890 5th Avenue Partners Inc - Ordinary Shares - Class A Aktie

[Operator Instructions]

Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to Matt Omer, Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead.

Hi everyone, welcome to BuzzFeed, Inc.'s third quarter 2026 earnings conference call. I'm Matt Omer, CFO of BuzzFeed. Joining me today is Chairman and CEO Jonah Peretti. Before we get started, I would like to take this opportunity to remind you that our remarks today will include forward-looking statements. Actual results may differ materially from those contemplated by these forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause these results to differ materially are set forth in the press release and the Form 10-Q to be filed with the SEC. Any forward-looking statements that we make on this call are based on assumptions as of today, and we undertake no obligation to update these statements as a result of new information or future events.

During this call, we present both GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures, including adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA margin. The use of non-GAAP financial measures allows us to measure the operational strength and performance of our business to establish budgets and to develop operational goals for managing our business. We believe adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA margin are relevant and useful information for investors because they allow investors to view performance in a manner similar to the method used by our management. A reconciliation of these GAAP to non-GAAP measures is included in the earnings press release. Please refer to our Investor Relations website to find the press release. Now, I'll pass the call over to [ Byron ].

Good afternoon, everyone, and thanks for joining us. BuzzFeed, Tasty, and HuffPost are beloved, recognizable brands with loyal, direct audiences. I invested in BuzzFeed because I believe in these brands and their growth potential. As we previously discussed, however, our call to action is not yet complete. Cost structure needed to be aligned with the realities of today's market. At the core of our businesses are three popular brands with engaged audiences, particularly among Gen Z and Millennials. Across our portfolio, BuzzFeed, Inc. has more than 700 million social media followers, 75 million monthly active users, and 2 billion monthly content views, while HuffPost maintains a highly loyal direct audience.

In the third quarter 2026, BuzzFeed, Inc. ranked #1 in time spent among Gen Z and Millennials within our competitive set, generating 9.5 million hours, up 1.5% from the previous quarter. Direct visits and referrals from our websites and apps accounted for 67% of U.S. traffic to BuzzFeed's owned and operated properties in the third quarter, up from 65% in the prior quarter. This reflects our progress in building direct audience relationships and reducing our reliance on third-party platforms and their algorithms. On the BuzzFeed Studio side, we have an opportunity to unlock significant value for our shareholders and partners. BuzzFeed is growing its premium content, video, and social media businesses with a slate of new shows featuring top creators and A-list talent planned for 2027. And the vertical video content continues to have strong consumer demand. Our goal and our strategy this fourth quarter is to bring compelling content to audiences wherever they are, across digital platforms and connected TV.

We see opportunities to expand our video and streaming capabilities, including through live events, music, comedy, sports, and news. Ultimately, technology and distribution are only as valuable as the content they deliver. By combining our brands and storytelling capabilities, we believe we can engage audiences at scale and build new opportunities to monetize that engagement. I am completely energized by the progress we're making towards positioning BuzzFeed to be a premier global free streaming platform. Now I'll hand it over to Matt, our CFO, who will walk you through our third quarter financial results.

Thanks, Jonah. The third quarter was a transitional quarter. We completed an approximate 35% reduction in our workforce and dedicated contractors in July. The restructuring is expected to yield approximately $30 million in annualized savings, but at a cost of $7 million in one-time expenses. From a cash perspective, more than half of the severance and related payments were paid in the third quarter, with the remainder largely to be paid in the fourth quarter. As expected, this restructuring resulted in a short-term decrease in the amount of content we generated as we streamlined operational teams. Short-term decrease in content generation is reflected in the decrease in time spent, along with passive advertising and affiliate commerce. We are laser-focused on innovating with more sustainable, cost-effective content and achieving profitability and positive cash flow. Turning to Q3 results. Total revenue for the three months ending September 30, 2026 was $26 million, compared to $46.3 million in Q3 2025.

However, it's important to note that Q3 2025 included approximately $7 million of revenue related to Amazon Prime Day, and there was no Amazon Prime Day in Q3 2026. So for the three months ending September 30, 2026, advertising revenue was $15.4 million. Content revenue was $5.8 million. And commerce and other revenue was $4.8 million. But once again, it's important to note that Q3 2025 included approximately $7 million of revenue related to Amazon Prime Day, and there was no Amazon Prime Day in Q3 2026. Net loss was $18.7 million in Q3 2026. Again, the third quarter reflected $7.1 million in one-time restructuring expenses.

