast replacement game for a long time, taking share from the networks. And I'd imagine you think that there's a lot left to do there. So I'd be curious on that first topic. But then when you think about online video, do you see any analogy in online video, whether it's YouTube or some of the assets you've acquired, and television to what the cable business was facing 20 years ago looking at broadcast? How real of a threat or an opportunity do you view online video as an advertising business over the next, say, 3 to 5 years? David M. Zaslav: Thanks, Ben. Okay, on the CPM, the CPM differential between broadcast and cable remains a little over 30%. And that's really good news for us. In the U.S. market, where subscribers are flat and viewership on cable is flat, that provides real wind at our back, and that applies to all of us, and particularly, if we can grow market share and continue to push on CPM. And the story on compressing that CPM, I think, is getting stronger, because the amount of rate -- the rating points that we're able to deliver, not just us, like on a Friday night where we're the #1 network, beating the broadcasters, on OWN when Oprah can put on content, and she's the #1 network for African-American women, beating all the broadcasters, those stories are -- we have a huge number of those stories where 5 or 6 years ago that didn't exist. The scale of viewership on cable is higher. The demo of viewership on cable is stronger. And so I think it's going to take time, probably 3 or 4 years. It'll never be even, but we'll get that pick up and that, I think, will continue to be a benefit for the U.S. business. On the online side, the CPMs that we're getting on stream video, on the Web, are quite high. And we've actually been shifting aggressively away from the page view and the unique approach that many of us in this business took. So we had aggregated over 60 million uniques with a gazillion page views, but with Google and Facebook out there, it kind of really commoditized in some ways the ability to sell on those pages. And we still do it, but the prices are not rising. If anything, they're going down. And so we have really pivoted aggressively towards streaming. We bought a company called Revision3. It's the #1 nonfiction streaming company in the world. They were doing about 150 million streams a month when we bought them. They're now 300 million streams. JB Perrette, who runs our business, has been pushing our streaming business across every one of our brands. We launched 12 live streaming channels of live puppy cams and young animals across -- on Animal Planet about 6 weeks ago, and they're doing very well. And so our #1 focus in terms of the digital business right now is on the streaming side because the CPMs are quite strong. Having said that, it's not clear where it's going to go. So we're playing in this space. We want to learn everything about it. We want to continue to look at consumer behavior. But it's confusing right now. People are still watching more TV than they ever have. We're able to grow market share in the U.S. pretty significantly over the last couple of years, including this past quarter where we're up 3%. Last year, where we were up 8%. Outside the U.S., we're growing market share dramatically. And so we're really playing both ends. Let's do a great job at telling stories and building characters and building our brands, and let's assume nothing is going on. And then let's have an aggressive team, taking our content and our characters on the Web and also through Rev3, doing content a different way, and I think it's going to be a couple of years before we really see what happens.
Operator
And your next question comes from the line of Michael Nathanson of Nomura. Michael Nathanson - Nomura Securities Co. Ltd., Research Division: I have one for David and one for Andy. David, let me ask a question. When you look at what Netflix is done with their agreement with A&E, kind of they couldn't come to an agreement with A&E a little while ago. And Viacom, they kind of changed their mind and tried to buy shows rather than an output deal. I wonder how are you thinking about your relationship with Netflix and how should we think about what's going to happen when it expires? So just your view on that. David M. Zaslav: Okay, thanks, Michael. When you step back, and I've said this before, but as we look at all the people that are knocking on our door now for content, for the next couple of years, I think there's never been a better time to be in this business than right now. We own all of our content, which makes us somewhat unique. Our content works around the world, which makes us unique. And there's more people that want it for more windows. So in the window you're talking about, we got Amazon and we got Netflix, we're stronger now I think because 5 years ago, we had 4% of the viewership on cable, today, we have 10%. We have brands that are stronger. We have a lot of good content. We're going to take our third year option on Netflix because we've seen no degradation in audience. And that's, I think, significant incremental margin for us with Amazon and with Netflix because they're buying content that's mostly 18 months and older, some of it, 2, 3, 4 years old. Our relationship is good. They like our content. We like this window. Our deal doesn't come up for almost another 1.5 years. When it does come up with Amazon and with Netflix, we think we'll do well as long as we have a lot of really good content that people like. And we also have a big bulk of it. In the end, they still need to nourish people. The idea that Rita said to me a number of times is, they don't have everything, but when people