Q: Is the large audience you are building on social media platforms a potential new revenue stream? A: Kristin Roberts (President of USA Today Media): Yes, absolutely. Social and video are becoming primary discovery channels. We generated 3 billion off-platform video views in the first half of the year. This audience will be monetized directly through platform revenue sharing, sponsorships, and branded content. More importantly, these platforms serve as a new on-ramp to build direct relationships with consumers, bringing them back to our platform where we can deepen engagement and create higher-value opportunities in advertising, commerce, and subscriptions.

Q: Do you see more AI licensing deals coming this year? A: Mike Reed (Chairman and CEO): Yes, the short answer is yes. We are actively engaged in discussions and expect more deals. A key part of our strategy is reformatting our content to be machine-readable, which is important for future deals and unlocking more value in current ones. We are blocking scrapers without agreements and believe that as the ecosystem evolves, our scale and trusted content will put us at the table for new and expanded deals. Almost all of this opportunity remains in front of us.

Q: Were the softer Q2 revenue trends a setback, and are things still on track? A: Tricia Gosser (CFO): I absolutely don't view Q2 as a setback. We remain on track with our strategy. The quarterly variability was expected, particularly around content licensing. While digital advertising faced pressure from search changes, a lost programmatic partner, and a platform policy change, our key long-term growth engines performed well. Digital-only subscription revenue grew for the second consecutive quarter, and digital other revenue grew over 20%. We are seeing encouraging progress in the areas most important to long-term success, which is why we are reaffirming our full-year outlook.

Q: Is there any update on the Google litigation? A: Mike Reed (Chairman and CEO): Nothing specific since the last call, but we remain very optimistic. We expect the remedies case from the DOJ to be out in the market any time. We also expect a ruling on Google's summary judgment motion in our specific case around September. Importantly, our 2026 and 2027 outlook does not include any potential upside from a more open advertising ecosystem or our litigation against Google, so any positive outcome is pure upside for us.

Q: Can you size the impact of Google's push into AI search and have search trends stabilized? A: Kristin Roberts (President of USA Today Media) and Tricia Gosser (CFO): Our strategy is to diversify how audiences find us and convert interactions into direct, known relationships. The impact on Q2 digital advertising was driven by three roughly equal factors: the impact of search, the loss of a programmatic partner, and a platform policy change. However, our premium sales grew year-over-year and RPMs improved, showing that the things we control are moving in the right direction. There is a lag between audience growth in new channels and the full revenue benefit.

Q: Would you consider shutting off Google's crawlers to gain negotiating leverage for AI licensing deals? A: Mike Reed (Chairman and CEO): Yes, we are not there yet, but we are getting closer. Search revenue is now a small part of our platform, and much of that traffic is one-and-done and less monetizable. I can see a day, perhaps in 9 to 15 months, where we turn off scraping. However, our preferred path is to proactively negotiate a fair licensing deal with Google. If we have to block them to get to a deal, we will do that.

Q: What are the key areas to continue driving growth in the subscription business, and how much pricing leverage is left? A: Kristin Roberts (President of USA Today Media) and Mike Reed (Chairman and CEO): The most important point is that digital subscription revenue has grown for two consecutive quarters. The 34% ARPU growth is not solely from broad price increases; it reflects a better mix of subscribers, more consistent offers, and the removal of low-value subs. We would not extrapolate that growth rate indefinitely, but we see continued opportunity through pricing, packaging, and stacked products. Volume trends are stabilizing, and as we get closer to volume growth, we will have more levers to make growth more meaningful. We expect to lift subscription revenue for many quarters to come.

Q: What is driving the decline in monthly unique visitors? A: Kristin Roberts (President of USA Today Media) and Mike Reed (Chairman and CEO): The decline reflects lower referrals from traditional search due to changing consumer discovery habits, not lower demand for content. Our reach is extending beyond owned properties through social and video. We would rather have a larger share of known, highly engaged users than maximize one-time anonymous visits. The key metric is our revenue per unique visitor. Whether we have 140 million or 180 million uniques, what matters is increasing the value we derive from each one.

Q: What gets you to majority digital revenue, and is ad revenue turning around? A: Tricia Gosser (CFO): We expect advertising revenue trends to improve in the back half of the year as our work on audience and data becomes more reflected in revenue. Other growth drivers include AI licensing, which we expect to continue growing, our digital-only subscription business, and improving local IQ trends. The digital other category, including licensing and affiliate revenue, will be a big driver of getting us past 50% digital revenue later this year. We have a lot of confidence in the path of the year and getting to revenue growth.

For the complete transcript of the earnings call, please refer to the full earnings call transcript .