Adjusted EBITDA was negative $4.8 million. Q3 2026 time spent was 50.7 million hours. Following a transformative year that included the Allen Family Digital transaction in May and the restructuring announced in July, we are deferring our financial outlook as we continue to integrate these changes. That's all for now. I'll turn the call back to the operator for questions. Thank you.

There are no questions right now in our Q&A session, so we will now be concluding our call. Thank you, everyone, for participating in today's conference. You may now disconnect the call. Thank you so much.

This live transcript is auto-generated without human intervention or review.

Thank you. Thank you. Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to BuzzFeed, Inc.'s second quarter, 2026 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, Juliana Clifton, VP of Communications. Please go ahead.

Hi everyone, welcome to BuzzFeed Inc's second quarter 2026 earnings conference call. I'm Juliana Clifton, VP of Communications for BuzzFeed. Joining me today are Chairman and CEO Byron Allen, Head of BuzzFeed AI, Jonah Peretti, and CFO, Matt Omer. Before we get started, I would like to take this opportunity to remind you that our remarks today will include forward-looking statements. Actual results may differ materially from those contemplated by these forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause these results to differ materially are set forth in today's press release, Form 10-Q to be filed with the SEC. Any forward-looking statements that we make on this call are based on assumptions as of today, and we undertake no obligation to update these statements as a result of new information or future events.

During this call, we present both GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures, including adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA margins. The use of non-GAAP financial measures allows us to measure the operational strength and performance of our business. establish budgets and to develop operational goals for managing our business. We believe adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA margins are relevant and useful information for investors because they allow investors to view performance in a manner similar to the methods used by our management. A reconciliation of these GAAP to non-GAAP measures is included in today's earnings press release. Please refer to our Investor Relations website to find today's press release.

Now I'll pass the call over to Byron Allen. Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone, and thanks for joining us. BuzzFeed, Tasty, and HuffPost are strong, recognizable brands that have loyal users. I saw an opportunity and made a meaningful investment as I believe in these brands. With that said, we made it clear on our last earnings call that that these businesses were carrying an unsustainable cost structure and a restructure was immediately needed. So last week we took steps to reduce headcount across the entire company by approximately 35% to better align our cost base with the underlying business. We believe these actions create a streamlined, more focused organization that is better positioned to deliver sustainable growth. profitability and generate positive cash flow while continuing to invest in the areas with the greatest long-term growth potential now that my investment in BuzzFeed is officially complete I want to share how energized I am by what we're building at BuzzFeed and the progress we're making to put our business on a path to profitability and sustainable growth.

What has become clear to me is how strong of a brand we have in BuzzFeed. BuzzFeed Shopping generates roughly a half a billion dollars a year in gross merchandise sales. And HuffPost has a very loyal and direct audience. BuzzFeed, HuffPost, and Tasty have a very loyal and direct audience. approximately 500 million social media followers. We also have nearly 75 million monthly active users. In terms of time spent, as reported by Comscore, we consistently bring in more than 60 million hours per quarter, generally out of the pacing the majority of our competitive set, which includes People Inc., Condé Nast, Hearst, and Vox Media. Now that our brands and business lines are no longer burdened by excessive cost and debt, we have the opportunity to unlock tremendous value for shareholders and partners.

That foundation is the perfect platform to launch and grow exciting new business lines and editorial extensions. We are moving quickly to build on top of it, pursuing distribution partnerships and transactions to get us there faster. Look for BuzzFeed to make transformative moves into comedy. weather, sports, music, podcasts, news, premium content, and live events that will accelerate our growth. I am very excited to share that BuzzFeed has entered into a sales representation agreement with Allen Media Group, engaging AMG sales organization to expand monetization of BuzzFeed's advertising inventory and give brands and agencies another point of entry to build campaigns spanning premium television, streaming, local broadcast, and digital-first media. Under the agreement, AMG's sales organization serves as an extension of the BuzzFeed sales team, positioning BuzzFeed, HuffPost, and Tasty alongside AMG's broader portfolio, including national linear television, affiliate local broadcast stations, 24-hour cable networks, the Weather Channel, the Griot, CBS Late Night, and Local Now. Advertisers gain one coordinated sales relationship instead of two separate conversations, while BuzzFeed retains full authority over pricing, packaging, and inventory across every transaction. The agreement is designed to strengthen BuzzFeed's presence in the marketplace, pairing AMG's long-standing advertiser and agency relationships with BuzzFeed's scale to deliver expanded cross-platform solutions for advertisers and making both companies much more competitive in this platform environment I have spent over 30 years building those kinds of relationships and Buzz feed now has access to all of them the opportunity we have is enormous as we pursue our number one goal making BuzzFeed a best-in-class free streaming service and a super app And now I'll hand it over to Jonah to walk us through our operational progress.

