Good morning, everyone. I'm Sebastiano Petti, and I cover the telecom, cable and satellite space for JPMorgan. I want to welcome BCE CFO, Curtis Millen. Curtis, thank you for being with us again today.
Thanks for having me. Thanks, everyone, for being here.
Curtis, BCE reported 1Q results last week and provided a few important updates, including a new JV with PSP investments as well as rebasing of the dividend. While we'll delve into each of those momentarily, can you take a step back and review BCE's 4 key priorities, efforts towards each of those and how you and Mirko are positioning the company for long-term growth?
Yes. Thanks for the question. And I'll try not to make this a 20-minute answer here. But at the highest level, we think of it as customer experience. And let's face it, we only drive revenue because we have customers, whether that's enterprise, whether it's residential, customers have to be the key, have to be our focus. And the good news for us, as we leverage more technology, we actually make it simpler for customers to interact with us, whether that's self-installed, digital capabilities, self-serve.
And we're at a nice place in time where it's actually more cost efficient to provide customers better service. So that's always a focus for us. And then you combine customer experience, customer service with leveraging the best networks.
So our 5G network, but probably even more importantly, our fiber network, right? So we have more fiber than anyone in Canada, and we have a path to doubling that given our Ziply announcements. Third pillar, BBM Tech Services which is, I would say, a balance of growth efforts offsetting the kind of legacy declines that we have. I think we've done a pretty good job managing the kind of core connectivity side of it and the cloud services, cloud migration, professional services plus cybersecurity.
Frankly, they're all services that customers have been asking us to deliver for them, and we've just recently ramped up our capabilities in the last few years. So that growth is going to offset any decline. So that feels pretty good.
And then digital media. Media is a single-digit part of our EBITDA, but we still own it. We're the biggest media company in Canada and undergone a lot of transformation in the last 5 years where, I mean, the secular declines on the legacy side, but the digital side of that world are investments that we've made, whether it's direct-to-consumer, whether it's streaming, whether it's the digital capability to insert ads on digital platforms. All that work is behind us, and that's actually a growth opportunity for us.
So I'd say those are the buckets and kind of across all of those is just continuous digital transformation. Ultimately, we're a technology company. We're leveraging technology for our employees, for our customers, and that just rips out a bunch of costs and really simplifies our process, which I know feels ironic when we're a 145-year-old company, but it's not a stretch to believe that we still had legacy processes and legacy systems within the bowels of our organization, and we're just getting at that and ripping out, saving costs.
Great. And let's start with the dividend. So why do you, Mirko, and the Board have comfort that this is the right level and affords you the adequate financial flexibility to achieve your capital allocation priorities?
Yes, it's a good question. And look, obviously, when you're resetting the dividend, it's not a 5-minute discussion in one session. So clearly, it took a little bit of time, a lot of analysis, different scenarios. And fundamentally, we think at our dividend level -- at this dividend level, we have the ability to fund both natural deleveraging, fund our growth platforms and return capital to shareholders.
So we try to be balanced about it. But ultimately, we generate a lot of free cash flow, and this is capital allocation. And capital allocation in this environment, it's important for us to make sure that we had a real path to deleveraging to 3.5 and beyond.
Got it. And so a great segue there. So you now expect 3.5 exiting 2027 in terms of leverage pro forma for Ziply and then 3.0 leverage by 2030 versus 3.6 exiting the first quarter. So help us think about -- as we think about the target to monetize $7 billion of noncore assets, you have the acquisition of Ziply and the debt that comes with it, another $2 billion of, call it, cash savings per annum as you -- now that you've rebased the dividend and the $1.5 billion equity contribution to the Network FiberCo that will be distributed over time.
So I think I more eloquently asked you today than I did on the call, but why do you believe that this guide is maybe not somewhat conservative? What are we missing? Or what should we be considering in terms of leverage target?
Yes. Look, if it turns out to be conservative, then that's a great new story, right? Ultimately, we think this is a path that allows us to delever. And look, we're actually starting from 3.8, not 3.6. We issued hybrids in advance of Ziply closing.
It just made sense capital markets-wise given the kind of backdrop to issue the hybrids, get those issued before doing a normal 10-year, like our plan would have just been issue a 10-year bond. But frankly, it's a lot easier in more variable markets for us to issue a 10-year bond.
We wanted to make sure that we issued the hybrid. So it took down leverage. That was planned last second half of the year. We just accelerated that. Makes sense. So post Ziply and just north of $2 billion in debt that we're assuming, we are closer to $3.8.