go there, they'll find something good. And we have a lot of good stuff, so I think we'll do well, Michael. In addition, we now have a lot of the cable operators here in the U.S. And BSkyB just launched their SVOD platform, and that's good for us. So you have LOVEFiLM, you have Netflix, and now you have Jeremy Darroch launching his own SVOD platform in the U.K. There's a good chance that's going to happen here. We're talking with a lot of operators, so that's a positive. And then we have TV Everywhere, which is a tighter window, which we haven't done deals yet, but we think we can get significant incremental value for that. Michael Nathanson - Nomura Securities Co. Ltd., Research Division: Okay. And let me turn to Andy for 1 second. You mentioned success in Spain and Italy on the broadcast side, which is pretty amazing given how tough those markets are going on in broadcast advertising. So could you talk a little bit about what's the sales pitch, how you gained those dollars? Is it pricing-led strategy, is it just a low base you're growing from? So anything more on Spain and Italy will be helpful. David M. Zaslav: Okay. Well, our model when we say free-to-air is really different than a traditional broadcast model because we own all of our content. When we went into Spain, our cost of content is almost 0. We have the content. We have it in language. So we essentially buy a stick and we can put programming on there, and we're able to gain market share. In Italy -- and by the way, Michael, we've now reached a point where we've lapped almost all of our free-to-air channels, so the growth that you're seeing is pretty pure. In addition, in Italy, we're just finding that our content is working fantastic. And the experience we're having there, that's the reason that we went into Spain, where it's very strong. It's the reason that we're finding additional growth in Germany. This model of taking male content and putting it on a male channel, taking female content and putting it on a female channel, and the amount of content that we have to put into those 2 baskets. In Italy, our market share was up 70% on -- with our 2 channels, and that's without Switchover. And with Switchover now, we're the #3 player in Italy, so -- second only to RAI and Mediaset. So we're also getting scale, which will help us with our pricing.
Operator
And your next question comes from Jessica Reif Cohen, Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Jessica Reif Cohen - BofA Merrill Lynch, Research Division: I have a couple of questions on the international side. First, on the businesses outside the U.S., what is your channel share versus the audience share? Is there a way for us to think about how your current portfolio is positioned, whether you're over-indexed or under-indexed? And how much room is there to add channels? So that's the first question. David M. Zaslav: Okay. Well, first, I think that we're sort of -- we're in the beginning stages of trying to take advantage of the fact that we have between 6 and 14 channels in 220 countries. So we're clearly the #1 platform media company in the world. And our challenge, domestically and internationally, was to take advantage of that. We've done a good job here in the U.S., but we have a long way to go. I think you'll see a lot of growth from us here in the U.S. because we still -- we have 14 channels and we only have about 10% share. Outside the U.S., the story is even stronger. We were able to light up TLC around the world, reaching over 300 million homes in 1.5 years. And the growth that we're seeing on TLC around the world continues to be significant. ID, we're rolling out. So we're beginning to take advantage of our channels, Jessica. And I think you're going to see meaningful market share growth. We had 25% market share growth in the fourth quarter. We had 16% market share growth in the first quarter. But I guess to step back, when I look at our international business, it's probably the biggest growth engine and the most compelling story that we have. And right now, we're hitting on all cylinders in a real sustainable fashion. So looking at this past quarter, subs were up 12%; market share, up 16%; ad sales, up 25%; and affiliate revenue, up 15%. So those -- you got all those arrows up. At the same time, when you look at the 220 countries that we're serving locally, more than 2/3 of those countries are either in recession or flat. And on top of that, we have invested in TLC, ID, taking Kids into Asia, launching new broadcast channels. And when you digest all that investment and the fact that more than 2/3 of the countries are in recession, we're showing 17% growth and 25% advertising growth, and we're growing share. And so what's most striking to me is we have a sustainable model where we can grow between 15% and 20% in -- when we're dealing in markets that are mostly flat or down. And that's the market condition we're expecting. And with our local teams, one of the things that you've seen is the cost increase. It's because we're putting -- we put local ad sales teams into Colombia, we put a local ad sales team into Italy, that's more investment that we think will pay off with more sustainable growth. The kicker here is, if over the next couple of years things stay exactly the way they are or even if they get a little worse, we think we could show double-digit or certainly sustainable growth the way that you've seen the last 2 quarters for us. The wildcard is, which we're not expecting, is if the marketplace turns, if Western Europe starts to pick up, if a lot of these countries that are flat or in recession turn, and we had been growing 15%, 17%, 18%, that's going to be the real