Item 1. Business
Item 1. Business
The Company
NCM, Inc., a Delaware corporation, was organized on October 5, 2006 and began operations on February 13, 2007 upon completion of its IPO. NCM, Inc. is a holding company that manages its consolidated subsidiary, NCM LLC. NCM, Inc. has no business operations or material assets other than its cash and ownership interest of approximately 74.6% of the common membership units in NCM LLC as of December 29, 2022. NCM LLC’s other member is Cinemark, one of the largest motion picture exhibition companies in the U.S., which held the remaining 25.4% of NCM LLC’s common membership units as of December 29, 2022. In December 2022, AMC and Regal each redeemed all of their outstanding membership units, 5,954,646 and 40,683,797, respectively, in exchange for shares of NCM, Inc. common stock, reducing AMC’s and Regal’s ownership to 0.0% as of December 29, 2022. In February and March of 2023, Cinemark redeemed 43,690,797 of its outstanding membership units in exchange for shares of NCM, Inc. common stock, reducing Cinemark’s ownership to 0.0% as of March 23, 2023. NCM, Inc.’s primary source of cash flow from operations is distributions from NCM LLC pursuant to the NCM LLC Operating Agreement. NCM, Inc. also receives management fees pursuant to a management services agreement with NCM LLC in exchange for providing specified management services to NCM LLC.
Chapter 11 Proceedings
On April 11, 2023, NCM LLC filed a voluntary petition for reorganization (“Chapter 11 Case”) with a prearranged Chapter 11 plan under Chapter 11 of title 11 of the United States Code (the “Bankruptcy Code”) in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas (the “Bankruptcy Court”). The Chapter 11 Case is being administered under the caption In re: National CineMedia, LLC , Case No. 23-90291.
On April 11, 2023, NCM, Inc. entered into a restructuring support agreement (the “Restructuring Support Agreement”). with NCM LLC and certain of NCM LLC’s (a) prepetition lenders under (i) the Term Loan Credit Agreement, dated as of June 18, 2018 among NCM LLC as Borrower, JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A. (“JPM”) in its capacity as administrative agent, and the lenders party thereto (as amended, supplemented or otherwise modified from time to time, the “Credit Agreement”); (ii) the Revolving Credit Agreement, dated as of June 20, 2018 among NCM LLC as Borrower, JPM in its capacity as administrative agent, and the lenders party thereto (as amended, supplemented or otherwise modified from time to time, the “Revolving Credit Agreement 2018”); (iii) the Revolving Credit Agreement dated as of January 5, 2022 among NCM LLC as Borrower, JPM in its capacity as administrative agent, and the lenders party thereto (as amended, supplemented or otherwise modified from time to time, the “Revolving Credit Agreement 2022”); and (b) prepetition noteholders under (i) the Secured Notes Indenture dated as of October 8, 2019 and Computershare Trust Company, National Association (“Computershare”) in its capacity as indenture trustee (as amended, supplemented or otherwise modified from time to time, the “Secured Notes Indenture” and together with the Term Loan Credit Agreement, Revolving Credit Facility 2018, and Revolving Credit Agreement 2022, the “Prepetition Secured Debt Documents”) and (ii) the Unsecured Notes Indenture dated as of August 19, 2016 with Computershare in its capacity as indenture trustee (as amended, supplemented or otherwise modified from time to time, the “Unsecured Notes Indenture”). The parties to the Restructuring Support Agreement hold, in the aggregate, more than two-thirds of all claims arising under the Prepetition Secured Debt Documents.
The Restructuring Support Agreement provides for, among other things (i) the “Up-C” structure pursuant to which shares of NCM, Inc. are sold to the public and the limited liability company common membership units of NCM (“common membership units”) may be redeemed for NCM, Inc.’s public shares shall remain in place to enable NCM LLC and NCM, Inc. to continue to comply with the ESAs (as defined herein) and other joint venture agreements, meaning (a) that certain Third Amended and Restated Limited Liability Operating Agreement; (b) that certain Common Unit Adjustment Agreement; (c) that certain Tax Receivable Agreement; (d) that certain Management Services Agreement; (e) that certain Software License Agreement; and (f) those certain ESAs (as defined herein)(“Joint Venture Agreements”); (ii) the Joint Venture Agreements shall be assumed as of the plan effective date through a plan of reorganization; (iii) NCM, Inc. shall affirm its obligations under the Joint Venture Agreements and to take the necessary corporate action to maintain the “Up-C” structure; (iv) outstanding claims under the Prepetition Secured Debt Documents, existing equity interests in NCM LLC, and notes, instruments, certificates and other documents evidencing claims or interests, including credit agreements and indentures, shall be cancelled, and (A) holders of Prepetition Secured Debt Documents and NCM, Inc. will receive 100.0% of the common membership units of the reorganized NCM LLC (the “new common membership units”) a portion of which will be reallocated to NCM, Inc. pursuant to the NCMI 9019 Settlement (as defined within the Restructuring Support Agreement), subject to dilution, and (B) if no unsecured creditors committee is appointed in the Chapter 11 Case, then the holders of Unsecured Funded Debt Claims (as defined in the Restructuring Support Agreement) shall receive warrants, exercisable at a total equity value of $1.04 billion, for five percent of the new common membership units, subject to dilution; (v) NCM, Inc. shall make a capital contribution of approximately $15.0 million of cash on hand in exchange for new common membership units (the “NCMI 9019 Capital
8
Contribution”); (vi) holders of Prepetition Secured Debt Documents will be issued preferred stock of NCM, Inc. entitling the holders to voting rights equal to the economic interests held by such holders in NCM LLC; and (vii) NCM LLC shall emerge without any debt, but if additional exit financing is needed, NCM LLC will first seek to obtain a revolving credit facility from a third party lending institution, but if, despite best efforts, NCM LLC is unable to obtain a revolving credit facility acceptable to NCM LLC’s secured lenders, then certain of NCM LLC’s secured lenders shall provide such financing in the form of a first lien term loan facility on such arm’s-length terms and conditions as to be agreed upon. Following the transactions contemplated by the Restructuring Support Agreement, NCM, Inc. is projected to have an aggregate ownership interest of approximately 13.8% of NCM LLC on account of the NCMI 9019 Settlement, NCM, Inc.’s ownership of Secured Notes and the NCMI 9019 Capital Contribution.
NCM, Inc. expects to continue to manage NCM LLC, the “debtor in possession”, under the jurisdiction of the Bankruptcy Court and in accordance with the applicable provisions of the Bankruptcy Code and orders of the Bankruptcy Court. Prior to filing the Chapter 11 Case, because of potential conflicts that may arise between NCM LLC and NCM, Inc., NCM LLC appointed Carol Flaton of Hamlin Partners LLC as an independent manager at NCM, LLC to address these limited conflict matters in March 2023 (the “Independent Manager”). This appointment of the Independent Manager does not otherwise change NCM, Inc’s position as manager of NCM LLC.