So it's a deleveraging path from 3.8 to 3.5, which is still a pretty steep decline, which is why I feel confident that 3.5 breaks through 3.5 and heads down towards 3.0. I mean it's a real deleveraging path, which, again, provides financial flexibility for us to, as I said, continue to delever, fund our growth and return value to shareholders. And we're still north of 5%, 5.5% dividend yield. It's still a pretty attractive yield.
And if we reach financial flexibility a little bit earlier, then great. That becomes a good news story where we can start thinking about other capital allocation type decisions and return to shareholder decisions.
Okay. Great. And then I think in terms of asset monetization, Mirko did announce that Northwestel, MLSE sales are progressing with 2 additional divestiture processes underway. Any update on those processes or maybe helping us think at a broad level, what some of those noncore assets might be?
Yes. And look, he calls out 2 because we have advisers, we have SIMs, we have processes ongoing. So I mean, there are other noncore assets that we can look to monetize. I would say they are kind of adjacency businesses, nice businesses. They do have some EBITDA associated with it, but not core to our business going forward.
Okay. And then you did touch on the hybrids. How much additional capacity do you have in terms of hybrids from here?
Yes. No, I like the hybrid issuances. Obviously, it was our initial issuance in both Canada and then one in the U.S., call it, $400 million, $500 million of capacity. I mean we're buying back press maybe $100 million a year, and that increases our basket to issue hybrids. I'd continue to make the trade between press and hybrids at this point, but it's kind of smaller on the markets at this point.
Okay. So the U.S. fiber strategy is obviously a key focus in the Network FiberCo JV announcement last week. So on the call, you did provide a lot of detail on the Network FiberCo. But I was hoping maybe you could review some of those details with us today, provide some additional context around the moving pieces.
So specifically, because you do expect returns in excess of 20% related to the deal, the return profile is highly sensitive to penetration curves and something we've been thinking about and getting a lot of questions on.
So number one, the 6 million passings target, right? So you target 1 million additional passings in Ziply's existing states with an additional 5 million outside of those. So I guess what gives you the confidence in being first to fiber in these 6 million locations?
Okay, hold on, I'm just writing that down because it's a few questions. So let me back up some of the details, and you could speed me up if it's too detailed. So there'll be 1.5 million fiber locations, fiber passings at closing. We will build on our account on a consolidated basis, another 500,000, right?
That gets to -- those are within the current copper footprint. So we will get to 2 million, 100% owned within Ziply, right? Whether that's 2.5 years, 3 years, 3.25 years, I'll get to that in a second, but assume 3 years. Then to go from 2 million to 8 million, that's the incremental $6 million opportunity. That will be built out of the partnership.
Ziply, we will consolidate 100% of that retail. We will own 100% of that retail customer experience, right? So that will be our subscribers and our revenue and EBITDA. We will pay PartnershipCo a wholesale fee, a per sub wholesale fee. And what the partnership will do, they will fund the CapEx required for the last mile passing.
The reason why it's only last mile is we're acquiring everything from Ziply and keeping, retaining everything that we're acquiring, which includes Ziply's core network, which extends well beyond their 4 states and gives us advantages in terms of cost build-out for future homes, but also enterprise sales upside, and we're going to keep all of that. So on the last mile side.
So the partnership is last mile fiber build as well as a portion of what we would call demand CapEx. So the drop to the home, the ONT on the side of the house. The 100% consolidated part of demand CapEx that Ziply will keep and report is really the modem, right? So the funding -- the partnership funding actually pays for a lot of the demand CapEx. And then for us, I think it's quite powerful because ultimately, we will be able to sell to 6 million incremental homes.
It's all incremental upside for us EBITDA-wise. And we're spending, call it, $0.20 to $0.25 on the dollar for every new home passed because there's leverage at the partnership. So it will start off construction loan, pretty standard is 50%. So 50% of every initial dollar is going to be construction loan, debt funded. And then we're 49% of the equity check that's required, so equity funding. And that's not -- we're not -- PSP's funding was a commitment in excess of $1.5 billion, but that's called over time as the partnership builds out.
Got it. And then one thing you actually brought up that had not necessarily contemplated was, so to the extent that network FiberCo uses like your backhaul, is there rents that the JV is going to pay back?
So then there's a payment upfront partnership into Ziply, and I appreciate this is confusing. That's why it's not often you see a little org chart in the earnings call presentation, but we put it there for a reason.