fuel for extraordinary growth for us because we're gaining market share, we got more channels, we got local teams on the ground, and we're growing aggressively in markets that are not good. So to me, that is really -- that's our game. Jessica Reif Cohen - BofA Merrill Lynch, Research Division: Okay. And then I actually have a follow-up to one of your comments, David, on SBS. Can you give us any more color on costs and revenue synergies? Where do you think these margins for the SBS properties can go over time relative to your core international businesses? David M. Zaslav: Well, specifically, we certainly have cost synergy because we've been in business there for 20 years. We were over there last week. We have different sets of offices. We have -- we're looking at people, we're looking at deliveries, so there will be some meaningful cost synergy. But also, we now have over 40% market share in Norway, with significant broadcast asset, cable assets. So the power ratio of SBS in terms of advertising was a lot higher than our power ratio. So there'll be some revenue synergy in terms of advertising. And we expect that when we go to market together, that there should be real opportunity on the affiliate side. And we're already seeing that there may -- that there's going to be, in addition to that, when you take Eurosport and you lay Eurosport on top of our opportunity universe in those 4 markets, we even have more, whether it's how we sell, whether it's how we bid on content. So we feel like there will be a step back in margins this year as we digest this. But we're very happy with what we saw. It's a great management team. The business is performing very well. It didn't close as quickly as we would have liked, but we're off and running and we're running hard. Andrew C. Warren: Yes, and just to add to that, Jessica. Even though we only closed SBS 1 month ago and Eurosport now 4 months ago, in both cases in the early stages here, we're very happy with what we see the opportunities for, both revenue and cost synergies. I mean, both are at least at or above our deal expectations. So the early signs are very positive.
Operator
And your next question comes from Richard Greenfield of BTIG. Richard Greenfield - BTIG, LLC, Research Division: I really wanted to follow up on Jessica's question in terms of kind of not specifically SBS margins, but just the overall international margin. I mean, you were at 45% last year, and if it wasn't for Discovery Japan, I assume you would've been down in the 40% range versus the 41% you reported. Just trying to understand as you look out over the next, call it, several years, if you took a 3- to 4-year view, that 40-ish percent margin is 1,500 basis points behind where your U.S. margin is currently. How do you think about where international margins should be as you get to the scale that you're going to have following this acquisition? I mean, is this 40% to 50% over a 4- or 5-year time frame? Like how do you think about the overall opportunity relative to where your U.S. business runs? Andrew C. Warren: Yes, Richard, it's Andy. It's a good question. The -- we knew going into this year that SBS, and we stated this, would be about a 500-basis-point dilution to the overall international margin, that plus the content amortization catch up as well. But now that we have a new baseline that we're going to work off of, given the conversation around synergies, given the conversation around infrastructures largely in place international. As David mentioned, we have feet on the ground now in over 50 countries, adding to the sales teams in Colombia and Italy, et cetera. So we now think we can get a lot higher percent of profit flow-through for every incremental dollar, especially as the percent of ad sales becomes higher and higher. So we feel very confident that from this now lower base we've established with the content amort and with SBS, we can meaningful grow margin in 2014 and beyond. It's a huge focus of the international team. David M. Zaslav: The other thing that you'll see is the situation that we're having with Animal Planet and with ID and that we had with TLC a few years ago, as the channels start to grow, you have to get on the media planners' budget. And you don't get on at a very high rate, you have to build yourself up. And so we've launched a lot of new channels and we've grown a lot of market share outside the U.S. We now have local teams on the ground. And we're seeing meaningful growth. You saw 25% ad growth. But it's even going to get higher because a lot of the channels that we're selling, they're early stage. We're getting good market share, but our ability to drive price will be something that'll take over the next 3 to 4 years for us to get full value for. Richard Greenfield - BTIG, LLC, Research Division: And in terms of the programming spend overseas to get there, in terms of how that impacts the margin? David M. Zaslav: Well, the programming spend that we have right now, it's pretty steady. The good news for us is, when it comes to Science and Animal Planet and ID, ID in particular is working really well. We didn't know that it would work the way Animal Planet and Science has worked in terms of taking almost very little local content and just using existing content that we have with sort of a global approach. TLC does have a meaningful amount of local, but you see it in the numbers, it is less than we thought. We thought it was going to be about 40% share, and it's more at about 60% share, and it'll probably stay about where it is right now. So overall, I think you'll see -- we don't expect that we're going to have to invest significantly more. It's about where it is now.