Jonah?.

Thank you, Byron. It has been an honor to partner with you on this next stage of BuzzFeed. I share the feelings of my colleagues at BuzzFeed when I say I'm very grateful for Ryland's investment in BuzzFeed. Byron has set us up for a new beginning and a bright future. Looking ahead, our focus is clear. We must get our core business back to profitability so we have a strong, sustainable foundation to build on. Last year, we were able to build a strong, sustainable foundation to build on. week, we took necessary steps to lower our costs, bringing our overall spending in line, and positioning us for greater growth. These changes were about setting the stage to execute on Byron's bold vision and dramatically improve how BuzzFeed operates.

The value of our brands and the depth of our audience relationships remain our greatest strength. But to capture the full opportunity ahead, our business model has to evolve. We are shifting from traditional publishing model to a true platform where our creators and partners actively fuel our content ecosystem. To support this transformation, we are making fundamental shifts across our organization. We're developing new models for editorial and tech supported by AI that keeps human creativity at the core. In editorial, we are adopting a more flexible production model by pairing a smaller core team of talented writers with community creators fellows and freelancers. Our costs will naturally scale with traffic rather than staying high when audience trends shift.

In tech, we have streamlined our teams and sharpened their focus directly on our highest revenue growth priorities. We have also continued to transform the way we work with widespread adoption of AI tools, allowing us to triple the amount of code we produce on a monthly basis. We are establishing operational discipline today so that our future growth is built on solid ground. By stopping our losses and managing our cash effectively, we create the runway needed to innovate, transform, and build our next chapter. These steps give us a clear, confident path forward. Now I'll hand it over to Matt to walk through more specifics on the restructure and our second quarter financial results. Thanks, Jonah.

As noted earlier, we made the difficult decision to eliminate positions across the entire company and execute an approximately 35% reduction in our workforce. This reduction in workforce is expected to yield approximately $30 million in annualized savings, at a cost of approximately $6.5 to $8.5 million paid throughout the rest of the year. We're also realizing millions in additional cost savings in other ways. During the quarter, we terminated an office space in the UK that commenced right before the pandemic. This is expected to save us approximately $5 million throughout 2029. We've also materially reduced our outsourced professional fees. We have strict limits on non-essential travel and entertainment.

We've enacted hiring freezes and closed open rules. We've also paid down $20 million against our term loan, bringing down our principal balance to $25 million, which is a net debt balance of approximately $5 million as of June 30, 2026. This reduction in our term loan is expected to save more than $2 million in interest expense annually. Now that our operating expenses are stabilized, our focus is leveraging our strengths to grow the business. Given the transformation underway, we are focused on full-year operational targets rather than quarterly guidance. As the restructuring and platform transition progress, we expect to provide investors with a more complete financial outlook. What we can say definitively today is that the cost structure is coming down, the profitable parts of the business are being prioritized, and the platform we are building has a large and real addressable market.

I will now walk through our second quarter 2026 financial results in detail. Total revenue for the three months ended June 30, 2026 was $36.3 million compared to $46.4 million in Q2 2025, a decrease of 21.8% year over year. Advertising revenue decreased by $5.3 million for the three months ended June 30, 2026. Content revenue decreased by $700,000 for the three months ended June 30, 2026. And commerce and other revenue decreased by $4.1 million for the three months ended June 30, 2026. The net loss was $11.8 million for Q2 2026, compared to a net loss of $10.6 million in Q2 2025. The restructuring charges related to the cost reduction actions will appear in Q3.

