Q3 2023 Ryman Hospitality Properties Inc Earnings Call
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Welcome to Ryman hospitality properties third quarter 2023 earnings conference call.
Hosting the call today from Brian <unk> hospitality properties is Mr. Colin Reed executive Chairman.
Mr Mark Fioravanti, President and Chief Executive Officer Mrs.
Mr. Patrick Chaffin Chief.
Chief operating officer.
And Mr. Patrick Moore, Chief Executive Officer, Opry Entertainment group.
This call will be available for digital replay. The number is 808 393516 No conference ITE is required.
At this time, all participants have been placed on listen only mode.
It is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to Mr. Marc Piro Avanti, Sir you may begin.
Good morning, and thank you everyone for joining us today.
Unfortunately, due to a death in the family, our Chief Financial Officer, Jennifer Hutchison will not be joining us on the call today.
This call may contain forward looking statements as defined in the private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1095, including statements about the company's expected financial performance.
Any statements we make today that are not statements of historical fact may be deemed to be forward looking statements words, such as believes or expects are intended to identify these statements, which may be affected by many factors, including those listed in the company's SEC filings and in today's release.
The company's actual results may differ materially from the results, we discuss or project today.
We will not update any forward looking statements whether as a result of new information further events or any other reason.
We will also discuss non-GAAP financial measures today, we reconcile each non-GAAP measure to the most comparable GAAP measure in exhibit to todays release.
I'll now turn the call over to Colin.
Thank you Mark and good morning, everyone. Let me start this morning's discussions about that.
Third quarter of 23, my first reminding you what an incredible third quarter, we had last year.
This quarter was the best third quarter performance ever for total revenue total adjusted EBITDA.
And total adjusted EBIT a margin.
Margin. Additionally, in the third quarter of last year, we had a very good group room night production again with record gross bookings in a D. O I pointed out last year. How excited we were about the state of our business and how materially ahead, we were up 19 in terms of revenue and profit generation.
And what this trajectory signal for the period ahead. So here we are reporting on the third quarter of 'twenty, three and discussing how we see the full year, playing out and yes, yet again, a third quarter delivered some very compelling results.
Booking production continues to accelerate.
For our same store hospitality portfolio. This was another record third quarter performance. The total revenue total ADR and group ADR at business continues to get stronger and stronger and this is especially evident when we look how we are performing relative to 2019.
Compared to the third quarter of 19 total same store hospitality revenue was up 27% totally D. All 22, 4% and group ADR 16, 5% and these growth rates are highest sequentially then.
They were in the second quarter of 'twenty three.
I noticed some of you we must sound like a broken record the Gaylord hotels actually does have a differentiated strategy that has consistently driven industry, leading shareholder returns. We do this by building long term customer relationships through excellent systemwide service.
Great product and very targeted relationship building endeavors with our customers. The consequence of which is they book contracts with us and in many cases years out. This is why our business is far less volatile than those companies you often compares to now mark will get into the production numbers in more detail.
But our bookings for 'twenty four and 'twenty five continued to track solidly ahead of where we were they were a year ago, the tier one and tier two periods. This momentum supports our confidence to continue investing capital in projects like the redesign of the Grand Lodge and the addition of the New group.
Pavilion at the Gaylord Rockies, which are expected to reopen midyear next year.
In our entertainment business consistent demand trends at our core Nashville, Nashville assets continue to highlight the popularity of our live entertainment offerings outside of Nashville, We remain excited about our progress towards the opening of Ole Red Las Vegas in January.
Addition, we recently announced.
$14 million of.
Value enhancing investments at block 21 in Austin, which we which will include the full renovation of the W Hotel and additional public space enhancement at ACL live in early January we will begin our transformation of the wild horse saloon to a multi level multi concept immersive entered.
Tainment experience in partnership with Luke Combs.
I was with look a couple of weeks ago in London as he was wrapping up his very successful free week two of northern Europe and I'm. So excited about this new brand branding opportunity with him, particularly now that he has so rapidly become a global superstar.