Operator
And your next question comes from John Janedis of UBS. John Janedis - UBS Investment Bank, Research Division: David, historically, you've talked about Discovery being synonymous with nonfiction programming. And I'm just wondering, with the introduction of some scripted fare at the upfront, what was the driver? Does that give you an incremental opportunity to monetize the audience? And should we expect more if you get the ratings? Andrew C. Warren: Well, look, our ratings are up at Discovery, and we're having a lot of momentum. It's important for us to be open to what do the viewers want and how do we continue to nourish them. That's what this business is all about. People only watch 8 to 10 channels. The fact that our share was up 8% last year and 3%, means they're spending more time with our channels, and you have to earn that. Fiction, we've seen in the marketplace that viewers have really related to fiction on occasion on nonfiction channels. We've been very successful with Alaska and with Gold on Discovery. We have the #1 show with Gold Rush. The Bering Sea Gold has been very successful for us, Last Frontier in Alaska. So for us to do Klondike on Discovery, we thought was a good first swing into fiction, which is a lot more expensive, to see if we do something in our wheelhouse and we get behind it, will the Discovery audience, will they love it? Will they lean into it? Will they feel like that makes them feel closer to Discovery? And we're going to have to see. It's an experiment. I think it's going to do very well. But it's a very small piece of our overall strategy. It's much more expensive. It doesn't repeat as well. And so for us, it's a big tent-pole. You might see us using scripted if this works as a tent-pole strategy, sort of the way we use Frozen Planet or North America as part of that overall approach to -- in aggrandizing the brand. But it's not going to change who we are, we're nonfiction with those brands. You'll see us playing more in the fiction area with things like SBS, where we have broad entertainment sports networks, where that's the foundation of what we do in those 4 markets where we have between 30% and 40% market share.
Operator
And your next question comes from Anthony DiClemente of Barclays. Anthony J. DiClemente - Barclays Capital, Research Division: Just a question for Andy. David mentioned taking the third year option on your Netflix deal. I think that, that comes up later this year, but I was wondering if you guys could clarify exactly when that would be, like what quarter would that option kick in? And then also I'm assuming that, that's contemplated in your full year guidance. Is it included -- or the expectation for taking the third year option is included in your full year guidance, is that correct? Andrew C. Warren: Yes, Anthony, it's both in our full year guidance and will be either in the second or third quarter. It really all depends on when we take the option. So we're not going to say which quarter yet, but it will either be second or third, and it is included in our full year expectation. Anthony J. DiClemente - Barclays Capital, Research Division: Okay. Then we go for 1 full year subsequent to that, it would extend? Andrew C. Warren: Yes, that's correct. Anthony J. DiClemente - Barclays Capital, Research Division: And then on that theme, I guess, for either of you, can you talk about are there other online distributors? You said there were plenty of players knocking on your door. Are there others? And what would the structure and type of content look like for other players out there in addition to Amazon and Netflix perhaps? David M. Zaslav: Sure. Look, the TV Everywhere is a big piece of a windowing strategy. We haven't done any of those deals yet. We are talking to operators. The good thing about TV Everywhere is it's measured on the Web, and it will be measured next year on the Pad. I just was -- met with a bunch of operators in D.C. the other day. There's a real drive to push into that space. We just haven't done deals yet. We all agree there's value, we think there's more value there. We have 10% market share. We have a lot of great content. And so I think there's the question of when that will happen, and it's a fight over value. On the SVOD piece, I wouldn't be surprised if a number of the operators get into that space. And Netflix has been very effective. Amazon has been effective. So I think it will be good for us. The more people that want to pay for our content, the better. And then there's over-the-top. There continues to be discussion of over-the-top. Eventually, it'll happen. I don't know if it's going to be this year, next year, or in 4 years. But the idea of more people wanting to pay more money to get access to content that we own is a good thing. Now it's a good thing over the next couple of years. The bigger question is, 4, 5, 6 years from now, how good of a job do we do as an industry getting the right economics for each of those windows, and any those windows get much bigger because people spend a lot more time, and does that mean that we end up doing better or worse. There's no question we're going to be better in the next couple of years. Anthony J. DiClemente - Barclays