Adjusted EBITDA was negative $1.7 million for Q2 2026 compared to a positive $2 million in Q2 2025. On time spent, our primary audience engagement metric, Q2 2026 was 62.3 million hours compared to 69.9 million hours in Q2 2025, according to Comscore, a decrease of 11% year-over-year. However, time spent increased by 1.7 million hours relative to Q1. That's all for now, and I'll hand the call back over to the operator. Thank you.

Thank you for your participation in today's conference. This does conclude the program.

This live transcript is auto-generated without human intervention or review.

[Call has ended.]

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the BuzzFeed Inc. First Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call.

I would now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, Juliana Clifton, VP of Communications. Please go ahead.

Hi, everyone. Welcome to BuzzFeed Inc.'s First Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. I'm Juliana Clifton, VP of Communications for BuzzFeed. Joining me first today are CEO, Jonah Peretti; and CFO, Matt Omer.

Before we get started, I'd like to take this opportunity to remind you that our remarks today include forward-looking statements. Actual results may differ materially from those contemplated by these forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause these results to differ materially are set forth in today's press release, Form 10-Q filed with the SEC. Any forward-looking statements that we make on this call are based on assumptions as of today, and we undertake no obligation to update these statements as a result of new information or future events.

During this call, we present both GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures, including adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA margin. The use of non-GAAP financial measures allows us to measure the operational strength and performance of our business. We believe adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA margin are relevant and useful information for investors because they allow investors to view performance in a manner similar to the method used by our management. A reconciliation of these GAAP to non-GAAP measures is included in today's earnings press release. Please review -- refer to our Investor Relations website to find today's press release.

Now I'm going to hand the call over to Jonah.

Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone, and thanks for joining us. Today marks an important milestone for BuzzFeed. On behalf of the Board and management team, I want to welcome Byron Allen, who will become Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of BuzzFeed upon the completion of a transaction agreement we entered into earlier today.

Byron Allen has agreed to make a significant investment out of his family office into BuzzFeed, and we are very excited about his vision for the company and our iconic brands, BuzzFeed and HuffPost. We have entered into a transaction agreement that we expect to close within the month, subject to customary closing conditions.

Byron is one of the most accomplished media entrepreneurs and leaders in the industry, having built a global media platform with a strong track record of content creation, distribution, advertising sales and strategic growth across television, digital, streaming and local media assets. His vision, operational experience and long-term commitment to premium content makes him exceptionally well positioned to lead BuzzFeed and HuffPost into our next phase of growth and innovation. Byron has spent 30-plus years building distribution infrastructure, identifying strategic assets and scaling them into something much greater.

To prepare for Byron's arrival, we expect to make significant changes to build the best possible foundation for his ambitious vision. This includes planning cost reductions aimed at making our core business more efficient, so we can build new initiatives on top of a profitable core. We also plan to set up BuzzFeed Studios as a new independent entity to house our premium studio, vertical microdrama and digital video businesses which we expect will create new opportunities for these assets, bring operational focus to BuzzFeed Inc. and generate new liquidity.

Once this transaction is completed, I will shift my focus to a newly created role as President of BuzzFeed AI. Over the past couple of years, I've become convinced that AI will fundamentally transform the media industry and empower creative people to build in new ways. This vision came into sharper focus over the last several months, and I believe the opportunity is enormous. After my 20 years as CEO of BuzzFeed, I'm excited to switch my focus to a more hands-on role developing products and technology that are only possible because of recent advances in AI. I'm confident I can have a bigger impact and create more value in this new capacity.

I'm excited that Byron is joining us today to share some brief remarks about the extraordinary new opportunity, partnership and vision.

Thank you, Jonah, and the entire BuzzFeed and HuffPost team. Today marks the beginning of an exciting new chapter for BuzzFeed and HuffPost. I am honored to step into the role of Chairman and CEO upon this transaction closing.

Our vision is to build on the iconic foundation of BuzzFeed and HuffPost and expanded to free streaming video, audio and user-generated content. Competing at scale with the largest tech platforms globally. As of this moment, BuzzFeed is officially chasing YouTube. BuzzFeed is the perfect platform to deliver free streaming globally using proprietary software and artificial intelligence. BuzzFeed will expand its ability to aggregate, curate and deliver premium video and audio content. Building on that foundation, these iconic brands will provide super hyper local, national and international news.