Finally, our partnership with the tariffs and NBC Universal is really starting to show value enhancing results. During the last few weeks, we've been able to collaborate on some really really exciting projects, which showcase why we chose a terrace and NBC universal as our partners in September the.
<unk> House hosted the inaugural People's Choice Country Awards, which was broadcast on NBC just a few weeks ago, while Luke was Ontario, and U K several episodes of off rely featuring some of his performance as it on Sky ops in the UK and in Ireland and in early June.
Simba Christmas at the Opry will air on NBC as a result of that collaboration our brands and the artists who we work with.
Benefiting from this accelerates it media distribution, reaching more country music lifestyle consumers globally at the highest level. We are really excited where we were exactly where we thought we'd be.
And as we've talked about in the past that performance in both our businesses comes back to a sustainable competitive advantage, which is grounded in our iconic brands and then our extensive knowledge of the unique customer segments, we serve.
Just as we've done for the past 20 years, we continue to prioritize our customer relationships and invest in assets to consistently enhance our value proposition, which ultimately translates to stronger customer.
Customer loyalty and best in class shareholder returns our business model is not based on hope all things we have little control of we built a loyalty based rotational strategy within our hotel business that is not reliant on citywide conventions or how popular.
City may be and our entertainment business is pretty unique backed backed up by legendary brands that cannot be replicated.
Look forward to hosting the investment the investment community at our upcoming Investor Day in mid January of next year to discuss in detail, our differentiated strategy and the exciting growth priorities that will drive returns in the years to come and with that let me turn it over to Marc to now.
Discuss the quarter in more detail Mark.
Colin I will start with some segment highlights from the quarter first focusing on our same store hospitality portfolio before discussing the results for GW Hill country in our entertainment business.
Then I'll review, our consolidated guidance and balance sheet.
For the same store portfolio group strength continued evidenced by approximately 513000 group room nights traveled in the quarter, a three 1% increase to the comparable period in 2022 and back to 2019 levels.
As Colin mentioned for our same store hospitality portfolio. This was the best third quarter performance ever for total revenue total ADR and group ADR eclipsing the prior best ever third quarter performance and 2022.
Similar to the dynamics, we saw in the second quarter. The third quarter was another very tough year over year comparison, as we saw a rapid recovery after the omicron impact in the first quarter of 2022 with some of those re bookings traveling in the back half of the year.
This comparison was particularly challenging at Gaylord Rockies, which in the third quarter of 2022 posted the highest quarterly occupancy in the history of the Gaylord hotels brand.
86, 9%.
Furthermore, in the third quarter of last year banquet revenue across the portfolio set an all time quarterly records.
Compared to these high watermarks the third quarter of 2023 saw a shift in group mix to a more normalized level of corporate group room nights and banquet spend.
Attrition and cancellation fees were $11 $3 million, an increase of $1 $3 million for the comparable period in 2022 due to the timing of collections.
Actualized cancellations in the year for the year, a better indicator of current group behavior continue to decline to approximately 11000 room nights down from 21000, a year ago and essentially in line with 2019 levels.
During the quarter, we also collected approximately $1 $7 million as part of our ongoing business interruption claim related to the indoor pool closure at the Gaylord Rockies.
We're pleased that the indoor pool has reopened as of November three ahead of the peak holiday season.
We anticipate collecting the remainder of the business interruption proceeds through the first quarter of 2024.
The same store hospitality portfolio delivered adjusted EBITDA of.
$135 2 million in the third quarter, our year over year decline of $1 5 million to 90 basis point decline in adjusted EBITDA margin was due to the recognition of approximately $3 6 million of additional incentive management fee expense year over year.
Looking to the fourth quarter of 2023, we see momentum in our group business, continuing and we remain excited about our holiday programming.
The fourth quarter will be a challenging comparison for the leisure side of our business is last year, we sold a record $1 2 million tickets to ice, which helped drive a record transient ADR of $317.
While we're early in the booking cycle, we are optimistic about this year's holiday season demand as early ticket sales advice are pacing ahead of last year.