So what happens is the Ziply management team is identifying the locations, they're working the engineering plans and they're actually building it. So it is still the Ziply team. And that's why I said earlier, the Ziply team is going to manage build by efficiency and reducing costs and maximizing the opportunity.
So they're not going to build the initial 500,000 that we own 100% of first. It's concurrent builds, right? It's the same team doing the build, doing the planning, whatever is the most efficient, that's the path that we're going to head down, right? So think of it as concurrent build within the partnership and us building out to our 2 million homes.
Got it. So the 2 million homes you said probably assume 3 years. But how should we think about the expectation across the entire 6 million? Any target dates that we should be penciling in our models?
Yes, it's tough. I mean we haven't closed the acquisition yet. So a few data points. One, our partner is a Canadian pension fund through its infrastructure arm, so this is, by definition, long-term patient capital. So I think 8 to 12 years, in my head, I kind of take 10 years, a couple of years to ramp up and probably you're ramping down towards the tail end of that partnership build, and you probably won't be too far wrong.
But again, it's permit-driven and it is fiber build. So we've identified -- honestly, we've identified more than 10 million locations. We're talking about an incremental 5 million here. Importantly, in the fiber world, it's same in Canada, it's same down here.
I mean, if somebody else builds fiber in a region that was, we thought in year 6, we were going to get to, then we'll just pivot and go somewhere else, right? We're not in the fiber overbuilding world. We're in the pick the best spots to build fiber and drive revenue and drive free cash flow. But there's plenty of white space out there for all of us. We're just looking to pick up incremental 5 million incremental fiber locations. I mean the interesting thing for us is you get to 8 million total homes in the U.S.
Again, on the scale of the U.S., it's not as big, which is why I think it's pretty clear we can find that white space, but it does double our fiber footprint. So for us, fiber growth is a pretty significant piece of our overall growth story.
Got it. And so confidence that you'll be the first to fiber, plenty of white space there?
Well, we'll be the first to fiber wherever we go, like because we're not going to overbuild other fiber. So we'll always be first to fiber.
And then in terms of the build cost, I think you cited $1,000 per passing, but you understand -- just help us understand, I guess, the confidence in that build cost. Just obviously, you have cost inflation, obviously, a big topic in the U.S. has been labor and wages related to that. And obviously, a lot of that -- most of that $1,000 per passing is, I would imagine, labor related.
But we also get questions relatedly to this white space because obviously, density matters to an extent. But so feel confident though, in that $1,000 per passing on a blended basis across the 6 million.
Yes. Well, and look, I mean, if inflation takes off, right, 3 years from now, it's hard to factor that in. But everything we've seen, we feel pretty confident. And the upside for us is although they only operate in 4 states, they have so much fiber that's core network. They actually have more core fiber within their 4 states that's not part of the ILEC and then outside of their ILEC footprint as well and outside of those 4 states.
So there are plenty of builds, even though it feels like you'd be moving into a new state, it's actually just an edge out for them. So it is -- they do have a lot of opportunity still that's really cost efficient and edge out, even though it feels and looks like it would be a brand-new market.
Okay. Okay. And so sticking with this theme, just thinking about just overall competition in the U.S. Obviously, convergence at this conference has been a pretty hot topic, and we've heard from the U.S. players this week talking about that and the importance of a bundled offer.
So I guess what gives you confidence you can compete in the U.S. market as a single-play fiber broadband provider when you have AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, Comcast, Charter, all offering a broadband and mobile bundle over fiber, HFC, FWA nearly nationwide.
Yes. I think a few things give us comfort. One, look, we're a converged offer in Canada, right? I mean we have a lot of experience selling fiber. We're the biggest fiber player in Canada, and we have the best 5G network, 5G plus network. So we have a decade of experience selling a converged bundle, and Canada is more converged than the U.S., and it's 40% of our sales.
So 40% of our fiber sales actually attach wireless to it. So even though we say it's a bundled world and we're heading to more convergence, a lot of the sales don't actually get done together. And then I think what you've seen in the U.S. And elsewhere, frankly, these fiber operators that don't have video, they don't have wireless.
It's basically a single product, single focus, have built -- overbuilt copper and taken share from cable pretty consistently. And whether that's Ziply, whether that's any of the, frankly, hundreds of others that have put fiber into the ground, it's all basically the same experience, build fiber, take share from cable.
