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comScore, Inc. (SCOR)

Q3 2025 Earnings Call· Tue, Nov 4, 2025

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Comscore Third Quarter 2025 Financial Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that today's conference call is being recorded. I would like to hand over the conference call to our first speaker, Kevin Burns, Executive Vice President for Business Operations. Please go ahead.

Kevin Burns

Analyst

Thank you, operator. Before we begin our prepared remarks, I'd like to remind all of you that the following discussion contains forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements include comments about our plans, expectations and prospects, and are based on our view as of today, November 4, 2025. Our actual results in future periods may differ materially from those currently expected because of a number of risks and uncertainties. These risks and uncertainties include those outlined in our 10-K, 10-Q and other filings with the SEC, which you can find on our website or at www.sec.gov. We disclaim any duty or obligation to update our forward-looking statements to reflect new information after today's call. We will be discussing non-GAAP measures during this call, for which we have provided reconciliations in today's press release and on our website. Please note that we will be referring to slides on this call, which are also available on our website, www.comscore.com, under Investor Relations, Events and Presentations. I'll now turn the call over to Comscore's Chief Executive Officer, Jon Carpenter. Jon?

Jonathan Carpenter

Analyst

Good evening, and thank you for joining us. For the third quarter, we generated just under $89 million in revenues, slightly up year-over-year and driven by continued solid double-digit growth in key strategic areas of our business. For starters, we delivered another strong print in local with double-digit growth that continues to highlight our product strength in measuring audiences at a hyperlocal level across platforms. Second, and despite a shift in strategy from a large retail media client, we delivered 20% year-over-year growth in cross-platform. Absent this shift, which we believe is unrelated to our product, but does have a second half impact on the revenue, our cross-platform business was up 35% in the quarter and demonstrates that clients across the media industry are turning to us for our suite of cross-platform audience, planning and measurement capabilities. These cross-platform capabilities are fueled by our unmatched data integrations across CTV, social, traditional TV and digital, which, when coupled with our intellectual property, enables us to deliver high-quality, differentiated cross-platform results for our clients. At our core, our goal is to enable cross-platform performance for our clients. We do that by giving them the measurement data, audience intelligence and privacy forward solutions they need to plan, target and execute effective ad campaigns that deliver the outcomes that their businesses demand. In other cases, our solutions help clients articulate the unique audiences that are engaging with specific pieces of content at the show and episode level and allow for more effective packaging, planning and monetization of content to advertisers. With our staggering data footprint, Comscore is measuring the audiences that matter most to help our clients get the performance and outcomes that matter to their businesses. And we do this with solutions like Comscore Content Measurement, which gives advertisers and media owners a…

Mary Curry

Analyst

Thank you, Jon. Total revenue for the third quarter was $88.9 million, up 0.5% from $88.5 million the same quarter a year ago. Content and ad measurement revenue of $75.5 million was up 0.3% from the prior year quarter, driven by growth in our cross-platform and local TV offerings. Cross-platform revenue of $12.3 million was up 20.2% compared to the prior year, driven by higher usage of our Proximic and Comscore Campaign Ratings solutions as well as the continued adoption of Comscore Content Measurement, which launched earlier this year. As Jon mentioned, cross-platform growth in the third quarter was impacted by a strategy shift of one of our large retail media clients, which we expect will impact the fourth quarter as well. Syndicated audience revenue of $63.2 million was down 2.8% compared to the prior year quarter, driven by declines in our national TV and syndicated digital products, partially offset by growth from our other syndicated offerings, including double-digit growth in local TV from higher renewals and new business. Our movies business also remained strong, generating $9.5 million of revenue in the third quarter, up 1.9% from the prior year. Research and Insights Solutions revenue of $13.4 million was up 1.4% from Q3 of '24, primarily due to new business in the quarter, including revenue from the launch of a new AI measurement solution, which was partially offset by lower renewals and the timing of certain deliveries. Adjusted EBITDA for the third quarter was $11 million, down 11.1% from the prior year quarter, resulting in an adjusted EBITDA margin of 12.4%. While we remain disciplined in our cost execution, our core operating expenses increased in the third quarter, primarily driven by higher employee incentive compensation accruals this year, which are based on expected full year performance. We also continue to…

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Jason Kreyer from Craig-Hallum Capital Group.