Capital, Research Division: Well, I just want to follow-up on that. That's a good point, in terms of if over the next few years, SVOD sort of takes share from ad supported as the form of monetization online of choice, you've taken a strategy, David, in terms of really windowing out the SVOD deals you've done in terms of longer-tail library content. Could you ever -- could you see that changing if the SVOD business really becomes, for consumers and viewers, the business model of choice vis-à-vis ad supported online? David M. Zaslav: Look, we all have to follow the consumer, what does the consumer do, but we have to do it rationally by figuring out what are the right economics. We don't want to undermine an existing business that is very effective for us. We're about 50% subscriber fee, and we could be doing deals in some markets that are very low penetrated on cable around the world, like Brazil, to make a little bit more money. But Brazil is still only 26% pay penetrated. They grew over 20% in this past quarter. That's the place that we're going to make a lot of money. And when people first get introduced to television, we want them to be introduced to cable TV, which is the core of what we do. We don't want them to be confused by some other offerings. So I think we have to be careful as an industry as to how we approach this. The fact that traditional distributors are getting into this space is a good thing. If we're talking to an existing distributor, a customer of ours that has big scale and is paying us for our content in a traditional manner, then at that point, doing a deal with that distributor for more money to give them more windows, by definition, it'll be more difficult to undermine that relationship because it's with the same person. But we have to make sure we get the right economics. Because you're right, if in 5 years we're not getting the right economics on -- or the business models aren't effective on some of those platforms and they begin to take some scale away from traditional television, then we'll be worse off. On the other hand, today, people are watching more television than they have. And we're getting paid for every one of those platforms. So it feels awfully good. That's good. The bad is that if we get overconfident, then we don't get the right economics on those additional platforms.
Operator
And your next question comes from the line of Michael Morris of Davenport & Co. Michael C. Morris - Davenport & Company, LLC, Research Division: A couple quick ones on affiliates and then one on content. Domestic affiliates, I believe last year, your core affiliate rate x digital grew somewhere in the 4.5% to 5% range. So my first question is did your affiliate -- your subscribers who were not under new contracts so far this year, did they continue to grow at a similar pace there? Andrew C. Warren: Yes, they did. Michael C. Morris - Davenport & Company, LLC, Research Division: Okay. And then, David, you mentioned the number of subscribers up for renewal this year, you categorized it as a little more than 10%. Can you talk about... David M. Zaslav: That was last year. Last year was less than 20%. And we've basically said, directionally, that it's about, over the next 5 years, it's basically even. So if you were to model it out and you modeled out 20% a year, you wouldn't be too far off on either side. Michael C. Morris - Davenport & Company, LLC, Research Division: So when you said that less than 20%, those weren't the sort of January 1, 2013, subscribers? Or is that kind of like at that date. I know it's not always exact, but so to speak. David M. Zaslav: The deals that we did last year in aggregate represented a number of subs that was less than 20% of our total base in the U.S. That's it. Michael C. Morris - Davenport & Company, LLC, Research Division: Okay. And so as we look into the number of new subscribers or updated contracts into 2014 over 2013, you think that 20% is sort of the right number we should be using? David M. Zaslav: Ballpark, yes. Yes. Michael C. Morris - Davenport & Company, LLC, Research Division: Okay. And then just on the content side, to follow up a bit on the scripted content. You did acquire into both scripted and sports in Europe. Would you consider acquiring into either of those in the U.S.? David M. Zaslav: We always look opportunistically. I think we're very late to the party on sports, and it's very expensive, and there's a lot of great players playing in that space and fighting that fight. We think it's -- what we have with Eurosport, which we have a right to take a control right in, in about 19 months, is very different. It's in 59 countries. It's the only pan-European sports platform that exists, so it's a very unique platform with unique leverage. So sports is difficult. I don't see us playing in a meaningful way in fiction on our existing platforms in some way that would skew your models. But if there were channels available here in the U.S., we always look. We think we have enough scale here right now. But for the right price, we always look at everything. Our focus is going to be much more outside the U.S., That's where we think we have a real advantage, both in terms of teams on the ground and scale.