As a result, we're tightening our full year guidance range for same store revpar growth such that the midpoint is unchanged.
Raising our full year guidance range for same store total revpar growth to 11, five to 12, 5% a two five point increase at the midpoint.
And we're tightening our guidance range for same store hospitality adjusted EBITDA R E, which results in a $5 million increase at the midpoint to $590 million.
Turning now to same store production, we booked approximately 695000 gross group room nights in the third quarter for all future years, which is up 13, 2% for the comparable period in 2022.
Average rate across all new group bookings set another all time record of $268, which was up $3 or one 2% from the prior record last quarter and 32, 8% from the third quarter of 2019.
Looking into 2024, and 2025 group rooms revenue on the books is up nearly 10% and 12% respectively compared to the T plus one and T plus two time periods as of the third quarter of 2022, which is the continued improvement over our position at the end of last quarter.
Note the full impact of our groups right strategy that we implemented in February of 2022 has yet to play out.
Group business contracted prior to our focus on driving group ADR will burn off over the next several years, creating a tailwind for group rooms revenue.
Currently the portion of group business contracted prior to our focus on ACR accounts for approximately 30 points of the 48 points of occupancy currently on the books for 2024.
Occupancy on the books for this same subsegment is lower in 2025 and steps down in each of the following years Accordingly, higher ADR bookings will become an increasing larger portion of our group business over the next several years.
Shifting gears to the GW Hill country performance in our first quarter of ownership was in line with our expectations and reinforced our belief in the long term value creation opportunity of this asset.
Early integration efforts are progressing well and we expect to close on the previously announced purchase of the additional adjacent acreage later this month.
For our partial year of ownership, we continue to expect the adjusted EBITDA contribution from this hotel to be in the range of 27% to $29 million.
Turning to our entertainment segment this business delivered $82 $3 million of revenue and $25 $6 million of adjusted EBITDA.
Up six 7% and 21% respectively compared to the third quarter of 2022 <unk>.
Performance was driven by our core Nashville assets, which drove double digit revenue growth year over year.
The W. Hotel results of block 21 were impacted by softening business transient demand and extreme summer heat, which affected transient volumes in the Austin market.
We remain confident in the long term value creation opportunity with this asset and the long term market outlook for Austin.
To that end enhancement to the W Hotel and ACL live are underway and are expected to be completed in phases by the end of next year.
On the media side of the business, we made the decision to pivot our distribution strategy for circle away from linear TV, focusing our resources on streaming fast in digital distribution as a result, we agreed to wind down our joint venture partnership with Gray television.
And our results for the quarter include a nonrecurring $10 $6 million write off of which $7 $2 million is a noncash charge.
Beginning in 2024 as part of this new distribute distribution strategy syndication of op relied will expand a major television network affiliates, allowing us to reach even more country music lifestyle consumers.
Taken together our entertainment business continues to perform in line with our expectations and as a result, we're tightening our entertainment adjusted EBITDA, our guidance range to <unk> $97 million to $101 million, leaving the midpoint unchanged.
On a consolidated basis, our outlook accounts for the segment level adjustments I discussed as well as an updated guidance for corporate adjusted EBITDA to.
To a loss of $30 to $32 million.
Accordingly, we are updating our full year guidance range for consolidated adjusted EBITDA to six to $672 million to $700 million.
Which at the midpoint of $686 million.
Flex an increase of $4 5 million.
We're also updating our full year guidance range for adjusted funds from operations or <unk> to $448 five to $474 $5 million. Please refer to our earnings release for full guidance tables and reconciliations.
Turning to our balance sheet, we ended the third quarter with $543 1 million of unrestricted cash on hand, and both our $700 million revolving credit facility and <unk> $65 million revolving credit facility Undrawn.
As a result, our turtle total available liquidity was approximately $1 $3 billion.
We retained an additional $112 $9 million of restricted cash available or a certain <unk> and other maintenance projects.
On a trailing 12 month basis, our net leverage ratio of total consolidated net debt to adjusted EBIT EBITDA, sorry was four three times below where we ended the year in 2019.