In general, as debtor in possession under the Bankruptcy Code, NCM LLC is authorized to continue to operate as an ongoing business, but may not engage in transactions outside the ordinary course of business without the prior approval of the Bankruptcy Court. Pursuant to “first day” motions filed with the Bankruptcy Court, the Bankruptcy Court authorized NCM LLC to conduct its business activities in the ordinary course and, among other things and subject to the terms and conditions of such orders, authorized employees at NCM, Inc. to continue providing day-to-day management services to NCM LLC, and NCM LLC to pay employee wages and benefits and vendors and suppliers in the ordinary course for all goods and services going forward. NCM LLC will continue to pursue approval of a proposed plan of reorganization, which will incorporate the terms of the Restructuring Support Agreement.
In addition, as part of its “first day” relief, NCM LLC received authority to use its encumbered cash collateral with the consent of certain of its prepetition secured lenders to administer the Chapter 11 Case and continue its business operations (the “Cash Collateral Order”). Consistent with the Cash Collateral Order, NCM LLC’s normal operating cash flows are providing liquidity for NCM LLC to operate as usual and fulfill ongoing commitments to stakeholders. We are unable to predict when NCM LLC will emerge from this Chapter 11 process.
For more information about the Chapter 11 Case refer to Part II, Item 7, Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations and Note 16—Subsequent Events of the audited Consolidated Financial Statements.
As of December 29, 2022, we faced multiple liquidity challenges due to NCM LLC’s over-levered capital structure. On February 15, 2023, NCM LLC elected to delay an interest payment in the amount of $6.6 million under the Senior Notes due 2026 and utilize the 30-day grace period. Further, NCM LLC has borrowings under two Revolving Credit Facilities with $217.0 million outstanding as of December 29, 2022, that mature on June 20, 2023 (Refer to Note 10—Borrowings). NCM LLC does not have available liquidity to repay the full outstanding balance on the date of maturity. On March 15, 2023, with the consent of the noteholders under the Unsecured Indenture (the “Unsecured Noteholders”), NCM LLC entered into a supplemental indenture that extended the grace period for an event of default involving an upcoming interest payment to April 3, 2023 (the “Grace Period”). In addition, on March 31, 2023, NCM LLC entered into a second supplemental indenture with the Unsecured Noteholders to further extend the Grace Period to April 13, 2023. On March 31, 2023, NCM LLC entered into an amendment to the Term Loan Credit Agreement, pursuant to which the payment of the outstanding principal due under the agreement was extended to April 13, 2023, among other modifications. Additionally, based upon current projections, NCM LLC will not meet certain financial covenants for the period ending March 30, 2023.
We have concluded that NCM LLC’s financial condition and projected operating results, the defaults under NCM LLC’s debt agreements subsequent to December 29, 2022 and the risks and uncertainties surrounding the Chapter 11 Case raise substantial doubt as to our ability to continue as a going concern. Accordingly, the audit report issued by our independent registered public accounting firm contains an explanatory paragraph expressing substantial doubt about our ability to continue as a going concern.
Our Business
We are America’s Movie Network. As the largest cinema advertising network in North America, we are a media company dedicated to uniting brands with young, diverse audiences through the power of movies and pop culture. NCM’s Noovie ® show is presented exclusively in 47 leading national and regional theater circuits including AMC, Cinemark, Regal and 44 network affiliate theaters as of December 29, 2022. NCM’s cinema advertising network offers broad reach and unparalleled audience engagement with over 20,000 screens in over 1,500 theaters in 195 Designated Market Areas®
9
(“DMA ® ”) (including all of the top 50). NCM digital and Digital-Out-Of-Home (“DOOH”) go beyond the big screen, extending in-theater campaigns into online, mobile and place-based marketing programs to reach entertainment audiences.
We currently derive revenue principally from the sale of advertising to national, regional and local businesses through Noovie On-Screen, our cinema advertising and entertainment show seen on movie screens across the U.S., on our LEN, a series of strategically-placed screens located in movie theater lobbies, as well as other forms of advertising and promotions in theater lobbies. We also sell digital online and mobile advertising through Noovie Audience Accelerator, across our suite of Noovie digital properties such as our Noovie Trivia , on third-party internet sites, as well as a variety of complementary out of home venues, including restaurants, convenience stores and college campuses, in order to reach entertainment audiences beyond the theater. In 2022, NCM launched NCMx™, our new data, insights and analytics platform that taps the Company’s comprehensive knowledge and extensive data about moviegoer behavior to connect brands with custom audiences in theaters as well as on digital screens before and after attending movies. The broad reach and digital delivery of our network provides an effective platform for national, regional and local advertisers to reach a large, young, engaged and affluent audience on a targeted and measurable basis.
NCM LLC has long-term ESAs with the founding members and multi-year agreements with our network affiliates, which grant NCM LLC exclusive rights in the founding member and network affiliate theaters to sell advertising, subject to limited exceptions. In September 2019, NCM LLC entered into the 2019 ESA Amendments with Cinemark and Regal. The 2019 ESA Amendments extended the contract life of the ESAs with Cinemark and Regal by four years, resulting in a weighted average remaining term of the ESAs with the founding members of approximately 16.8 years as of December 29, 2022. The network affiliate agreements expire at various dates between May 29, 2023 and December 2037. The weighted average remaining term of the ESAs and the network affiliate agreements together is 14.0 years as of December 29, 2022.
Cineworld Proceeding — On September 7, 2022, Cineworld Group plc, the parent company of Regal, and certain of its subsidiaries, including Regal, Regal Cinemas, Inc., a party to the ESA with NCM LLC, and Regal CineMedia Holdings, LLC, a party to other agreements with NCM LLC and NCM, Inc., filed petitions for reorganization under Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code in the Southern District of Texas (the “Cineworld Proceeding”). On October 21, 2022, Regal filed a motion to reject the ESA without specifying an effective date for the rejection and indicated that Regal planned on negotiating with the Company. NCM LLC has also filed an adversary proceeding against Regal seeking declaratory relief and an injunction prohibiting Regal from breaching certain exclusivity, non-compete, non-negotiate and confidentiality provisions in the ESA by entering into a new agreement with a third-party or bringing any of the services performed by NCM LLC in-house. On February 1, 2023, Cineworld filed a motion for summary judgment on NCM LLC’s adversary proceeding with a hearing scheduled during the second quarter of 2023. The timing of the hearing could be impacted by the Chapter 11 Case. Although there can be no assurances that NCM LLC’s proceeding for declaratory relief will be successful, the Company believes these exclusivity rights will survive any attempted rejection of the ESA by Regal in the bankruptcy proceeding. As of the filing date, the Company continues to negotiate with Regal regarding the ESA and NCM LLC’s provision of advertising services. In the event that NCM LLC’s or NCM, Inc.’s agreements with Regal and its affiliates are rejected, it could have a materially negative impact on the Company’s operations or financial condition.
