Lee Enterprises, Incorporated (NASDAQ:LEE) Q2 2022 Results Earnings Conference Call May 5, 2022 10:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Josh Rinehults - Vice President-FP&A

Kevin Mowbray - President and Chief Executive Officer

Timothy Millage - Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer

Conference Call Participants

Michael Kupinski - NOBLE Capital Markets

Operator

Welcome to the Lee Enterprises 2022 Second Quarter Webcast and Conference Call. [Operator Instructions]

Now I will turn the call over to your host, Josh Rinehults, Vice President, Finance.

Josh Rinehults

Good morning. Thank you for joining us. To begin this morning's call are Kevin Mowbray, President, Chief Executive Officer; and Timothy Millage, Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer. Earlier today, we issued a news release with preliminary results for our second fiscal quarter of 2022. It is available at www.lee.net as well as at major financial websites. Please also refer to our earnings presentation found at www.investors.lee.net that include supplemental information. As a reminder, this morning's discussion will include forward-looking statements based on our current expectations. These statements are subject to certain risks, trends, and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. Such factors are described in this morning's news release and also in our SEC filings.

During the call, we refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures, including adjusted EBITDA and cash costs, which are defined in our news release. Reconciliations to the relevant GAAP measures are included in tables accompanying the release.

And now to open the discussion is our President and Chief Executive Officer, Kevin Mowbray. Kevin will open the conversation on Slide 3 of the earnings presentation for those following along.

Kevin Mowbray

Good morning, everyone. I'm pleased you could join us. We're incredibly proud of our second quarter results, as our digital investments are paying off and driving recurring sustainable digital revenue growth. We reported 59% growth in digital subscribers, 108% growth in aside digital revenue and 33% growth in total digital revenue, putting us ahead of our plans to achieve our fiscal '22 digital revenue targets. It gives us great confidence we have the right strategy, the right team, and we're executing with speed. We believe that Lee has a solid future and a potential to drive significant value for all of our stakeholders, our 3 Pillar Digital Growth Strategies, the foundation of our investment thesis, and the execution of this strategy is at the core of creating value for our shareholders. Sustainable long-term revenue growth from our 3 Pillar initiative will transform the mix of our revenue base, drive margin expansion, and stronger free cash flow, which will fuel our continued debt reduction and balance sheet enhancements.