BuzzFeed will pursue growth organically and through strategic acquisitions. Jonah will lead our team in AI innovation and user-generated content. These initiatives on top of our e-commerce, news and content businesses will position BuzzFeed to be a valuable platform for consumers and digital advertisers worldwide.

I also want to take a moment here to recognize Jonah Peretti, whose vision and creativity over the last 20 years, built BuzzFeed into one of the most powerful and recognizable digital media brands in the world. Jonah will continue to play an important leadership role as President of BuzzFeed AI where he will focus on advancing the company's AI-driven strategies.

Together, we have an exceptional leadership team focused on operational excellence, AI, digital innovation and a commitment to work diligently to create shareholder value. We are committed to the iconic brands of BuzzFeed and HuffPost and honoring their long tradition of reinventing and adapting to create the future of media. We are very excited about this extraordinary opportunity.

Thank you for allowing us to share some of our vision.

Thank you, Byron. Our focus now is on supporting a smooth transition through the closing process and positioning BuzzFeed for long-term growth from day one.

Now I'll hand over to Matt Omer to walk through the first quarter 2026 financial results.

Thanks, Jonah. BuzzFeed delivered Q1 2026 revenues of $31.6 million, declining 12.4% compared to the first quarter of 2025. Breaking down each revenue line. Advertising revenue declined 19.8% year-over-year to $17.1 million. Content revenue increased by $3.1 million or 69% to $7.5 million. In commerce and other revenues declined 32% year-over-year to $6.9 million. Net loss was $15.1 million for Q1 2026 compared to a net loss of $12.5 million in Q1 2025.

Adjusted EBITDA was negative $7.8 million for Q1 2026 compared to negative $5.9 million in Q1 2025. On time spent, our primary audience engagement metric, Q1 2026 was 60.6 million hours compared to 67.9 million hours in Q1 2025, a decrease of 10.7% year-over-year.

Given the ongoing transaction and the strategic work underway, we are withholding full year guidance at this time, we expect to provide a full update on both our strategic direction and financial outlook following the close of the transaction. We will not be taking questions today, but we look forward to discussing our post-closing strategy and financial outlook in greater detail once the transaction is complete.

Now I'll hand the call back over to the operator.

And this concludes today's program. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to BuzzFeed, Inc. Fourth Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call.

I'd now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, Juliana Clifton, Vice President of Communications. Please go ahead.

Hi, everyone. Welcome to BuzzFeed, Inc.'s Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2025 Earnings Conference Call. I'm Juliana Clifton, VP of Communications for BuzzFeed. Joining me today are CEO, Jonah Peretti; and our Chief Financial Officer, Matt Omer.

Before we get started, I would like to take this opportunity to remind you that our remarks today will include forward-looking statements. Actual results may differ materially from those contemplated by these forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause these results to differ materially are set forth in today's press release, our 2025 annual report on Form 10-K to be filed with the SEC and our 2025 quarterly reports on Form 10-Q.

Any forward-looking statements that we make on this call are based on assumptions as of today, and we undertake no obligation to update these statements as a result of new information or future events. During this call, we present both GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures, including adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA margin. The use of non-GAAP financial measures allows us to measure the operational strength and performance of our business to establish budgets and to develop operational goals for managing our business. We believe adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA margin are relevant and useful information for investors because they allow investors to view performance in a manner similar to the method used by our management. A reconciliation of these GAAP to non-GAAP measures is included in today's earnings press release. Please refer to our Investor Relations website to find today's press release.

Now I'll hand the call over to Jonah.

Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone, and thanks for joining us. Before Matt walks through the numbers, I want to step back and talk about how we're thinking about the business and what we're trying to accomplish this year. At a high level, we believe BuzzFeed Inc. is undervalued. The current market value of the company does not reflect the strength of our individual brands, the quality of our assets or the innovative work we've been doing to create new products with big upside in the future. In other words, we believe the sum of the parts is worth more than the whole. .