Operator
Our final question comes from the line of Tuna Amobi of S&P Capital IQ. Tuna N. Amobi - S&P Equity Research: David, you used the word robust in your characterization of your upfront outlook. So I just want to get a sense how robust you think this will be. Clearly, you guys have been taking share for several years now, and it seems to me that your position this year is relatively better than last year in the upfront environment. So I'm wondering how this whole changes your strategy and any kind of color that you can provide would be helpful. And for Andy, so you laid out 3 criteria for your M&A strategy. And I was very curious that you were willing to take a significant margin hit in the SBS, and yet you made a point it was EPS and free cash accretive. And I'm wondering, given that dynamic, is this something that one can expect would -- I mean, it's not common that the kind of margin compression that SBS would result. And the time frame, it sounds like from your comments, would take a few years to normalize. And I'm wondering why you think that's kind of the right approach in terms of how you view assets, and if that's something that's peculiar to the international market or if it's something you will also consider in your U.S. acquisition criteria, if that makes sense. David M. Zaslav: Okay, let me start. The upfront, to some extent, is outside of our control. We go in with a significant amount of momentum. The market right now is strong, surprisingly strong. But we're more of a follower than a leader with that, and that's just -- that's because we're in the cable business and that's the way it works here in the U.S. So we'll see where CBS or some of the bigger broadcasters go. If they -- depending on where they come in, we'll make the decision depending on how up the pricing is whether -- last year, we did about 55% of our inventory, but we did very, very well with scatter. And the question is, depending on how high we can get an increase on the upfront, that'll determine whether we do 45%, 48%, 50% or 55% and how much we bet on scatter. So I think we have all the right winds at our back going in. We're just going to have to see how the marketplace is. It feels good now, we'll have to see. On SBS, just a couple of points, and then I'll pass it to Andy. That's a dual revenue stream business, so it's very unusual. 30% of it is sub fees, number one. Two, we think we have a lot of synergy and it's not going to take us a very long time, we think we can move those margins pretty quickly. And three, it does play against our model. If we had bought an asset like this in one market that had a unique language where we couldn't use it across other countries, it would have been more difficult. The fact that you have Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Finland and you can produce content and share it across those markets, and we could use their content, they could use ours, we think gives us a real chance to grow our international business and also to reinforce the geographic diversity that we have. Those are very stable markets, and we think that we can grow them, and we can use the synergy to do it. Andrew C. Warren: Yes. You're right. And we've laid out 3 kind of deal criterion that we look at. One is free cash flow and EPS accretive, day one; two is an unlevered IRR of at least low-teens; and three is by the multiple that's less than ourselves and ideally less than 10. And SBS clearly meets all of those 3 criteria. And so, look, I'll just add to David's point, while it is margin dilutive, day one, we do very much believe in our ability to grow margin, not only with that business but the overall amalgamation of the D&I in total. So we're very, very bullish on what our margin profile's going to look like long term. We think this is the right kind of step back in margin, year 1, with a lot of thoughts around how to gain that through ad sales leverage, top line leverage, infrastructure in place and then synergies.
Craig Felenstein
Thank you very much, everybody, for joining us, and please follow up with any questions that you have. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you for your participation in today's conference. This concludes the presentation. You may now disconnect, and good day.