COVID-19 Impact and Outlook —The COVID-19 Pandemic has had a significant impact on the world and our business beginning in March 2020 and continuing into 2023. In 2021, theaters in key markets fully reopened, and by the end of the third quarter of 2021, all of the theaters within the Company’s network were open and multiple, successful major motion pictures were released resulting in the return of meaningful attendance. The movie slate for the year ended December 29, 2022 improved from prior years but continued to be limited due to post-production delays and major motion picture release schedule changes. Attendance levels increased from the year ended December 30, 2021 but were not consistent throughout the year due to timing of major motion picture releases and number of releases. In-theater advertising revenue for the year ended December 29, 2022 remained below historical levels due in part to a lag between the recovery of attendees and advertisers, as well as current macroeconomic factors, such as rising interest rates, inflationary pressures and any potential recession, and the respective impacts on advertisers. These and subsequent developments are referred to throughout this Annual Report as the “COVID-19 Pandemic.”
Noovie ® On-Screen Advertising
Noovie On-Screen —Our on-screen Noovie show provides an entertaining pre-movie experience for theater patrons while serving as an incremental revenue source for our theater circuits. The Noovie show gives movie audiences a reason to arrive at the theater early to discover what's next, with exclusive entertainment content and engaging advertising from national, regional and local brands, as well as long-form entertainment and advertising content provided to us under exclusive multi-year arrangements with leading media, entertainment, technology and other companies (“content partners”).
We present two different formats of our Noovie® show depending on the theater circuit in which it runs. In Cinemark, Regal and certain network affiliate theaters, after the Noovie show ends at the advertising showtime, NCM offers additional post-show advertising inventory consisting of (1) a lights down segment that runs for five minutes after the advertised showtime
10
with trailer lighting and (2) a 30- or 60-second Platinum Spot, as further described below (“Post-Showtime Inventory”). As of December 29, 2022, theaters presenting the updated Noovie format with Post-Showtime Inventory made up 59.3% of our network. All other NCM network theater circuits, which make up the remaining 40.7% of our network, present the Classic Noovie show, which ends approximately at the advertised movie showtime when the movie trailers begin, which are not part of our Noovie show.
Because the Noovie show is customized by theater circuit, theater location/market, film rating, film genre and film title, we produce and distribute many different versions of Noovie each month. This programming flexibility provides advertisers with the ability to target specific audience demographics and geographic locations and ensure that the content and advertising are age-appropriate for the movie audience.
We have also launched several specialty networks to cater to specific audiences, including the Elevate Cinema Network, a strategic sales partnership with Spotlight Cinema Networks which combines nearly 1,500 of our premier screens with Spotlight’s existing premier network of over 1,200 screens. This combined network provides reach and recall to brands targeting the upscale, educated, adult demographic with disposable income. Additional specialty networks include the NCM Black Cinema Network and the NCM Hispanic Cinema Network, reaching those audiences where they over index in top DMAs.
All versions of the Noovie show are produced by our internal creative team, which is cost-effective and gives us significant flexibility while offering advertisers opportunities for sponsorship and integration into our movie and pop culture content series. We also offer pre- and post-production advertising creative services to our clients (primarily local clients who may not have their own creative agency), as well as branded content creation for national brands for a fee.
Noovie Show Structure Including Post-Showtime Inventory —The Noovie show with Post-Showtime Inventory format is comprised of substantially the same segments included within the Classic Noovie show , each approximately four to ten minutes in length, as well as two additional advertising segments after the advertised showtime as described below. The total length of the Noovie show plus our Post-Showtime Inventory is the same as the Classic Noovie show as the amount of time displayed prior to the advertised showtime is reduced by the sum of five minutes plus the aggregate length of time of the Platinum Spot, if any. The following graphic is for illustrative purposes and is not to exact scale.
• Segment four and Segment three are the first sections of the Noovie show which contain the entertaining content that is a core element of Noovie programming . NCM programs exclusive Noovie content at the beginning of the show that gives audiences a look at what’s happening in the movie and pop culture arenas and features long-form entertainment from our content partners. We launched several new Noovie editorial series in 2022 featuring celebrities, creators and journalists to appeal to both our moviegoing audience and to advertisers for sponsorship and integration opportunities. These include The Noovie Trivia Show , where our Emmy-award winning host Maria Menounos quizzes celebrities about their career through the lens of movie trivia; Noovieverse , which stars popular social media influencers who analyze upcoming superhero blockbuster movies; and Perri’s Picks , starring movie expert Perri Nemiroff, who shares her insider reviews on what movies to watch and why.
• Segment two features primarily local and regional advertisements, which generally range between 15 to 90 seconds, as well as a long-form entertainment content segment from one of our content partners. This segment also typically includes a spot for Noovie programming, such as Noovie Trivia, Noovie Cultural
11
Celebrations (e.g. original content around Black History Month or Hispanic Heritage Month, which can also be sponsored by advertisers), and shorter segments from the editorial series mentioned above.
• Segment one runs closest to the advertised showtime and features primarily national advertisements, which are generally 30 or 60 seconds, as well as a long-form entertainment content segment from one of our content partners. Segment one also includes an advertisement for the founding members’ beverage supplier and a courtesy public service announcement (“courtesy PSA”) (e.g. Silence Your Cell Phones).
• The Showcase Segment features a post-showtime lights down segment with trailer lighting beginning at the advertised showtime with approximately 5 minutes of national advertisements which generally range between 30 or 60 seconds, followed by a courtesy PSA and a 30 second or a 60 second advertisement for the founding members' beverage supplier; and
• The Platinum position features an additional single advertising unit that is either 30 or 60 seconds deeply embedded within the movie trailers at trailer level lighting and at similar volume levels, directly prior to the last one or two trailers preceding the feature film, which we refer to as the “Platinum Spot”.
Classic Noovie Show Structure —The Classic Noovie® show is comprised of up to four segments, each approximately four to ten minutes in length running prior to the advertised showtime. The Company revised the structure beginning November 1, 2019, and the structure below incorporates the changes made. The following graphic is for illustrative purposes and is not to exact scale.
References to the Noovie show relate to both the Classic Noovie show and the Noovie show including Post-Showtime Inventory formats, unless specified otherwise.
National, Regional and Local Advertising —Our cinema advertising business has a diverse customer base, consisting of national, regional and local advertisers. National and regional on-screen advertising in the Noovie show is sold on a CPM basis to national and regional clients. We generally sell our national advertising units across our national network by film rating or groups of ratings, or by individual film or film genre grouping. This ability to target various groups of films offers national advertisers a way to target specific audience demographics at various price points and overall cost levels, which we believe expands the number of potential clients. Local advertising is typically sold on a per-theater, per-week basis.