We generated close to $200 million in proceeds from selling Complex and First We Feast. But while owning these assets, our market cap was as low as $30 million with these assets representing a minority of our revenue. We believe this pattern continues today where the assets we own would be valued much higher individually than the market capitalization of BuzzFeed Inc., and this is only partly attributable to corporate debt. In fact, we believe that our current assets are worth a multiple of our market cap, especially when you consider the promise we see in unlaunched products and forthcoming features. This value isn't being recognized for a combination of reasons, including the pessimistic view of digital media in general, legacy centralized costs and downstream debt from our SPAC transaction, pre-COVID real estate commitment and the timing of cost reductions and new initiatives. We are in a much better position today on many of these issues, but we believe we can overcome these legacy costs and complications to help the market see the underlying value of the core assets and new products.

When we look inside the company, we see several distinct sources of value. One, First, we have a powerful durable brands with loyal audiences, properties like HuffPost, Tasty, BuzzFeed and BuzzFeed Studios, each serve different communities have different monetization profiles and, in many cases, are attractive in their own rights of partners, advertisers and potential strategic counterparts. These are not generic media properties. They are category-defining brands with strong recognition and engagement. Secondly, we have assets and IP, particularly in bus seat studios that are scaling rapidly. Studio revenue nearly tripled this year as we delivered 3 feature films and entered the micro drama category. This IP can travel across formats and platforms, which gives us optionality around partnerships, licensing and other ways to monetize what we've created over many years.

Thirdly, we have a growing body of innovative work that we'll launch this year as new products and enhanced features in our core businesses. Over the past year, we've been investing in new products and AI-driven experiences that deepen engagement, make our content more personalized and interactive and make our advertising and commerce offerings more effective. This year about surfacing that value and improving it, not just talking about it.

On the innovation side, we're rolling out new apps and product experiences that integrate AI more directly into the core BuzzFeed experience. You'll see more of this throughout the year including at South by Southwest tomorrow, where we'll share details on the apps that we've built and where we're headed. Over the coming quarters, we plan to demonstrate the value of our assets in concrete ways. We are actively exploring a range of strategic options and we are focused on closing the gap between how the market values BuzzFeed Inc, today and what we believe our individual assets are worth.

To summarize, our brands and assets are more valuable than our current market capitalization implies. Our innovative work, especially in AI and new product experiences represents meaningful upside that is not yet priced in. Our mandate this year is to prove the value of our parts, narrow the disconnect between intrinsic value and trading value and take the steps necessary to create value for our shareholders.

With that, I'll hand it over to Matt to walk you through our financials.

Thank you, Jonah. I want to start by providing some context on the full year before getting into Q specifics. Total revenue for the full year 2025 was $185.3 million, down 2% year-over-year from $189.9 million in 2024. Breaking down our full year numbers. Advertising revenue declined 3% to $91.7 million. Programmatic advertising grew 7% to $69.6 million. This is our seventh consecutive quarter of programmatic growth and it now represents 76% of total advertising revenue.

Direct sold advertising declined 25% to $22.1 million. Content revenue increased 9% to $37 million. Studio revenue nearly tripled to $16.1 million as we delivered 3 feature films during the year, coupled with positive contributions from our micro-drama vertical. Direct sold content declined 26% to $21 million. Commerce and other revenue declined 8% to $56.5 million. Affiliate commerce declined 7% to $55.5 million primarily reflecting changes in supplemental bonus structures from our partners. The underlying business remains strong, and we have not seen a decline in our conversion rates, click-through rates and total GMV driven for partners. The decline was primarily driven by a reduction in supplemental incentives from the prior year. Net loss from continuing operations was $57.3 million compared to $34 million in 2024, reflecting a noncash goodwill impairment charge of $30.2 million, driven by a sustained decline in our share price.

For the full year, adjusted EBITDA improved 61% and to $8.8 million compared to $5.5 million in 2024. Time spent totaled 276.5 million hours down 7% year-over-year and expected given that 2024 includes elevated engagement during the presidential election cycle. We ended the year with cash and cash equivalents and restricted cash of approximately $27.7 million, a decrease of $10.9 million compared to 2024. But as a reminder, in 2025 equated approximately $9 million in expenses related to refinancing our former convertible notes, severance and purchasing shares back from a prior investor.