And I think that's what the Ziply management has done. I think that's what they're going to continue to do. In their more tenured markets, they're at 40%. In our more tenured markets in Canada, we're at 55%, so in their less tenured markets, they're at 23%. So a lot of upside in their newer markets.
And let's say, that they have 1.5 million fiber locations by closing, they'll get to 3 million, probably a bit more than 3 million by 2028. Again, they're doubling their fiber footprint. Smaller scale, but they're doubling their fiber footprint. So the penetration ramp of new fiber over the first 12, 24, 36 months is pretty spectacular.
So we're not underwriting that they get to our 55%. We don't even have to underwrite that they get to their 40% experience, and there's a ton of growth there. So I think all experience kind of points to being able to penetrate against cable. And then you raised Verizon and AT&T, which is a good point.
And look, I appreciate, I mean, I listen to their calls, they're obviously more focused on converged sales. And there's a reason why they're spending more money and time and focus on the fiber network because as we find the fiber network pulls wireless, not as much the other way around, but the fiber network definitely pulls wireless and generally pulls a better and attracts a higher ARPU, higher long-term value customer as well.
So the good news is, we're not competing against AT&T and Verizon and their wireless network. But if it turns out, right, a more converged world, you get a few years out that the bundle of fiber plus wireless dramatically increases your share against cable, well, then we're in a pretty good position to do that.
I mean we're certainly in a better position than other pure fiber players because we have relationships with all the handset manufacturers. We've sold on a bundled basis for a decade in Canada.
So if it turns out that like it really is important, great. I mean we're a pretty interesting MVNO when we get toward 8 million fiber locations. And again, we're not competing with AT&T and Verizon. We're competing against cable who doesn't actually own and operate their own wireless network.
Got it. And lastly, as we close the loop on this, there are some fiber assets for sale in the U.S. that maybe could have accelerated your push into the U.S. market. Obviously, Ziply is obviously one of them, but then there's some others...
We like that one.
That's a good one. What does -- help us think about the considerations of why maybe a greenfield fiber JV makes more sense versus some of these perhaps other options?
Yes, it's interesting. And again, the ownership of fiber in the U.S. is far more spread out than it is in Canada, where the telcos have built out fiber for 15 years. So I do think that leads to opportunity in terms of tuck-in, right? I mean there a bunch of operators 5,000, 10,000, 50,000 fiber locations. So that winds up being a build versus buy, right?
I mean, an efficient way to build out our network and drive more free cash flow. So I think we'll have to weigh both of them. But I'd say, a, focus on closing Ziply; b, we have a build path. If tuck-ins wind up being better than the build path, then of course, we're going to consider that. I don't think the size of the opportunity is the issue. It's how do we do it in a balanced manner, which is why, frankly, the partnership is pretty interesting for us.
Okay. Great. So now I guess, pivoting to the core business. So total mobile phone subs were a little soft, in the first quarter declined, would you attribute it to just lower gross activations, market growth, which is not surprising given the population growth slowdown, but also your disciplined focus on high-margin accretive subscribers.
So that strategy led to, I think, 25,000 loadings on the Bell Premium brand, I think, as you guys talked about. So how should we maybe think about the phasing of gross adds or connect activity over the balance of the year? Was the first quarter just abnormally slow? Or is it just more reflective of this new operating environment?
Yes. I think it's a bit of both. I think the back half of the year is a bit of an easier comp. I mean, immigration in Canada started to slow down second half of last year. So it's a tough comp, just population growth new to category first half of this year.
I'd say a few things. One, our sales engine is still performing quite strongly. Ultimately, this is the first quarter and it might be decades where we actually had as many gross adds as Rogers, which tends to have the most sales, gross adds. So I think that's quite a positive.
I think the issue for us, which winds up being an opportunity is our churn is higher than Rogers. Telus always had the lowest churn in the industry. Rogers and we have kind of flip-flopped depending on the time. And the last year and a bit, I think churn is, we haven't improved churn as much as Rogers has.
So I do think there's a lot of opportunity for us to reduce churn as long as the sales engine keeps going. And in a world of slowing growth, the churn upside for us is really important. So there's a lot of focus, a lot of spend.
If I think about the capital allocation process, there's a lot more opportunity that's being funded on the projects that reduce churn. And that's leveraging AI, it's blocking and tackling, it's focus on upgrades. So it's many different things, but it's clear for us, it's an upside for us, and we're just going to get at it and tackle it.
Yes. I mean I think Mirko did say that the second quarter, right, things were "trending in the right direction." He talked...