As with other premium video mediums like TV, we sell our Noovie show inventory in both the upfront and scatter markets. Upfront is a term that describes the practice of buying advertising time “up front” on an annual basis for the upcoming year, purchasing inventory in advance and locking in the advertising rates (CPMs). Consistent with the television industry's upfront booking practices, a portion of our upfront commitments have cancellation options or options to reduce the amount that advertisers may purchase up until their commitment begins airing. These options could reduce what is ultimately spent by clients that have made upfront commitments. Scatter refers to the buying of advertising on a shorter-term basis closer to when the advertisements will run, which often results in a pricing premium compared to upfront rates. The mix between the upfront and scatter markets is based upon a number of advertising market factors, such as pricing, demand for advertising time and economic conditions. The demand in the scatter market impacts the pricing achieved for our remaining advertising inventory not sold upfront and can vary throughout the year.
During the years ended December 29, 2022 and December 30, 2021, we derived 75.1% and 73.5% of our advertising revenue from national clients (including advertising agencies that represent our clients) and 17.5% and 16.8% of our advertising revenue from regional and local advertisers across the country (including advertising agencies that represent these clients).
12
Beverage Advertising. Each of the founding members has a relationship with a beverage concessionaire supplier under which it is obligated to provide on-screen advertising time as part of its agreement to purchase branded beverages sold in its theaters. We have a long-term agreement to exhibit the advertising of the founding members’ beverage concessionaires. Under the ESAs, up to 90 seconds of the Noovie® program can be sold to the founding members to satisfy their on-screen advertising commitments under their beverage concessionaire agreements. Beginning in 2020 and in accordance with the 2019 ESA Amendments, the price for the time sold to Cinemark and Regal beverage suppliers increases 2% each year. The time sold to AMC’s beverage supplier is priced equal to the greater of (1) the advertising CPM charged by NCM LLC in the previous year for the time sold to AMC’s beverage supplier and (2) the advertising CPM for the previous year charged by NCM LLC to unaffiliated third parties during segment one (closest to showtime) of the Noovie show in AMC’s theaters, limited to the highest advertising CPM being then-charged by NCM LLC pursuant to the ESAs.
During 2022, we sold 60 seconds to two of the founding members and 30 seconds to one of the founding members to provide on-screen advertising for their beverage concessionaires. During 2022, the beverage concessionaire revenue from the founding members’ beverage agreements was approximately 7.5% of our total revenue. In the instance of certain theaters that are acquired by the founding members but are not incorporated into our network because of an existing on-screen advertising agreement with an alternative provider, we remain entitled to these encumbered theater beverage payments under the terms of the ESA which are treated as a reduction to the intangible asset and not classified as revenue.
Content. Beyond the Noovie -branded content during the Noovie show, the majority of our entertainment and advertising content segments are provided to us by content partners. Under the terms of the contracts, our content partners create original long-form entertainment content segments and make commitments to buy a portion of our advertising inventory at a specified CPM over a one- or two-year period with options to renew, exercisable at the content partner’s option. The original content produced by these content partners typically features upcoming media programming or technology products. In 2022, the content partner segments were between 90 and 120 seconds in length.
Courtesy PSA . In 2022, we had one agreement throughout the year and one additional agreement for the fourth quarter to exhibit a 40-second “silence your cell phone” courtesy PSA reminding moviegoers to silence their cell phones and refrain from texting during feature films. The agreement in place throughout 2022 was renewed for 2023.
Theater Circuit Messaging. The Noovie show also includes time slots for the founding members and network affiliates to advertise various activities associated with the operations of the theaters, including concessions, online ticketing partners, gift card and loyalty programs, special events presented by the theater operator and vendors of services provided to theaters, so long as such promotion is incidental to the vendor’s service or products sold in the theater. This time is provided to the theater operator at no charge.
Noovie ® Digital Products
Noovie digital products is an integrated suite of products designed to innovate the moviegoing experience in ways that help brands tap into the excitement, emotion and magic of the movies. Noovie digital products take the Noovie experience beyond the big screen with our Noovie Trivia and robust audience data and digital advertising capabilities to create the perfect immersive marketing solution for brands.
Noovie Trivia— Noovie Trivia is an app that launched in 2020 which unites all of our popular movie trivia games into one place. Noovie Trivia lets fans level up their movie obsession and test their movie knowledge in multiple ways with games to play, including Name That Movie and Noovie Shuffle. New challenges are added on a regular basis. Fans can also make their voice heard on fun movie topics through Noovie Motion Picks.
Name That Movie started in 2017 as a trivia segment for our Noovie® show, social media channels and digital properties in order to further entertain and engage moviegoers and is now included within our Noovie Trivia app. We also offer the opportunity for our advertising clients to sponsor the Name That Movie segments and incorporate advertising into the game.
Data & Digital Advertising
In 2022, we launched NCMx™, our new data, insights, and analytics platform that taps the Company’s comprehensive knowledge and extensive data about moviegoer behavior to connect brands with custom audiences in theaters, as well as on digital screens before and after attending movies. NCM clients are able to leverage NCMx to execute advanced audience-matching against key geographic, behavioral and contextual targets on the big screen, as well as use the NCMx capabilities to retarget moviegoers with digital ads and mobile offers. NCM provides marketers access to one of the largest collections of deterministic moviegoer data in the industry. With over 374.4 million unique data records as of December 29, 2022, NCMx makes 26.2 million unique data records available over a 90-day look back period, delivering marketers a 360-degree view of recent consumer behavior with performance metrics to refine campaign plans and generate a better return on their advertising investment. Neustar, iSpot, Catalina, Affinity Solutions, PlaceIQ, Crossix, Kochava and ElementalTV are all partners on the
13
new platform. NCM is leading the cinema advertising industry as it transforms into a data-first media company that reaches audiences at scale with the most engaging content.
NCM’s consumer-facing digital products all feature advertising opportunities that allow brands to continue to reach movie audiences across multiple platforms, including sponsorships, digital ad inventory such as leaderboards, banner ads, half- and full-page ads and a variety of digital video ad inventory. Our Noovie® digital products are designed to not only provide digital advertising inventory to further enhance the marketability of our cinema advertising product offerings, but also to capture exclusive first-party data, which is funneled into NCMx™. As of December 29, 2022, approximately 7.3 million movie-goers have downloaded our mobile apps. These downloads and the acquisition of second- and third- party data, including deterministic ticket transaction data from exhibitors and geo-location and micro-event data for moviegoers that enter theaters in our network, all contribute to NCMx data records.
Noovie Audience Accelerator – In addition to our ad-supported consumer-facing digital products, our Noovie Audience Accelerator digital product, formerly known as Cinema Accelerator , expands cinema advertising campaigns beyond the big screen to reach movie audiences wherever they seek out movie content online and on mobile devices. Noovie Audience Accelerator identifies moviegoers through our first-, second- and third-party unique data records. We can target specific demographics, genres or layer on other data to provide our clients with a match against their target audience. Digital ads are then distributed through multiple channels, including online and mobile banners, online and mobile pre-roll video and social media newsfeeds through our owned and operated ad inventory as well as third-party ad inventory across multiple platforms including the Internet, mobile devices and over-the-top (OTT) devices/connected televisions (CTV) to reach moviegoers wherever they may be seeking entertainment information and content.
