Newsmax reports Q3 2025 revenues of $45.3 million, with broadcasting revenue up 10.1% and affiliate fees rising 22.3%, showcasing resilience in a non-election year.

OPERATOR - (00:00:00)

Has led us to where we are today and we are excited about the journey ahead. Newsmax was founded as one of the first digital news publishers built on a mission to deliver independent, values driven journalism. When we launched our television network in 2014, we extended that vision to new audiences and we've been growing ever since. In a world where news consumption is increasingly fragmented and trust in media is declining, our founding principles remain as relevant as ever. Today, Newsmax has grown into a comprehensive media platform with multiple distribution channels and a significant national and international audience reach. Now present in over 100 countries, we operate the nation's fourth highest rated cable news network, reaching 60 million homes through our main channel Newsmax, our free streaming channel, Newsmax 2, the Newsmax app and its paid streaming service Newsmax plus, our website Newsmax.com and our publications such as Newsmax Magazine. Newsmax generates diversified revenues from across affiliate fees paid by cable and satellite distributors, direct advertising sales across our linear and digital platforms, subscription fees from our Newsmax streaming service and product sales revenue through our Humanix subsidiary which publishes books and other content and products. We are making strides across our revenue streams demonstrated by our significant year over year growth results in the first, second and now third quarters of 2025. It is important to note that the year following a general election is typically a softer period for the broader news and broadcast industry as audience engagement and advertising demand naturally moderate from election year highs. Even with this backdrop, we are pleased to announce year over year growth this quarter, demonstrating the strength of our diversified revenue model and engaged audience base. With that, I would like to share some key highlights from this quarter. Financial performance for the third quarter of 2025 we reported total revenues of $45.3 million, representing a 4% increase year over year. Total broadcasting revenues grew 10.1% year over year to 36.6 million and affiliate revenues increased 22.3% year over year to 8.1 million. Our strong performance, especially considering this was a non election year, was driven by affiliate fee revenue growth, higher pricing for broadcasting ad revenue and an increase in Newsmax plus subscribers audience growth. Newsmax remains the number four cable news network by delivering quality content across multiple platforms. This has been reflected in our strong ratings growth on our Newsmax channel year to date. During each quarter this year, Newsmax has remained a top 10 network in cable for a pivotal day part like 9 AM to 8 PM and a top 18 network in all of cable TV in total day. That's out of 100 plus cable networks. Domestic distribution this quarter domestically we saw a number of key distribution agreements including with a leading provider of in room entertainment within the hospitality hotel sector, making Newsmax accessible in more than 900 hotels and over 300,000 hotel rooms in the United States. We also partnered with Curb to bring Newsmax programming to their Taxi TV platform reaching over 15,000 screens across 65 US markets with 2.3 billion annual impressions. International Distribution Expansion we have seen continued success with our brand licensing partnerships with Newsmax Balkans and the launch of Newsmax en Espanol, the first and only AI Live Dub news channel. This quarter also saw significant expansion through our continued multi year carriage partnership with Fubo where we recently launched Newsmax en Español on Fubo's Latino Plan and Latino plus Add on package. We also partnered with Trump Media and Technology Group to make Newsmax available at a global scale via the Truth+ streaming platform. Streaming Success Adding to our streaming success was Newsmax 2, our free streaming channel airing across more than a dozen major OTT fast platforms and over the air digital broadcast channels as well as on the Newsmax app. Newsmax 2 saw remarkable double digit growth in viewership in the third quarter versus the election year last year which with viewership up 33% in daytime, an always challenging day part in news, our paid streaming service Newsmax Plus also saw strong growth approximately 8% year over year versus Q3 2024 content investment this Quarter in addition to continuing to deliver best in class reporting and content domestically, we expanded our international news coverage with Carl Higbee was broadcasting live from Israel for a week straight in August. We provided comprehensive coverage of developments in the region as well as exclusive interviews including with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Newsmax is a high growth business and we are focused on investing resources into the long term execution of our business model and strategic growth initiatives. Looking ahead, we aim to continue executing on these opportunities including affiliate fee advancement, favorable agreement with cable, satellite and streaming distributors to secure higher per subscriber fees and expanded channel placement while pursuing new distribution partners partnerships that reflect our growing audience value and market position. Programming expansion New original programming and expanded news coverage capabilities through strategic investments in premium content and additional correspondence in key markets. We are also keenly focused on bringing exclusive programming that differentiates our brand while serving our audience's evolving information needs such as our new World at War channel and our growing catalog of family friendly content on the Newsmax app. Market expansion opportunities in international markets and new distribution channels by evaluating strategic partnerships with global media distributors, developing localized content offerings and expanded our digital presence to reach underserved audiences both domestically and abroad Technology investment Enhancing our streaming platform capabilities and digital infrastructure to support our multi-platform distributionution strategy Before I hand things off to Darrell, I would like to reiterate that Newsmax is in a strong position at an exciting time in the news media industry. The media landscape today continues to evolve with growing opportunities in streaming, international markets and multi-platform distribution and we are uniquely positioned to benefit from these ongoing trends. Our cash position and strategic operating model provides us the flexibility to pursue growth opportunities as they arise. Finally, I would like to thank our shareholders and partners for their support and all of you for joining our call today. With that, I will pass it on to our Chief Financial Officer, Darrell Burnham.