So far. A month doesn't quite make a trend just yet, but 1.5 months, getting close to calling it a trend.
Yes. And he called out specifically churn, right, within that as well. So that's good to see there. And dovetails well with your -- where you started in terms of the whole customer experience efforts.
And the only thing I'd add to that is, obviously, there's a slowdown of immigration and new to category. So the year-over-year comp of net adds is a bit of a -- chasing that is a bit of a fool's errand, right?
So for us, we realized pretty quickly the way to drive revenue, free cash flow returns is actually being more disciplined in the market. So in Q1, we raised prices. We were uncompetitive on price for a few days waiting for to see what happened in the marketplace. We held firm.
Others eventually raised their prices. They dropped their prices a bit faster than we did. We kind of held on. So you lose 7, 8, 9 days where you're not competitive in market. It doesn't help your nets and your sales, obviously. But again, the most important variable for us, the 2 most important variables, one is just getting the prices up in market and keeping them there.
So it's worth it for us to try to increase prices even if it costs us a few lows because chasing the incremental 1,000, 5,000, 9,000 net adds is actually destructive to our overall revenue growth and service revenue and free cash flow are the metrics that are most important to us.
Like net adds is a metric that for the history of the wireless industry has been interesting and important, but only because it actually -- only because it signaled what was going to happen to service revenue and free cash flow, and there's a bit of a disconnect right now.
Yes. And I think that's a good point and a good segue. I think as we look at the first quarter's mobile phone ARPU was a little bit better than anticipated. This again reflects your focus efforts that you just kind of talked about. But the market does remain somewhat competitive in terms of price points.
But help us think about one thing that we're spending a lot of time on and I ask you when you talk about roaming. So of the 1.8% decline in the first quarter, can you maybe size how much of that impact was from outbound roaming and maybe how you're thinking about that trending over the subsequent quarters?
Yes. So a couple of data points first. I mean, roaming, call it, 4% of our ARPU and it was down 10%, right? So not overly material, but it still has an impact.
Okay.
In terms of travel, I mean, honestly, this is a U.S. environment. So I think week-to-week, there's a different backdrop in terms of tariffs and sentiment in terms of travel and vacation. So we'll have to wait and see.
Okay. And as you think about this lower -- the lower pricing and packaging that's kind of permeated the base, I guess, how should we think about the path to stability and return to growth in mobile phone ARPU?
Yes, it's a good question. I think the industry is going to have to kind of break through the headwind that we caused over the last 12 months with the lower ARPU contracts. So if you think 24-month contracts and depending on handset pricing, you're 36 months, 40 months through your handsets kind of leads you to think we're halfway through kind of the -- I can't think of a better analogy this quickly, but kind of the pig going through the python.
Okay. And so pivoting to the Internet business here. So loadings of 9,500 reflected the slower footprint expansion we've talked about. But you did kind of bring it up somewhat as you think about Ziply's opportunity and growth rate, but BCE has built 1.9 million new fiber locations over the last 3 years.
You reached 45% penetration within 3 years of deployment, I think Mirko said. So how should we think about the Internet loadings from here given the headwinds in the business, but maybe how do we balance maybe still greenfield or new fiber ramp opportunity against the slower market growth?
Yes. It's interesting. I mean, obviously, there are slower new housing starts, but where we have fiber and where we build fiber is doing well. So what's happening, and this will not be a surprise, where we have fiber, we are taking the lion's share of nets in market and increasing our penetration, right?
So our penetration keeps going up where we have fiber. We were, in Ontario, sub-40%, now we're closer to 50%. In the Atlantic, where it's more tenured, we're 55%. In Quebec, we were sub-30%. Now we're in the 40%. So our penetration continues to climb.
You're right, within 3 years, obviously, that's the steepest ramp of penetration gains, but it continues to ramp over time as well. So where we have fiber, we win. Where we don't have fiber, we continue to lose nets there. So kind of the numbers behind the numbers are continue to win in fiber.
And obviously, if you're cable, they need to report a story as well. If they're losing subs where we build fiber, they need to outperform where we don't have fiber. So that's ultimately what happened.
Yes. And that's been a trend, right, over the last couple of years as well within the space. But maybe as you think about the penetration curve up to 45%, you guys haven't disclosed this in the past, but some players in the U.S. kind of talk about, call it, 15%, 20% penetration 12 months, 20% to 30% 24 months. Like while I'm not asking you to give me the -- put a slide deck out in terms of the penetration ramp, but like I would imagine something like that probably makes sense of what you guys see as well in terms of magnitude?