On a pro forma basis, assuming a full year contribution.
From the J W Hill country, our net leverage ratio was four times.
In terms of interest rate exposure as of quarter end, approximately 80% of our outstanding debt was at fixed rates either directly or with the benefit of swaps.
Our balance sheet liquidity position continue to be in excellent shape to support the capital deployment opportunities available to us and.
And the continued growth of our business.
And finally subject to approval of our board of directors. It remains our intention to continue to pay 100% of our REIT taxable income through dividends.
And with that let's open it up for questions.
At this time, if you would like to ask a question. Please press star and one on your telephone keypad.
You may remove yourself from the queue by pressing star two.
Once again, if you would like to ask a question. Please press star one.
Our first question comes from Gregory Miller with <unk> Securities. Please go ahead.
Thank you and good morning, everyone first off my condolences to Jan and her family.
I'm on the line on behalf of Patrick.
Schools, while I appreciate youre, not providing 2024 guidance yet.
Can you share any thoughts about how you're looking at margins for next year and possible ability to grow margins next year.
Let's deal with this.
Business by business, Patrick do you want to start with hotels and we're looking at this yes.
As Mark talked about in his comments, where we're seeing more and more of the focus on group rate start to pay off benefits for us as we look forward as he mentioned we had about 30 points of occupancy already on the books before we.
We really put a focus on it in early 2022.
So it's about 30 points of the 48 points that were on the books right now.
So as we see more and more of those benefits coming through we are hopeful that we will see margin expansion next year.
It's been a question kind of floating around amongst some of the hospitality companies as far as what kind of Revpar do we need to see in order to hit flat EBITDA margins and we calculate that to be about three 6%.
Roughly.
So we are hopeful.
Optimistic.
That we can outperform that base level, just to maintain margin and we will be delivering margin growth next year.
So thats barring any kind of major macroeconomic event, but as things stand right now.
We do believe that we'll see margin growth next year and if I may.
Just like the rest of the industry.
We are seeing pressures from communities wanting to push up real estate taxes insurance and so on seems to increase.
Cost of insurers, but for US the goal has been and will continue to be.
<unk> keep focusing on the revenue side of that business and growing the top line and that that's the key to this long term.
Set of numbers that we have now been.
Turning out for the last few years.
And that's what we anticipate happening for 2020 for Patrick Moore Entertainment for the Entertainment business I would say a few things one we're going to benefit from the wind down of the circle JV from a net margin perspective, but more operationally the important things are driving sell through in the yield in the.
And the various iconic assets we have just.
Just like the hotel business, we work a lot on dynamic pricing to drive rate and there is some cost and other benefits going through with other lines of business, including food and beverage. So I would expect some modest.
Sort of net margin improvement next year.
As we look forward to opening Las Vegas, which is a really big venue for us and <unk>.
Repositioning the wild horse along with Luke Combs.
We.
We will show good revenue growth in this business is going to be some disruption for what we're going to be doing in the wild horse, but.
And also the what we're doing in block 21 next year major a major redo those assets, but revenue growth next year looks pretty good for this business.
From a corporate perspective, we don't anticipate a material change in overhead.
No.
That's all very encouraging I appreciate the color.
And then upper second question I thought to ask more.
Specifically on the J that'd be mirrored hill country.
Now that you've had more time under ownership from Blackstone could you share any additional learnings that you've taken on this asset particularly on.
Operating expenses are operating efficiencies.
Yes.
Whichever one of you have to do it.
Hi, This is patrik, Greg happy to give you some color there yeah, we've been very encouraged.
So we're going through a very methodical process.
One of the things we focused on here in the first three months of full operation of the first full quarter of operation under our HP.
We're going back and looking at a lot of the external vendor contracts, whether that'd be four valet parking for <unk> services.
Whether it be for audio visual we are reassessing all of those and negotiating those under our total portfolio scale and we've seen great benefits from that and so it's still a lot of work to be done, but we're very encouraged by what we've seen so far.