Darrell Burnham - Chief Financial Officer - (00:08:41)

Darrell thank you Chris and thank you everyone for joining us today. As Chris mentioned, Newsmax is in a strong financial position well capitalized with access to the public markets following our successful IPO earlier this year. This milestone has provided us with significant capital and strategic flexibility as we continue to execute our growth initiatives. It is important to note that while the ratings growth this year Chris mentioned is a positive indicator of our success, our financial performance is driven by multiple variables including advertising rates and inventory availability, affiliate fee negotiations and rate increases, subscription revenue from our streaming services, timing of contract renewals and intra and inter year seasonal political patterns. With that said, in the third quarter we delivered 45.3 million in total revenues, representing a 4% increase year over year. This strong performance demonstrates the continued momentum across our diversified business model. Breaking this down by revenue stream, total broadcasting revenues grew 10.1% year over year to 36.6 million in the third quarter of 2025, which as Chris mentioned is even more impressive when considering this is a non election year. Our growth in broadcasting was driven by affiliate fee revenues, higher broadcasting ad revenue and an increase in Newsmax subscribers. Affiliate fee revenues specifically increased 22.3% year over year to 8.1 million, driven by new contractual relationships as well as rate increases that went into effect earlier this year. Advertising revenues decreased slightly to 27.6 million, a 1.6% year over year decline mainly due to the non election year comparison period versus 2024. Despite the tough comparison, we are encouraged by higher linear cable and satellite advertising rates and improved Nielsen ratings in 2025, which has translated into directly higher advertising rates and increased advertiser demand. Subscription revenues of 6.9 million were flat year over year driven by continued growth in our Newsmax subscriber base and offset by reductions in publication subscriptions due to the aforementioned election cycle comparison. Product sales increased 1.8% year over year to 1.5 million. We reported a quarterly net loss of 4.1 million, a 58.1% improvement compared to a net loss of 9.8 million in. The prior year quarter. This improvement in net loss was primarily driven by a reduction in legal expenses relating to a previously disclosed and now resolved litigation matter. Our quarterly adjusted EBITDA was negative 1.8 million compared to a positive adjusted EBITDA of 4.4 million in the same period of 2024, reflecting higher production and programming expenses and increased personnel and public company costs associated with the company's continued expansion. We view these investments as essential to our long term growth strategy and market position. We ended the quarter with $14.2 million in cash and cash equivalents and $116.2 million in short term investments bringing our total cash and investment position to approximately 130.4 million. At the end of 2024, our total cash and investment position was 82.4 million. This represents a significant strengthening of our balance sheet following our successful IPO and pre-IPO funding rounds. We are encouraged by the strong performance we are seeing early in the fourth quarter and remain confident in our previously disclosed full year revenue guidance of 180 million to 190 million. In summary, we are demonstrating strong growth across key revenue metrics while making strategic investments for the future. Our diversified revenue model, strengthened balance sheet and access to capital markets provides us with a solid foundation to continue executing our growth initiatives. Thank you for your time today and we look forward to updating you on our continued progress during next quarter's earnings call. Now we would like to open the line for analyst questions.

OPERATOR - (00:12:38)

Operator. Certainly everyone at this time will be conducting a question and answer session. If you have any questions or comments please press star1 on your phone at this time. We do ask that while posing your question, please pick up your handset if you're listening on speakerphone to provide optimum sound quality. Once again, if you have any questions or comments, please press Star one on your phone. Your first question is coming from Michael Kupinski from Noble Capital Markets. Your line is live.

Michael Kupinski - Equity Analyst - (00:13:11)

Thank you. Good solid quarter. I just wanted to ask a couple of questions here in the advertising line. You really didn't have political advertising in the earlier quarter. The reason why you saw a little softness related to political was just because of related to the year earlier quarter was because of just the heightened level of engagement audience engagement from the year earlier election cycle. Is that right? I just want to clarify that.

Chris - (00:13:42)

Well Darrell, do you want to answer it or should? Should. I.