Before I get into Q4 epics, I want to provide some context on our balance sheet position. As of December 31, 2025, we had total debt of $60.2 million. That's broken up with $45 million in our term loan and $15.2 million in film financing arrangements. Our term loan is secured by our existing accounts receivable and our film financing indebtedness is generally repaid directly with production tax credits proceeds or minimum guarantee payments for feature films. The cash and cash equivalents and restricted cash on the balance sheet is $27.7 million, which includes approximately $19.3 million pledged as collateral for our letters of credit on our office leases. We expect that approximately $15 million of those levers of credit will be released by our landlord after our sublease concludes in May of 2026, and we expect to use those funds to pay down debt.

Now let's turn to Q4 2025 specifically. Q4 revenue was $56.5 million, up 1% year-over-year. Advertising revenue increased slightly to $25.6 million. Programmatic advertising grew 2% to $18.4 million and direct sold advertising declined 3% to $7.2 million, reflecting continued market softness. Content revenue increased 56% to $14.7 million, driven by Studio. studio revenue grew $7.3 million as we recognized 2 feature films in Q4 plus contributions from micro-dramas.

Direct sold content declined 5% to $7.4 million. Commerce and other revenue declined 24% to $16.3 million, and affiliate commerce declined 23% to $16.1 million, primarily driven by the continued decline in supplemental bonuses from affiliate partners as they refine their commission structures. Net loss from continuing operations was $26.8 million compared to a net loss of continuing operations of $4.1 million in Q4 2024, again, reflecting a $30.2 million noncash goodwill and impairment charge.

Adjusted EBITDA for Q4 2025 was $12 million compared to $10.9 million in Q4 2024. And time spent was 17.3 million hours, down 11% year-over-year, again, reflecting the comparison to an elevated engagement of the presidential election cycle in Q4 2024.

As Jonah mentioned, we are evaluating strategic opportunities to unlock value and remedy the liquidity challenges that we are going to be facing. Some of those options could have a material impact on the shape of the company and our business in 2026. Given this, we are withholding the 2026 guidance at this time, we expect to provide an update on both our strategic direction and financial outlook in the coming quarters. Thank you for joining us today. I'll hand the call back to our host.

Thank you for your participation in today's conference. This does conclude the program. You may now disconnect.

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Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the BuzzFeed, Inc. Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. I would now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, Juliana Clifton, Vice President of Communications. Please go ahead.

Hi, everyone, and welcome to BuzzFeed, Inc.'s Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. I'm Juliana Clifton, VP of Communications for BuzzFeed. Joining me today are CEO, Jonah Peretti; and CFO, Matt Omer.

Before we begin, please note that our remarks today will include forward-looking statements. Actual results may differ materially from those contemplated by these statements. Risks and factors that could cause actual results to differ materially are described in our Q3 2025 earnings release and in our filings with the SEC, including our most recent annual report on Form 10-K and our Q3 2025 quarterly report on Form 10-Q filed with the SEC. Any forward-looking statements that we make on this call are based on assumptions as of today, and we undertake no obligation to update these statements as a result of new information or future events.

During this call, we present both GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures, including adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA margin. The use of non-GAAP financial measures allows us to measure the operational strength and performance of our business to establish budgets and to develop operational goals for managing our business. We believe adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA margin are relevant and useful information for investors because they allow investors to view performance in a manner similar to the method used by our management.

A reconciliation of these GAAP to non-GAAP measures is included in today's earnings press release, which is available now on our Investor Relations website. I'll turn the call over to Jonah now.

Thank you, and good afternoon, everyone. Q3 was a challenging quarter with near-term headwinds that impacted our results. Revenue declined driven by softer advertising demand, a decrease in affiliate partner bonuses and tougher comparisons against last year's presidential election cycle.

But despite the revenue decline, we still expect to deliver positive adjusted EBITDA for the full year with a step-up in Q4 driven by seasonal strength in commerce and advertising. This is a direct result of the transformative work we've done to build a leaner, more resilient business model.

Our audience metrics continue to show strength. BuzzFeed Inc. remained #1 among Gen Z and Millennials in our competitive set with 10.7 million hours of Time Spent with this audience in Q3, up 25% from Q2. Our flagship BuzzFeed brand also remains the #1 brand in our competitive set in Q3, generating 37.2 million hours of U.S. Time Spent growing 4% year-over-year.