We sell NCM’s data platform and digital products through a digital sales group that is embedded as part of our national and local sales organizations to enable collaborative, integrated selling. We believe that our new and upcoming digital products can be sold in combination with in-theater advertisements as integrated marketing packages as discussed in “Business—Our Strategy”. We plan to continue to invest in our digital platform in 2023 and beyond.
Lobby Advertising
Lobby Entertainment Network —Our LEN is a network of video screens strategically located throughout the lobbies of all digitally equipped founding members’ theaters, as well as the majority of our network affiliates’ theaters. The LEN screens are placed in high-traffic locations such as concession stands, box offices and other waiting areas. Programming on our LEN consists of an approximately 30-minute loop of branded entertainment content segments created specifically for the lobby with advertisements running between each segment. We have the scheduling flexibility to send different LEN programming to each theater through our DCN, and the same program is displayed simultaneously on all LEN screens within a given theater, which we believe provides the maximum impact for our advertisers. We sell national and local advertising on the LEN individually or bundled with on-screen or other lobby promotions.
The LEN programming includes up to two minutes for founding members’ advertisements to promote activities associated with the operation of the theaters, including concessions, online ticketing partners, gift card and loyalty programs, special events presented by the theater operator and vendors of services provided to theaters, so long as such promotion is incidental to the vendor’s service or products sold in the theater. Additionally, subject to certain limitations, the LEN programming includes up to two minutes (one minute of which we provide to the founding members at no cost and one minute of which the founding members may purchase) to promote certain non-exclusive cross-marketing relationships entered into by the theater operators for the purpose of increasing theater attendance, which we call “strategic programs.”
Under the terms of the ESAs, the founding members also have the right to install a second network of additional screens in their theater lobbies which would not display our LEN programming, but would be used to promote strategic programs or products sold in their theater concessions, bars and dining operations, online ticketing partner promotions, gift card and loyalty programs and special events presented by the founding member and vendors of services provided to theaters, so long as such promotion is incidental to the vendor’s service.
In May 2022, the Company’s Lobby Entertainment Network launched a programmatic offering through partnership with Place Exchange, a leading supply-side platform (SSP) for programmatic out-of-home media. This new automated offering allows advertisers to access and purchase available LEN programming through partner demand-side platform (DSP) websites. The new partnership now enables advertisers to reach the largest network of lobby screens in movie theaters across the country programmatically for the first time.
Lobby Promotions —We also sell a wide variety of advertising and promotional products in theater lobbies across our founding members and network affiliates. These products can be sold individually or bundled with on-screen, LEN or digital advertising. Lobby promotions typically include:
• advertising on concession items such as beverage cups, popcorn bags and kids’ trays;
14
• coupons and promotional materials, which are customizable by film and are distributed to ticket buyers at the box office or as they exit the theater;
• tabling displays, product demonstrations and sampling;
• touch-screen display units and kiosks; and
• signage throughout the lobbies, including posters, banners, counter cards, danglers, floor mats, standees and window clings.
Under the terms of the ESAs, the founding members may conduct a limited number of lobby promotions at no charge in connection with strategic programs that promote motion pictures; however, such activities will not reduce the lobby promotions inventory available to us.
Our ability to provide in-lobby marketing and promotional placements in conjunction with our cinema advertising products allows us to offer integrated marketing solutions to advertisers that provide multiple touchpoints with theater patrons throughout the movie-going experience, which we believe is a competitive advantage over other national media platforms.
Digital Out-of-Home Products
NCM’s Digital Out-of-Home (“DOOH”) group is embedded as part of our national and local sales organizations and was created in October 2020 to further unite brands with the power of movies by extending movie-centric Noovie® entertainment content, trivia and advertising beyond movie theaters to a variety of complementary venues, including restaurants, convenience stores and college campuses. In 2022, NCM sold DOOH media inventory on a national, regional, local and programmatic level in relationships with digital place-based properties including ATM.TV, Trooh and Ziosk.
Our Network
Noovie® On-Screen is distributed across NCM LLC’s national theater network — the largest digital in-theater network in North America — through the use of our proprietary DCN and Digital Content Software (“DCS”). With the DCN and DCS, we are able to schedule, deliver, play and reconcile advertising and entertainment content for the Noovie show and the LEN on a national, regional, local, theater and auditorium level.
The DCN is the combination of a satellite distribution network and a terrestrial management network. We also employ a variety of technologies that aid in distribution where satellite delivery is not available to provide service to our network of theaters. The DCN is integrated with NCM’s cinema advertising management system to seamlessly schedule and distribute advertising content. NCM's integrated system dynamically controls the quality, placement, timing of playback and completeness of content within specific auditoriums, and it also allows us to monitor and initiate repairs to the equipment in our digital network of theaters.
Advertising and entertainment content for our Noovie show and LEN is uploaded to our cinema advertising management system and is delivered via multicast technology to the theaters in our network and received by our Alternative Content Engine. The Alternative Content Engine holds the content until displayed in specified theater auditoriums and lobbies according to contract terms. Each theater auditorium and lobby has hardware and/or software architecture that controls the content to be shown. After playback of content, confirmation of playback is returned to NCM and is included in “post” reports provided to our advertising clients.
In 2022, more than 394 million moviegoers attended theaters that are currently under contract to present the Noovie show. A summary of the screens and theaters in our advertising network is set forth in the table below:
Our Network
(As of December 29, 2022)
15
As of December 29, 2022, our Noovie show was displayed on network movie screens using digital projectors. Almost all screens within our network receive content through our DCN and are equipped with more powerful digital cinema projectors, with the remainder comprised of LCD projectors.
Human Capital Resources
We had 297 full-time employees as of December 29, 2022. Our employees are located in our Centennial, Colorado headquarters, in our advertising sales offices in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago and our digital development offices in Los Angeles and New York. We also have many local advertising account executives and field maintenance technicians that work primarily from their homes throughout the U.S. None of our employees are covered by collective bargaining agreements. We believe that we have a good relationship with our employees.
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) —We are committed to diversity, equity and inclusion in the workplace. We are focused on building diverse talent at all levels of the organization by recruiting high quality diverse talent and have taken steps to align our policies with recommendations promulgated by national organizations to ensure that our business practices are aligned with other top employers. We have also established a DEI Committee which is made up of a diverse set of employees and is focused on identifying and helping to implement initiatives intended to improve areas such as recruitment, retention, brand awareness and community outreach.
Organizational Development —Our Human Resources team is focused on broad management development as well as supporting targeted training to individual teams based on business needs. Managers and supervisors participate in specialized training to develop management skills, encourage employee development and retention and assist the Company with succession planning by identifying top talent to be developed into future leaders. Our Human Resources department also regularly provides employees with mandatory compliance training regarding workplace diversity, our code of conduct, IT and cyber security and other personnel related courses to help them with their daily responsibilities. Compliance with mandatory training requirements is tracked by our Human Resources department and management is notified when the requirements are not met.