Darrell Burnham - Chief Financial Officer - (00:13:47)

Can answer it. I mean. Yeah. Michael, we didn't. Thank you for your question. We didn't have a lot of political. Advertising in 2024, but we've continued to see interest in political advertising overall both in 24 and 25. I think that that is something that we're looking forward to as we continue. To grow the business and. But when you look at the quarter over quarter, we're really pleased with the fact that even though there's heightened engagement in Q3 of 2024, that we were still able to exceed last year's revenue with our Q3 2025 results.

Chris - (00:14:27)

I would add that 2024 was the. Super Bowl of elections. That's how I describe every presidential. There's usually very high engagement that drives advertising. And even though we don't get a. Lot of direct, most advertising is spent in local market swing states. And we're a national advertising platform, we still get a lot of ancillary companies that are selling financial newsletters, for instance, will oftentimes make their pitches and play into the election and other types of advertisement. So it's usually for us, the year. After presidential is not as good as a presidential. This year will beat expectations.

Michael Kupinski - Equity Analyst - (00:15:08)

Yep. And then in terms of your investments, can you provide a little color on the content investments that you're making? Are they showing signs of paying off, you know, ratings or advertising support? Has there been a direct correlation to those investments or are you starting to see that already?

Darrell Burnham - Chief Financial Officer - (00:15:27)

Well, I think in the history of Newsmax, we have found that there's never really a linear one to one progression. When you make an investment, you see an immediate return. Some businesses seem to act like that. With Newsmax, it usually takes a bit of a lag of effect before some of that has weight. For instance, this year we've been investing, increasing the content on our app. We've purchased or licensed a lot of documentaries, films, scripted programs from the 1960s and 70s. We've been adding a bunch of new documentaries that we've offered the money to or went into contract to have developed. And those if you go onto the Newsmax app, you'll find there's a lot more content. We're laying the groundwork for a significant marketing effort in the coming months for people to join the app for that content. So not all of that is immediately increased. We're still looking for some very significant. Talent to join the company. We're in discussions and looking for people that would add that would be an investment in content, but there would not be an immediate return. We believe just because we hired somebody that even if they're well known, that immediately generates revenues for the company.

Michael Kupinski - Equity Analyst - (00:16:52)

Got it.

Darrell Burnham - Chief Financial Officer - (00:16:53)

And Michael, I might add to that just a little bit that when we're investing in content, it really has multiple advantages because of the fact that investing in content, for example, on our Newsmax one channel is obviously something that we're looking to do to increase ratings, which will lead to higher advertising. But the investment in content on our Newsmax One channel also benefits our Newsmax subscription because that is the same content that we're providing on the Newsmax Plus. It also benefits the potential for affiliate fees down the road because that investment will give us basically stronger. Stronger content is going to put us in a much better position on renegotiating any of our affiliate fee renewals.

Michael Kupinski - Equity Analyst - (00:17:37)

Gotcha. And if I could just squeeze just two quick ones in. In regards to the current advertising environment, can you just discuss the tone of the current advertising environment and how have major events like the most recent government shutdown, for instance, how has that affected your business? And then finally, in terms of distribution deals, do you have any major distribution deals that are coming up for next year? And thank you for taking all the questions. I appreciate that.

Chris - (00:18:05)

Well, we haven't noticed anything that makes us think the government shutdown has harmed our business, but I've noticed anything in the sales that we would report, so we haven't seen that. And second, I think for next year, in terms of distribution agreements, Darrell has. A little more insight into that in. Terms of what's up for renewal. Yeah.

Darrell Burnham - Chief Financial Officer - (00:18:31)

So right now on the advertising market, Michael, I think when you look at that, the overall advertising market generally is up. Right, it's really kind of a redistribution between what we would call linear cable and satellite. And then you're seeing a lot of growth in CTV and OTT advertising, advertisers are looking to make sure that they're shifting their marketing over to areas that offer more precise targeting and measurable roi. We've been investing in continuing to increase our content on Newsmax too, so that we can monetize that and take advantage of that growth. But then just on our linear and cable advertising, we also think we're in a unique position because while there is. A decline in cord cutting that's been. Occurring, Newsmax has continued to see increases in advertising. So even in a period when you're comparing a non election year to an election year, that is also something that we're basically going to be focusing on. Because, as I said earlier, that's going. To lead us towards continuing to gain market share, which, as I said before, will yield higher advertising rates and revenue. And it also puts us in a great position for the affiliate fee contract renewals in terms of major distribution deals that are coming up for renewal. We do have a deal that we're working on right now that is going to be coming up for renewal within the next couple of months. I think that right now everything is positive on that. I don't think we're going to be going into the details of which MVPD that is. But generally speaking, all of the negotiations that we've been entering into as the deals do come up for renewal, have been very favorable. I think that's kind of highlighted by the fact that you've seen an increase in affiliate fee revenue of 22% quarter over quarter. And. When you look at our scenario. Even in a declining.