Among Gen Z and Millennial audiences, BuzzFeed was up 6% from Q2. Direct traffic, direct visits, internal referrals and app usage now accounts for 63% of buzzfeed.com traffic, up from 61% in Q2, reinforcing our reduced platform dependency. Similarly, the HuffPost homepage drives exceptional traffic. Homepage pageviews and referrals now account for 75% of total huffpost.com traffic, up from 70% a year ago. We're also making significant progress on various R&D projects. I've been spending more of my time in the lab, and I'm excited to give a larger update on the next earnings call on what we've been building with the team.

Now I'll pass to Matt, who will walk you through the Q3 financials.

Thank you, Jonah. As Jonah mentioned, Q3 was a challenging quarter, and I want to provide some additional context to the numbers before walking through the details. Total revenue for the quarter was $46.3 million, down 17% year-over-year from $55.6 million in Q3 2024. This decline was driven by 3 factors: continued softness in direct sold advertising and content, a decline in affiliate bonuses from our commerce partners and a difficult year-over-year comparison given the elevated engagement and spend during the presidential election cycle in Q3 2024.

Despite these revenue headwinds, we've maintained our focus on cost discipline and operational efficiency. Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was $753,000 compared to $8.1 million in Q3 2024. While this represents a significant decline, it's important to note that we remained adjusted EBITDA positive despite the decline, a testament to the lean operating structure we've built.

Now let me walk through the revenue categories in more detail. Advertising revenues totaled $22.2 million compared to $24.8 million in Q3 2024, down 11%. Direct-sold advertising declined to $5.1 million, driven by continued market softness in this category. Content revenue totaled $7.2 million compared to $10.7 million in Q3 '24, a decline of 33%.

Direct-sold content fell by $2.6 million to $5.9 million, reflecting muted demand for brand content -- branded content partnerships. Studio revenue declined modestly to $1.3 million. And it's worth noting that in Q3 2024, included a nonrecurring data license deal, which makes the year-over-year comparison particularly difficult. And Studio revenue will continue to vary quarter-to-quarter based on project timing and delivery schedules, but we remain confident in the long-term trajectory of this business as we build out our IP portfolio.

Commerce and other revenues totaled $17 million compared to $20.1 million in Q3 '24, a decline of 15%. Organic affiliate commerce declined by $2.8 million to $16.8 million. This was primarily driven by a decline in supplemental bonuses from affiliate partners, including Amazon, as they continue to refine their commission methodologies.

And it's worth noting, however, that year-to-date organic affiliate revenue is essentially flat year-over-year. On the audience engagement side, total U.S. Time Spent across our properties was 68.5 million hours compared to 80.3 million hours in Q3 '24. This decline was largely expected as Q3 '24 benefited significantly from elevated news consumption during the presidential election cycle.

On a sequential basis, Time Spent was relatively stable compared to Q2 2025 as we continue to see strong engagement metrics among our most loyal users. Looking at the first 9 months of 2025, total revenues reached $128.7 million compared to $133.7 million in the first 9 months of 2024, a decline of 4%. Net loss from continuing operations was $30.5 million compared to $29.8 million in the same period last year.

And adjusted EBITDA losses improved to $3.2 million compared to losses of $5.5 million in the first 9 months of 2024, an improvement of 42%. This year-to-date performance reflects the ongoing transformation of our revenue mix with growth in programmatic advertising and studio revenue, partially offset by declines in direct sold categories.

Looking ahead, we are reducing our full year '25 guidance by approximately $10 million to reflect the softness in Q3 and our cautious approach to Q4 2024 results. We now expect revenue in the range of $185 million to $195 million and now expect adjusted EBITDA in the range of breakeven to $10 million. This revised outlook reflects the near-term challenges in advertising and commerce as well as the lumpiness in the studio project timing.

However, we remain committed to improving net income from continuing operations and achieving adjusted EBITDA profitability for the full year, and we continue to believe that our strategic focus on owned distribution, scalable revenue streams and new innovative -- innovation on initiatives position us well for long-term value creation. As we head into Q4, we're focused on executing against our seasonal strengths, particularly in affiliate commerce during key shopping windows like Black Friday and Cyber Monday, while continuing to invest in the foundations for future growth.

Thank you for joining us today. I'll hand the call back to the operator now.

Thank you for your participation in today's conference. This concludes the program. You may now disconnect.