Cal Bartyzal

Analyst

This is Cal on for Jason. So maybe just to start, can you just provide some additional color on the large retail media advertiser that shifted away from Proximic and what kind of went into that decision?

Jonathan Carpenter

Analyst

Cal, it's Jon. This impacted the Proximic business primarily in one of our largest programmatic platforms. And yes, it was a large retail media client who has access to a tremendous amount of first-party data and access to a platform outside of one of the major platforms that we're operating in and has taken advantage of that shift. And it's something that was a headwind down the stretch in the third quarter, and we anticipate seeing it again in the fourth quarter. We anticipate it being short term in nature. But given the timing of the year, we had to make a call on the full year number.

Cal Bartyzal

Analyst

Got you. And then just curious what you're seeing in the pipeline there that gives confidence that the cross-platform growth opportunities can more than replace this lost revenue as we look to 2022?

Jonathan Carpenter

Analyst

Yes. I mean I think the combination of our suite of offerings here between Proximic's capabilities, coupled with the cross-platform ad measurement half of a product like CCR that throughout this year continued to perform incredibly well. Those 2 things alone complement each other incredibly well. And now we've layered on our content measurement capability with CCM. And as we talked about on the -- in the prepared remarks, CCM has really taken off. We launched it in January. It wasn't fully featured out, and we immediately saw really strong engagement. We've signed, as I mentioned in my notes, a number of new long-term deals with major partners and the pipeline for that product is incredibly encouraging. And so I think the combination of our full suite of cross-platform capabilities is really unmatched compared to the rest of the measurement marketplace, and we're going to continue to lean into the investment that we put forward on some of those, and we fully anticipate it to continue to pay off.

Cal Bartyzal

Analyst

Perfect. That makes sense. Maybe next for me, there's been some reports that one of your large competitors will no longer measure local TV stations that are not subscribers. So just curious how this can benefit adoption given your leading capabilities in local and if you've seen any benefit materialize in the market to date?

Jonathan Carpenter

Analyst

Yes. Thanks. Look, our prowess in local measurement across channels is certainly one of this company's great strengths. And I think you see that in the result quarter after quarter here with double-digit growth in our local offering. We continue to invest in that capability to support not just our local broadcast partners, but to support our cross-platform capability. And we're highly confident in the quality of that product and the stability that clients get when they engage with our offering, particularly on the traditional, call it, TV currency side of things. And so I fully expect us to continue to benefit from the strength of that product.

Cal Bartyzal

Analyst

Great. And then maybe last for me. Should it ultimately be approved, can you just kind of discuss how the recapitalization improves your EBITDA to free cash flow conversion? And what some of the points of emphasis might be for investments given the additional resources?

Jonathan Carpenter

Analyst

Yes. I think we're excited about what this agreement does for common shareholders. I outlined some of the benefits of this for our common shareholder base. I encourage people to go to our proxy filing for additional details on that and as we get into the '26 discussion. And again, like I said, we're encouraging people to approve this. And once approved, I'd be happy to share more detail on the benefit beyond what I articulated on the call today.

Operator

Operator

I'm showing no further questions at this time. This concludes our Q&A. I would like to turn it back to Jon Carpenter, CEO of Comscore.

Jonathan Carpenter

Analyst

Great. Thanks. I'd just like to recognize and thank our employees for their continued hard work here at Comscore and what they do to deliver every day for our clients. Further, I'd like to thank our investors and our clients for their continued trust and partnership. Thanks, everyone, for joining us this evening, and we'll be talking soon.

Operator

Operator

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