The Human Resources department also focuses on defining and embedding the NCM culture into all people-related practices and policies to help us recruit, develop and retain a world-class team to grow the business. The Company has also implemented a number of targeted initiatives to increase employee engagement and satisfaction, including surveys, career and succession planning and analysis of our total rewards program.
Total Rewards —We invest in our employees by providing comprehensive benefits and compensation packages. Our benefits packages include comprehensive health insurance with a wellness program for all eligible employees, parental leave for all new parents for the birth or adoption of a child or placement of foster care, 401k plan with a comprehensive financial wellness component and voluntary benefits employees can tailor to their specific needs ranging from additional life insurance to pet insurance.
Seasonality
Our revenue and operating results are seasonal in nature, coinciding with the timing of marketing expenditures by our advertising clients and to a lesser extent the attendance patterns within the film exhibition industry. Historically, both advertising expenditures and theater attendance tend to be higher during the second, third, and fourth fiscal quarters. Advertising revenue is primarily correlated with new product releases, advertising client marketing priorities and economic cycles and to a lesser extent theater attendance levels. Seasonal demand during the summer is driven by the absence of alternative attractive advertising mediums and during the winter holiday season due to high client demand across all advertising
16
mediums. The actual quarterly results for each quarter could differ materially depending on these factors or other risks and uncertainties. Based on our historical experience, our first quarter typically has less revenue than the other quarters of a given year due primarily to lower advertising client demand and increased inventory availability in competitive advertising mediums. Given the temporary closure of our theaters in 2020 and disruptions in the release of motion pictures and regular theater attendance patterns due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, our 2020 and 2021 quarterly results varied from the historical trend. There can be no assurances that seasonal variations will not materially affect our results of operations in the future.
The following table reflects the quarterly percentage of total revenue for the fiscal years ended 2020, 2021 and 2022 and a historic average for FY 2016-2019 for comparison given the impacts of COVID-19 on the film release schedule and audience behaviors:
First
Quarter Second
Quarter Third
Quarter Fourth
Quarter
FY 2020 71.6 % 4.4 % 6.6 % 17.4 %
FY 2021 4.7 % 12.2 % 27.7 % 55.4 %
FY 2022 14.4 % 26.9 % 21.9 % 36.8 %
FY 2016-2019 Average 17.3 % 24.8 % 25.6 % 32.3 %
Government Regulations
Currently, we are not subject to regulations specific to the sale and distribution of cinema advertising. We are subject to federal, state and local laws that govern businesses generally such as wage and hour, worker compensation and health and safety laws as well as privacy, information security and consumer protection-related laws and regulations. We have been and are currently in compliance with all government mandated and environmental regulations.
Competition
Our advertising business competes in the estimated $287 billion U.S. advertising industry with many other forms of marketing media, including television, radio, print, internet, mobile and outdoor display advertising. While cinema advertising represents a small portion of the overall advertising industry today, we believe it is well-positioned to capitalize on the continuing shift of advertising spending away from traditional media, in particular linear television where consumers can skip advertisements through DVRs and other technology, to newer and more targeted forms of media.
Our advertising business also competes with many other providers of cinema advertising, which vary substantially in size. As the largest cinema advertising network in the U.S., we believe that we are able to generate economies of scale, operating efficiencies and enhanced opportunities for our clients to reach an engaged movie audience on both a national and local level to allow us to better compete for premium video dollars in the larger advertising marketplace.
Competitive Strengths
We believe that several strengths position us well to compete in an increasingly fragmented media landscape. We believe that our cinema advertising network is an attractive option for advertisers on a national, regional and local level and delivers measurable results for our clients that are comparable, and preferred, to the television, online and mobile or other video advertising options that we compete against in the marketplace.
Extensive national market coverage —Our contractual agreements with our founding members and network affiliates provide long-term exclusive access (subject to limited exceptions) to sell cinema advertising across the largest network of digitally-equipped theaters in the U.S. This allows us to offer advertisers the broad reach and national scale that they need to effectively reach their target audiences.
• Our advertising network consisted of 20,095 screens (16,062 operated by the founding members) located in 1,598 theaters (1,182 operated by the founding members) in 47 states and the District of Columbia, including each of the top 25, 50 and 100 DMAs®, and 195 DMAs® in total, as of December 29, 2022;
• Over 394 million people attended theaters in our network in 2022 represented 72.2%, 68.4% and 65.2% of the total theater attendance in theaters that present cinema advertising in the top 10, 25 and 50 U.S. DMAs®, respectively, and 61.3% of all DMAs® nationally, providing an attractive platform for national advertisers who want exposure in larger markets or on a national basis;
• The average screens per theater in our network during 2022 was 12.6 screens; and
• The aggregate annual attendance per screen of theaters included in our network during 2022 was 19,647.
Scalable, state-of-the-art digital content distribution technology —Our use of the combination of satellite and terrestrial DCN network technology, combined with the design and functionality of our DCS and Customer Experience Center
17
infrastructure, makes our network efficient and scalable and also allows us to target specific audiences and provide advertising scheduling flexibility and reporting. National, local and regional advertisers are generally able to run their ads in the Noovie® show less than 72 hours following the close of the proposal which is comparable to the lead time of television advertising, giving businesses that rely on time-sensitive promotional advertising strategies the opportunity to take advantage of the power of cinema. The Company plans to further decrease this lead time following additional upgrades of our cinema advertising management system, as further discussed below.
This scalability of our distribution technology allows us to expand our cinema advertising network with minimal additional capital expenditures or personnel, and we expect to benefit from this scalability in the future as we add new theaters from the founding members, our existing network affiliate relationships and the addition of new network affiliates.
Access to a highly attractive, engaged audience —We offer advertisers the ability to reach highly-coveted target demographics, including young, affluent and educated “Millennial” and “Gen Z” moviegoers. According to Epicenter for 2022, 62.0% of the NCM LLC audience were between the ages of 12-34, compared to 53.0% in 2019, with a median age of 29 in 2022. Further, 44.0% of our moviegoers have a household income greater than $100,000 (versus 37.0% of the general population), with a median moviegoer household income of $91,000, and 38.0% have received a bachelor’s degree or higher (versus 33.0% of the general population) according to the 2021 Doublebase GfK MRI Study.
Because of the impact of cinema’s state-of-the-art immersive video and audio presentation, we also believe that movie audiences are highly engaged with the Noovie show advertising and entertainment content that they view in our theater environment. In a recent study performed by Lumen, a leader in attention measurement, moviegoers viewed advertisements in theaters for twice as long compared to advertisements on television and up to 10 times longer than advertisements on social media platforms. Additionally, moviegoers paid four to seven times greater attention to the advertisements shown in theaters than the advertisements shown on television or social media platforms. Further, based upon an average of 5 years of research studies including 262 advertisers across various categories, advertising on the big screen has generated brand lift for the critical key performance indicators of awareness (increase of 64.0%) and consideration (increase of 24.0%). Additionally, according to an intercept study conducted by eWorks, a market research company, a Platinum Spot advertiser experienced 88.0% brand recall, with significant lifts in unaided awareness (increase of 100.0%), favorable opinion (increase of 21.0%) and future consideration (increase of 19.0%) after advertising with the Company in 2022.
