Jim Goss: Okay. Thank you very much.
Tom Lesinski: You’re welcome.
Operator: [Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Mike Hickey with the Benchmark Company. Please go ahead.
Mike Hickey: Hey, Tom, hey, Ronnie. Great quarter, guys. Thanks for taking our questions here. I guess the first one, Tom, just curious kind of two X factors this year. One is the political ad environment, which obviously is going to get nutsy [ph] here soon, because it hasn’t already. And you kind of wonder if it’s just going to kind of push out some of the inventory in traditional ad networks. And if you think that you’re sort of in a position to benefit from that push out. And I think you’re also doing no political ads, so does that sort of give you more of a clean, call it clean medium for your media buyers. And then the second piece on that on the economy, it looks like the consumer is showing a little bit of headwinds here in certain categories, just curious how resilient you think your top categories are to pull back in consumer spend in terms of impacting?
Tom Lesinski: Let me get the first question and then I’ll have Ronnie respond on the segmentation on the categories. So political has always been an opportunity for us, but not in the way you would think. What typically happens in swing states, in particular, is local inventory gets sold out. So we have a team of people that are focusing on all of those states and cities and major ADIs, knowing that there are advertisers who will be blocked out of local advertising avails. And since we don’t offer any political advertising option, we are always looking at how we can take advantage of sold out inventory. So we’re actually pretty optimistic that come November. And even before November, that much of that availability, which will be gone will benefit us.
And in fact, over the last couple of elections, we’ve seen that effect. And it’s real. And we know exactly where to go to those states and those ADIs where there are going to be sell out situations. As it relates to the economy and categories that are growing, I think or declining, it’s really tricky to look at a quarter-to-quarter, because it isn’t necessarily indicative of a trend. But Ronnie, you can talk about the various categories and what’s growing and what’s there.
Ronnie Ng: Yes. So I would say just one, in terms of any pullback from consumer spend, I think the last time we seen a major recession call, it was back in 2008. The company actually fared fairly well through that recessionary period and was fairly resilient, especially compared to the rest of the media landscape. If we look at our exposures and our typical top 10 advertisers, most of our advertisers are guys that are more stable to consumers that consumers always tend to spend money towards. So we feel we have an advertiser group, especially in the top 10, top 10, 15 advertisers are pretty resilient in and of themselves in terms of their business model. So in some of those categories, quite frankly, government is a good one where the spend is typically very stable. The insurance category is another one that’s also very stable as well. So we feel we have a stable core of advertisers, frankly, that should be able to weather any type of consumer slowdown.
Mike Hickey: Nice, guys. Then Ronnie on your 2Q guide, can you give us a little bit more color on the decline in revenue? I guess top line’s fine. In terms of quarter-over-quarter of Q2 last year is a fair comparable, or if it needs to be adjusted in terms of understanding your growth outlook. Is this primarily just the presumed weakness in attendance given the slate in two cues? Is that the major impact that’s driving your guidance to be down year-over-year or any color that would be great? Thanks.
Ronnie Ng: Yes, that’s your really spot on there. It’s really — the second quarter guide is more of a reflection of our current expectations of the overall attendance for the second quarter versus the prior year. Again, the slate’s meaningfully down, and I think if you actually compared the second quarter slate this year versus last year, you’ll see that. So if the attendance were to come in a little bit stronger than our expectation, then there’s a chance for the actual revenue to maybe come in above that, but frankly, the reflection of our guidance is really driven by the attendance level.
Mike Hickey: Nice. Thanks, guys.
Tom Lesinski: You’re welcome.
Operator: This concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Tom Lesinski for any closing remarks.
Tom Lesinski: Well, thank you for your questions and your ongoing support at National CineMedia. Leveraging our unparalleled scale within the industry, NCM maintains its position as a front runner in the premium video ad space, and with our highest free cash flow in the last 15 quarters and our best first quarter since 2019, NCM demonstrated its perseverance in a down market and its ability to continue delivering sought after audiences driving new brands to our platform, and of course, existing ones to return. So I want to again thank the entire NCM team and board for their hard work. Thank you to our shareholders for their ongoing support, and we appreciate you all joining this call and look forward to seeing you all again at the movies. Thank you.
Operator: The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today’s presentation. You may now disconnect.