Alright go ahead.
Go ahead yeah.
The other thing is we are in the middle of Rolling out our first holiday offering at.
At that hotel, and we will be bringing ice to the hotel in 2024, but we're putting in a limited offering in 2023 and we're encouraged that we're seeing some good pickup from the local audience that want to come and experience our offerings, Mark where you can offer.
I was just going to add that from a from a bigger picture perspective, as we as we have been able to spend more time.
With the property and the property I think our enthusiasm continues to grow as it relates to.
What that property can be versus what it is.
Both in terms of from a leisure perspective, as Patrick mentioned, but also from a group perspective, we're doing a lot of work right now around master planning.
Food and beverage.
Rooms meeting space et cetera, and Patrick and his team were actually doing some primary research.
With that consumer to better understand.
What it is they like what it is what it is the properties missing so that we can use consumer feedback to make those investment decisions as we move forward and the only other thing I would offer is that we're starting to get some good traction from our group sales perspective about 24% of the bookings that were booked for J W Hill country.
In the third quarter also included a booking for a Gaylord hotel. So we're starting to see some of the multiyear rotational customers that have always frequent frequented the gaylord hotels, taking a look at J W. A whole country and reassessing and wanted to be a part of booking into that hotel given our ownership.
And our plans for it for the future.
Well. Thank you very much for all the insights that's all from us.
Correct.
Thank you. Our next question will come from Chris <unk> with Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.
Hey, Thanks, and good morning, guys are our thoughts with Janet family over here as well.
The first question was kind of on that.
Skip out some some nice data points on the on where you are on pricing and moving that up and how most of the benefit is still yet to be captured in the out years is there any way to look at the non room revenue piece of that is that moving up kind of in lockstep or does that move faster or slower any any kind of color you can give us there. Thanks.
Yes, Chris we've actually been very encouraged the third quarter exceeded our expectations from a banquet contribution per group room night perspective, we knew coming out of third quarter of 2022. When there were so many corporate re bookings that really wanted to get in as soon as Covid was over we knew there would be a pullback and we wouldn't.
See quite the same level, but I would say we were very pleasantly surprised that we continue to see strong growth on the catering side at all of the hotels with groups, even if groups fall into attrition, if they're not able to hit their room night expectations. They are outperforming on the catering side.
The vast majority of them are so we continue to believe that even as group ADR is moving up that catering and will continue to be a sizable opportunity for us.
I'm happy to report that in October Gaylord National set another record in terms of catering that it was able to book.
They did about $14 $5 million, which is an all time record for the hotel.
Tailored palms had a really good month, so we feel really good about where catering is heading and believe that will continue into 2024.
Let me let me weigh in on this just for a SEC.
Chris.
<unk> been around that organization now for almost a decade, I think and you understand the journey. We're on here, we're continuing to upgrade the quality of these assets and the relationship that we have.
We have built with the with the customer.
And so the key to the long term success of this business is making sure we do business with high worth customers customers that doesn't bring low rated business to lab to add to our product and and that is the journey. We've been on here for a while in which the journey, we're going to be on the.
Foreseeable future and I think we're making great progress and this is one of the reasons why we are so transparent with you guys about what is going on not only in terms of room nights booked but the rate in which with booking these room nights and we are seeing really high quality growth in right.
That comes back to the long term sustainable growth and profitability here.
Yes, yes for sure that's very helpful guys, a follow up if maybe we could.
Go back to the DC to national for a second.
Really strong performance, particularly I thought on the bottom line in Q3, all the way round really but youre getting the margins up there you talked about that that was a high priority.
Where are you on kind of what you wanted to do there whether it's top line kind of your occupancy you are still building that.
Inning are we in getting the national to kind of where you think you're going to get to.
Yeah do you want to.
One of these to take title.
To start yeah.
Yeah, I would tell you youre right, we talked a lot during COVID-19.
Covid in the first year after COVID-19 about the efforts that we've been making to improve the.
The fixed cost side of that business and we were very successful in doing so.