World-class entertainment and innovative, branded pre-feature content —The film content created by Hollywood studios is considered some of the finest entertainment content in the world, which creates a highly-desirable advertising environment for brands. We believe that our Noovie show program provides a high-quality entertainment experience for theater audiences and an effective marketing platform for advertisers. By partnering with leading media, entertainment, technology and other companies, we are able to provide better original content for our audience and more impact for the advertiser. Because we offer local and national “pods” within our Noovie show (that is, groupings of ads interspersed among video content), our format is consistent with the grouping of ads on television networks, which allows advertisers to more easily integrate our Noovie® show into traditional sight-sound-and-motion media buys.
Prime movie audience data, measurability and targeting —As with many other advertising mediums, we are measured by third-party research companies. Epicenter Experience LLC measures our audience, including the total attendance that are in their seats during our Noovie show. Additionally, unlike some other advertising mediums, we also receive attendance information by film, by rating and by screen at least monthly for all of the founding member theaters, and by location for the theaters operated by our network affiliates at least monthly, which allows us to report the actual audience size for each showing of a film where our Noovie show played. We believe that the ability to provide detailed information to our clients gives us a distinct competitive advantage over traditional media platforms whose measurement is based only on extrapolations of a very small sample of the total audience.
In 2022, we continued to invest in the development of our cloud-based Data Management Platform (DMP) which we believe will allow us to provide even more robust audience insights and analytics to our clients. To further enhance the connection between brands and movie audiences, we accumulate audience data from several sources within our DMP. This audience data is then leveraged for the targeting of ad campaigns and can also deliver closed-loop attribution reporting. We expect to continue to enhance the capabilities of the platform in 2023 by continuing to gather first-party data through our Noovie digital products, as well as additional second- and third-party data sources and segments.
Integrated marketing and digital products —Our ability to bundle our on-screen advertising opportunities with integrated lobby, digital marketing and digital out-of-home products allows us to offer advertisers multiple touchpoints to reach movie audiences anytime and anywhere to execute true 360-degree marketing programs. We believe these multiple marketing impressions throughout the entire entertainment experience allow our advertisers to extend the exposure for their brands and products and create a more engaging relationship with movie audiences in every stage of their movie journey. Additionally, our new NCMx™ data platform makes cinema advertising more measurable, targetable and attributable than ever before. Our exclusive first and second party data, including the valuable data derived from our owned and operated digital products, help us
18
power our Noovie Audience Accelerator product to better reach advertising clients’ target audiences with higher degrees of accuracy and measure a variety of business outcomes more accurately.
Contractual theater circuit and advertiser relationships —Our exclusive multi-year contractual relationships with our founding members and network affiliates allow us to offer advertisers a national network with the scale, flexibility and targeting to meet their marketing needs. Our exclusive contractual relationships with our content partners and courtesy PSA sponsors, as well as our agreements to satisfy the founding members’ on-screen marketing obligations to their beverage concessionaires, provide us with a significant upfront revenue commitment, accounting for approximately 25.6% and 29.1% of our total revenue for the years ended December 29, 2022 and December 30, 2021, respectively. In addition, our participation in the annual advertising upfront marketplace has allowed us to secure significant annual upfront commitments from national advertisers looking to secure premium cinema inventory. These upfront commitments accounted for approximately 30.4% and 23.9% of our total revenue for the years ended December 29, 2022 and December 30, 2021, respectively. Due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, the Company was not able to participate in the 2021 upfront market, and thus, outside of content partner and courtesy PSA agreements, the majority of 2021 deals were sold in the scatter market.
Strong operating margins with limited capital requirements —Our annual operating income and Adjusted OIBDA margins from our IPO through the year ended December 26, 2019 were consistently strong, ranging from approximately 33.1% to 38.7% and 46.5% to 51.5%, respectively, over the previous five years. Our annual operating income and Adjusted OIBDA margins were 2.8% and 23.0%, and (59.9)% and (21.6)%, for the years ended December 29, 2022 and December 30, 2021, respectively, due to the impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on our operations. Refer to “Item 7. Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” for a discussion of the calculation of Adjusted OIBDA margin, which is a non-GAAP financial measure, and a reconciliation of Adjusted OIBDA margin to operating income.
Our capital expenditures have ranged from approximately 2.9% to 3.5% of revenues over the five years through December 26, 2019. Our capital expenditures were 1.7% and 5.6% of revenue for the years ended December 29, 2022 and December 30, 2021, due to the impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on our operations. For the year ended December 29, 2022, our capital expenditures and other investments were $4.2 million, of which $1.9 million were associated with digital product development; $0.9 million were associated with upgrades to our existing systems related to the planned upgrade of our cinema advertising management system; $0.4 million were associated with network affiliate additions; and $0.1 million were for certain implementation and prepaid costs associated with Cloud Computing arrangements. Given the impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on our operations, our current focus is on cash containment and non-essential capital expenditures were reduced in recent years accordingly. Due to the network equipment investments made in recent years by our founding members and network affiliates in new and acquired theaters, ESA provisions requiring founding members to make future investments for equipment replacements, and the scalable nature of our Customer Experience Center and other infrastructure, we do not expect any necessary major capital investments to grow our operations as our network of theaters continues to expand. As we continue to move our technology to cloud based Software as a Service (“SaaS”) platforms, we will continue to reduce our annual capital expenditure spending. However, operating expenses associated with the SaaS licenses will continue to increase. Certain implementation costs of our SaaS platforms were capitalized during the implementation period and are recognized within operating income over the term of the SaaS contract once the systems are fully implemented.
Our Strategy
We are continuing to pursue a growth strategy that we believe will create significant value following the normalization of our operations. Our strategy includes the following three key components:
Increase the Value of Cinema Media
We intend to drive an increase in value through innovation and optimization of our current product offering. Achieving one of our key initiatives in this strategy, we introduced new inventory following our Noovie® show after the advertised showtime within Cinemark and Regal theaters following the 2019 ESA Amendments. This Post-Showtime Inventory consists of a total of five minutes between the lights down segment beginning just after the advertised movie showtime and including trailer lighting and the 30- or 60-second Platinum Spot deeply embedded within the movie trailers with trailer lighting and full trailer volume. We believe this inventory constitutes prized and impactful ad spots and expect these improvements to increase the value of the inventory that we can offer to our national clients. We believe our local and regional clients will also benefit from better inventory as their placement will now be closer to the advertised showtime. We introduced this new inventory at select network affiliate theaters beginning in early 2020, expanding throughout 2021 and 2022, and plan to continue to work toward expanding the portion of our network including this new inventory. We believe this higher value inventory, combined with an entertaining and engaging show program that is integrated with our Noovie digital ecosystem, provides a unique cross-platform premium video product that will stand out in the media marketplace. We also believe it will help mitigate the potential future impact of reserved seating on our business.