Yes. It happens fairly quickly, right? I mean, because, again, we are building fiber in locations where you have cable, sometimes Tier 1, sometimes Tier 3 cable providers and you're overbuilding copper. So whatever share you had in copper to start on day 1 certainly kind of goes through the roof once you have fiber in a neighborhood.
And as a guy who has worked in cable for a long time, right, you get a pretty fast ramp on the -- or you lose a lot of share once fiber comes to market because of how much U.S. folks love their cable operators. So thinking about the cost program that you upsized to $1.5 billion by 2028 when you guys reported last week. So that's another incremental $1 billion of opportunity of cost saves from here. So I guess maybe what's driving the better-than-expected cost transformation momentum and help us maybe think about some of the key buckets within that?
Yes. It's -- I mean it's a bit of a dirty laundry kind of answer here because ultimately, as we started looking at our processes and how many processes we could actually automate and make digital and replace kind of manual work, and then we started to also push the envelope in terms of, okay, well, if you have 10 steps in a process, can you not just eliminate 5 of them and then automate the other 5 as opposed to our initial thinking of just automate all 10 steps.
So the end result winds up more cost savings, but the other end result, which is equally important is it's much simpler and faster for us to do anything in our company as we go along this journey. So that's getting pricing out, that's getting bills out, that's the ordering process. All of those, again, cost efficiencies for us, real dollars and reduces the friction that our customers actually have with us, right?
I mean if you think about our pricing process, we had hundreds of different individuals once a price decision was made to actually get that price out to all of our retail channels. It's just way far too manual a process and doesn't need to take that long and doesn't need to be that manual.
So in the first quarter, very strong first quarter results in Bell Media. I think EBITDA was up 36% year-on-year, fourth consecutive quarter of growth, driven by very robust margin expansion. So maybe number one, it doesn't sound like there was any one-timers in there that fueled that acceleration.
So if you could maybe help frame the drivers of that sharp growth and how we should be thinking about Bell Media's, I guess, financials or expectations from the team over the balance of the year?
Yes. It was really great performance by Bell Media. I mean, revenue, EBITDA and margins were all overall to the good. A couple of things. There was a little bit of onetime upside just overlapping of the OUTEDGE out-of-home business acquisition. There's always timing, right? Timing of contracts that can be a little bit lumpy.
But ultimately, I mean, the main driver -- 2 main drivers. One, on the downside, a lot of the legacy business has already kind of taken their medicine. So legacy radio has taken their lumps here over the last 5 years. It's not a surprise, COVID, et cetera.
But during that time frame on the positive side, we've invested time and money to actually digitize our platform. So we now have more subscription revenue direct-to-consumer on a digital basis than through BDUs, through the kind of Comcast and Charter equivalents down here, right?
So the digital business is important. We have a streaming platform we can sell, which is Crave, which is the home of STARZ and HBO and other content that we produce. So we have a streaming service that is sold through our kind of video distribution, but also direct to customers as well as our sports franchises, think the ESPN of Canada's TSN and RDS in French language.
So the ability to actually kind of bypass distribution away and get right to consumers is far more important. And the digital ad insertion, the -- trying to capture our kind of share or a reasonable share at all of the absolutely enormous digital advertising market, which is going to be north of $20 billion in Canada.
And let's face it, that is not our digital revenue at this point. So there's a lot of upside there. We just need to capture a small piece of that. So we've made the investments. Again, the setup is a little bit different here where digital ad insertion is all to our benefit. The cable operators don't actually get their 2 minutes out of the 12 minutes of ads in an hour.
Got it. And where are you in terms of share against, the digital TAM is not quite at $20 billion, but I think that's...
$16 billion, going to $22 billion.
And what's your share? I could probably do the math from the earnings call, but...
You could count the dollars pretty quickly.
Okay. But so within the $16 billion...
Its small.
Okay. So lots of EV opportunity there.
And again, it just wasn't an opportunity that we're chasing until a few years ago, right? So it takes time to actually pivot a legacy media business into a hybrid business focuses on the digital side of it. But that's where we are now, and we're seeing the results.
Yes, Mirko has definitely been very focused on that since taking the helm, and it seems like we're really starting to see that acceleration now. So well, I think that's a great place to end it. Curtis, thanks for joining us today, and thanks, everybody.
Thank you.