I would tell you that the remaining opportunity for us is on the transient side.
Hotel does an outstanding job from a group perspective, and I'm very pleased with where their satisfaction scores are heading so where we are.
We're capturing the revenue and we are delivering the satisfaction, but from a transient perspective. This hotel has always remained having a lot of opportunity and so we're looking at what we've done at the other hotels and whether or not a transient demand generating generator like a water amenity would make sense for that hotel, so I would say that.
The next couple of years will really be trying to unlock some of the potential on the transient side.
Youll recall Chris.
Spent about $65 million renovating the rooms in that hotel during the pandemic and we really just finished re concept in the food and beverage there kind of a top to bottom.
Product there is terrific and I think that consumers.
Consumers are recognizing that and are willing to pay for it and the and the service level improvements that we've seen in that hotel led by our friends at Marriott has been pretty good.
So it bodes well for the future.
Yeah.
Okay.
Thanks, guys and congratulations on another.
Great quarter.
Thanks, Chris.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Jay Kornreich with Wedbush Securities. Please go ahead.
Alright, thanks, good morning.
Looking into the fourth quarter, specifically the December holiday season, with the ice presentation.
Which is garnering robust leisure transient ADR, well above 2019 levels, but with some concerns facing the leisure customers currently and ADR you can achieve can you just comment on how you expect this coming holiday season to perform relative to last year.
Yes.
Sure.
Obviously, most of those customers book and a much more condensed booking window.
But so we normally watch how the tickets are pacing, even though it's early and our ice tickets as Colin mentioned earlier had been pacing very very well. We're ahead of 2019 and the sizeable fashion right now versus where we were several years ago in 2019, and we're currently ahead of 2022, we've talked about our concerns.
But there was a lot of pent up demand the traveled in 2022 and that may still be the case, but the early indications are very favorable and very encouraging for us and so we obviously like everyone else in the industry saw a lot of the domestic U S. Travelers go international during the summertime, but early indications are that folks that may be.
<unk> closer to home for the upcoming holiday season, we will watch and see how it goes because there's a lot of that business is still needs to be booked in the next four to six weeks, but we're encouraged where we're at right now.
The other thing that I think you should think about here is that the overall quality of our leisure experiences in these states hotels.
Is pretty pretty compelling and then what we have layered on top of this entertainment that we layered on top of it with things like <unk> things like Dennis shows.
Things like light exhibitions.
Is very very different to what the vast majority of this industry does through this holiday period, and we've had now years of experience of this stuff I mean, we've been doing it for.
Deca.
Decade, now and.
I think we're going to have a decent a decent.
<unk> fourth quarter, and we're not sitting here wringing out fingers, hoping like Hell.
A city that we're in business in performance, Okay, we're driving demand we're introducing.
<unk> into our business by the quality of our products and the quality of the entertainment that we've put in place.
Got it that's helpful. Thank you for that and then just as a follow up you commented on T plus one and T plus two bookings being up over 10% from a year ago and so I wanted to see if you can just speak to which groups are driving these bookings and if there's anything within those.
Bookings in terms of segmentation that surprised you.
The corporate business, Yeah, I would tell you that 2024, right now has a higher mix of corporate business.
Not a marginal amount, but a pretty substantial increase which is very encouraging to us and back to our conversation a few minutes ago with a previous caller.
That bodes well for what we think will happen on the catering side of the business.
T plus two.
It's.
Really not a substantial number of room nights on the books to really be able to say, but it's pretty much consistent with what we've seen in the past, but 2024 is very encouraging from a corporate perspective.
Speak a little bit about the right trajectory and what it should do for T plus two plus three type.
Business, yes so.
We were talking we have about 25 points of occupancy of the 39 points of occupancy on 2025 that was booked prior to.
Our focus on rate growth in early 2022 so.
As we've commented as we get into 'twenty four we see more impact from the group rate increased 25, roughly 50% of that group business, we booked in a very different and much more aggressive rate environment than 'twenty six we will see an even greater proportion. So we're very encouraged that as we're moving forward the group.
