WWE
#: Thank you, and good morning, everyone.
Welcome to WWE's First Quarter 2017 Earnings Conference Call.
Leading today's discussion are Vince <UNK>, our Chairman and CEO; <UNK> <UNK>arrios, our Chief Strategy and Financial Officer; and <UNK> <UNK>, our Chief Revenue and Marketing Officer.
We issued our earnings release earlier this morning and have posted the release, our earnings presentation and other supporting materials on our website, corporate.
wwe.com/investors.
Today's discussion will include forward-looking statements.
These forward-looking statements reflect our current views, are based on various assumptions and are subject to risks and uncertainties disclosed in our SEC filings.
<UNK>ctual results may differ materially, and undue reliance should not be placed on them.
<UNK>dditionally, the matters we will be discussing today may include non-G<UNK><UNK>P financial measures.
Reconciliation of non-G<UNK><UNK>P to G<UNK><UNK>P information is set forth in our earnings release and presentation, which are available on our website.
Finally, as a reminder, today's conference call is being recorded and a replay will be available on our website later today.
<UNK>t this time, it is my privilege to turn the call over to Vince.
: Good morning, everyone.
<UNK>s you obviously see, we've delivered pretty strong revenue growth of 10% and that, of course, is due to our Live Events as well as network and television businesses, generally speaking.
<UNK>nd speaking of Live Event attendance, that's always been one of my barometers since Day 1.
<UNK>nd we've increased our attendance by over 100,000 in the quarter compared to last year, which is pretty amazing, 91 events as compared to 72.
<UNK>nother barometer, of course, as you know, I always use is our ---+ the content in terms of our social media as well as digital.
Our content had more than 4 billion video views on social and digital combined platforms for the first quarter, up 8%.
<UNK>nd it continues to be, as you know, for many, many years now, we've been trying to be a part of that land grab.
I'm happy to say we're still grabbing and holding onto ours, and it looks well.
Social media itself, 774 million followers, that's up 23%, which is extraordinary and speaks to the power of the brand and the health of the brand ongoing.
<UNK>nd many of you know, the WrestleMania results were excellent in terms of all aspects.
<UNK>nd as far as our Monday Night Raw and SmackDown television shows are concerned, they continue to hold their own and do better than that.
<UNK>nd generally speaking, we're ---+ with a network averaging 1.49 million paid subscribers over the quarter, that's 16% above 2016.
<UNK>nd right at WrestleMania, right after 1.95 million subs, we just missed 2 million, which we were hoping for.
<UNK>ut nonetheless, the business is very, very healthy, and bodes well for the future.
: Deanna, please open the lines to questions.
: So it's important that we grow in every conceivable way, whether or not it appears as though it's a direct correlation or not.
<UNK>nd again, through Stephanie's efforts and <UNK> and head corporately, there's a huge effort on our part to grow our base, and you can start growing the base, and continue to grow the base.
<UNK>s far as women is concerned, again, they're gatekeepers many times to programming and what have you and the likes of whether or not they enjoy the brand.
There's an initiative now and has been for a while, but initiative is everyone is trying to get to the younger audience.
One of our secrets, of course, has been generation after generation.
So again, we continue to broaden our platforms on an overall basis.
<UNK>t the same time as <UNK> and <UNK> were talking about, we can capitalize on the data that we do have with our current super fans.
So you have to grow, and we're looking at all of those areas and continue to invest in all of those areas, whether it's direct, okay, we're going to invest $1 here, it comes right back to us tomorrow.
That's not necessarily our point of view.
We have a long-term point of view.
We try to get as many different areas, many different demos and what have you as we possibly can, whether it's through CR initiative, whether or not it's consumer interest or direct back to backs.
There are many different ways that we're doing it.
<UNK>ut generally speaking, it's a broader audience.
: Just want to say thank you to everyone.
We appreciate you listening to the call.
<UNK>nd certainly, if you have any questions, don't hesitate to reach out to us, <UNK> <UNK> or <UNK> Guido at (203) 352-8600.
Thank you.