It is the Company’s intention to increase the number of affiliate theaters in our network showing the improved Noovie show format followed by the premium Post-Showtime Inventory. While adoption across our affiliate network is expected to
19
take some time, 55.6% of our network affiliates are running our Post-Showtime Inventory as of December 29, 2022, which including Regal and Cinemark, accounted for 59.3% of our total network attendance based on 2022 levels.
Our relationships with our exhibitors are a key focus of our business. Our Affiliate Partnerships team is dedicated to serving the needs of our founding member theater circuits and our 44 network affiliates nationwide as of December 29, 2022. We plan to continue to expand our affiliate network by strategically targeting priority exhibitors who are not currently part of our network and whose cinema advertising contracts we expect will be coming up for renewal in the next several years in order to add key affiliates and screens in select markets. This will allow us to increase our revenue by increasing the number of impressions we have available to sell to advertisers, extending our reach to additional markets to further improve our national footprint for brands looking to reach those audiences and strengthening our reach in markets we are already in for greater saturation in those DMAs. In January 2021, we entered into an exhibitor agreement with Harkins Theaters, the fifth largest exhibitor in the U.S., increasing our network by over 501 screens and 33 theaters beginning in May 2021 through December 2037. In September 2022, we entered into an exhibitor agreement with VIP Cinemas, a family-owned and operated circuit of seventeen theaters across eight states.
Under the terms of the ESAs and common unit adjustment agreement with the founding members and our network affiliate agreements, all new theaters built or acquired (subject to existing advertising sales agreements) by the founding members or network affiliates will become part of our network. Including our founding members and network affiliates, our net screens have increased in eight out of the last ten fiscal years . We believe this expansion continues to improve our geographic coverage and enhances our ability to compete with other national advertising mediums, which allows our exhibitor clients to maximize the advertising value of their audiences.
In 2022, we launched several specialty networks to cater to specific audiences, including the Elevate Cinema Network, a strategic sales partnership with Spotlight Cinema Networks which combines nearly 1,500 of our premier screens with Spotlight’s existing premier network of over 1,200 screens. This combined network provides reach and recall to brands targeting the upscale, educated, adult demographic with disposable income. We also created NCM Black Cinema Network and NCM Hispanic Cinema Network in connection with NuTime Media, a Black-owned media sales representation company, to better serve marketers looking to reach African-American and Hispanic audiences.
Also in 2022, we launched NCMx™, our new data, insights, and analytics platform that taps the Company’s comprehensive knowledge and extensive data about moviegoer behavior to connect brands with custom audiences in theaters as well as on digital screens before and after attending movies. Our valuable unique data records consist of both our own NCM first-party data from our owned-and-operated digital products, as well as a variety of key second- and third-party data addressable consumer records, including location-based data that allows us to track when our audiences go to the movie theater to see our Noovie show and where they go in the days and weeks afterwards. NCMx has proven to be a highly successful tool in attracting existing and new advertisers for NCM.
Diversify our Revenue Model
We are also reimagining the Noovie® show as we strive to increase revenue and grow our advertiser base by developing branded content, sponsorships and integration opportunities which also drive moviegoer engagement. We have developed and launched various segments in 2022 including The Noovie Trivia Show , Noovieverse , Perri’s Picks , Noovie Unwind and Noovie Cultural Celebrations. Our Noovie Studios in-house creative team develops and produces original storytelling content for advertisers for a fee, with content tied to these new Noovie show segments or fully customized based on brand needs.
We intend to build and monetize digital and data driving solutions. We continue to invest in the creation of compelling digital entertainment products and expand our Noovie digital ecosystem and user base of movie fans with NCM owned-and-operated products like Noovie Trivia (including Noovie Shuffle and Name That Movie) . These products create new ways for brands to engage with movie audiences beyond the big screen, reaching them anytime (before and after the movie) and anywhere with new higher-margin digital ad inventory and creating valuable addressable first-party customer data. We expect to then monetize this data through advertising sales and sponsorships, as well as by leveraging our Noovie Audience Accelerator product. We also expect to launch a Noovie Rewards program across all of our digital products to further incentivize movie-goers to download and play the apps and increase consumer engagement and retention of existing users.
Along with growing our digital products, we plan to expand upon NCMx™, our data-platform that allows us to meet the needs of today’s modern video advertising marketplace. It is important that we accelerate the growth, scale, targeting and measurability of our theater audience data to maintain a critical mass to be able to effectively use that audience data to deliver value to our clients. It is that scale that we believe will make our NCM digital and data capabilities increasingly attractive to advertisers, especially to national brands who buy both our national and regional inventory.
We also intend to enter into synergistic business opportunities. NCM's DOOH group serves to further unite brands with the power of movies by extending movie-centric entertainment content, trivia and advertising beyond theaters to a variety of complementary Digital Out-Of-Home platforms. NCM is now able to combine the strengths and effectiveness of Cinema,
20
Digital and Place-Based media together to create innovative, integrated campaigns that engage movie fans anytime and anywhere through our partnerships with Ziosk, ATM.TV and Trooh.
Optimize Operation Effectiveness and Efficiency
We intend to ensure our technology infrastructure is built to support sustained revenue growth. Our first initiative in this process is to further enhance our cinema advertising management system implemented in January of 2021 to allow for self-serve programmatic purchasing for certain of our product offerings beginning with LEN. We finalized the functionality for LEN in 2022, and expect to follow this with local and national onscreen programmatic in 2023.
Intellectual Property Rights
We have been granted a perpetual, royalty-free license from the founding members to use certain proprietary software for the delivery of digital advertising and other content through our DCN to screens in the U.S. We have made improvements to this software since our IPO and we own those improvements exclusively, except for improvements that were developed jointly by us and the founding members.
We have secured U.S. trademark registrations for NCM ® , National CineMedia ®, Noovie® and NCMx™ . It is our practice to defend our trademarks and other intellectual property rights, including the associated goodwill, from infringement by others. We are aware that other persons or entities may use names and marks containing variations of our registered trademarks and other marks and trade names. Potentially, claims alleging infringement of intellectual property rights, such as trademark infringement, could be brought against us by the users of those other names and marks. If any such infringement claim were to prove successful in preventing us from either using or prohibiting a competitor’s use of our registered trademarks or other marks or trade names, our ability to build brand identity could be negatively impacted.
Available Information
We maintain a website at www.ncm.com , on which we will post free of charge our annual reports on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, current reports on Form 8-K and any amendments to these reports under the heading “Investor Relations” located at the bottom of the home page after we electronically file such material with, or furnish it to, the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”). We also regularly post information about the Company on the Investor Relations page. We do not incorporate the information on our website into this document and you should not consider any information on, or that can be accessed through, our website as part of this document. The SEC also maintains a website that contains our reports and other information at www.sec.gov .