<unk> focus that we've put in place, we're really start paying dividends and a lot of that was set up by the fact that we were able to capture so many of the cancellations into re bookings for future periods, which set up our book of business in a much healthier point or healthier status and allowed us to really start pushing on the group rate. So.
We think that there is some really good things ahead for us from a group rate perspective, and the on the other side of the coin is that if the fed actually does get its act together and eliminates inflation from our.
Environment.
The trajectory that we have in this company looks very very exciting.
Okay.
Got it thanks, very much I'll stop there.
Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Smedes Rose with Citi. Please go ahead.
Hey, good morning, this is matti on France.
Yes.
Just wanted to ask what sort of growth in wages and benefits should we think about looking at just wanted 24.
Okay.
2024.
Returning to a normalized wages and benefits growth compared to what we've seen in the last the last several years.
Yes.
I know what we're planning.
And.
In all of our budgeting.
Our entertainment business in our hotel business, but as Mark said, we're looking at more normalized.
Yes, I mean.
I don't want to give guidance for 2024, but we're assuming low to mid single digits from a wage growth perspective, which is much more in line with.
What were seeing prior to Covid in an inflationary environment that followed it.
Got it thanks.
And then could you maybe discuss a little more about your decision to wind down several entertainment.
And are there other ways that you might consider leveraging the content owned by the Entertainment Division.
Well that was that was the whole thesis here what has happened.
I'll turn it over to Patrick in a minute it Patrick Moore is.
The world of distribution is so rapidly evolved here over the last three to four years.
Almost.
<unk> becomes almost redundant.
As it's being launched and so what we have been able to.
Figure out is that the content that we have particularly all three life is in demand all over the place and and that is our goal to to hedge at two <unk>.
Current distribution platforms, Patrick Yeah, no sure.
Just to build on account statement. The primary objective was always to distribute the content that we create to the greatest possible audience, we did that through our own linear network as you know.
With the market for linear TV under extreme pressure due to cord cutting and streaming services and notably the market for AD dollars is extremely fragmented we felt the right approach here was to pivot away from owning our own distribution and our own linear network to basically syndicating and licensing and distributing our content through any and all.
All potential providers, which should ultimately increase our audience and reach.
Material materially here going forward.
And so with that we also improved profitability so from a strategic standpoint. It makes all the sense in the world to to continue with our core objective of distributing the content, but just in a different manner.
Okay, great. Thank you. Thank you for me.
Thank you.
So any more any more questions.
Our next question will come from Dougherty <unk> with Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.
Oh, Thanks, good morning.
Sounds like Youre stronger than initially expected results for Q4 are widespread not really concentrated in a few assets is that correct.
Yes, we're seeing it broadly across the portfolio.
Okay.
And I know, it's early but do you have a sense of tariffs any fee.
Intends to exercise its option to invest more in.
Operator payment this year.
We don't know that yet.
Sorry.
Process that we have as you know they have the they have the right to buy up another 19% over.
'twenty three 'twenty four and 'twenty five.
And that process really begins in October.
They will notify us.
By mid December.
They are.
Is there a desire to buy up or not so we'll know here.
Here in about a month.
And if they do want to buy up then we would close that transaction prior to year end.
Okay. When we know when we know you'll note and.
And but we're really focused on growing.
The revenue and profitability of this business.
Okay. Thank you.
Thanks George.
Thank you at this time, we have no further questions. So I'll turn the call back to management for any additional or closing remarks.
Okay. Thank.
Thank you everyone for joining us if you have any additional questions.
To get hold of us.
For those of you that are still on the line, we look forward to hosting you in.
Middle late January for our Investor.
Gathering here in Nashville look we look forward to that thank you very much indeed feel time this morning.
Thank you. This does conclude today's ryman hospitality properties third quarter 2023 earnings Conference call. You may disconnect. Your line at this time and have a wonderful day.
Youre listening to performances from the stage of the World famous Grand Ole Opry.
Ryman hospitality properties company next.
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Scott.
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Ron.
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