John Janedis
Analyst · Evercore ISI. Your line is open
Yes, sure Shweta. I'll start with that. And so when we looked at our Q1 results, to your point, we came in about flat on ad revenue. From a monthly perspective, let me just talk you through that and then I'll also go through 2Q in some of the categories. March was better than February, which is better than January. And I'd say if I sort of give you some of the numbers around that, January was down slightly, February, call it, flattish and then March was up a bit, maybe call it mid-singles. And then we're seeing further acceleration now into April and 2Q and so far April, I think finished up in the double-digits. So, we're encouraged by what we're seeing in terms of some of the trends. From a category perspective, I would say in the first quarter, we saw strength in financials, CPG, travel, and competitive. And then on the softer side, we saw some weakness in pharma, auto, and retail. And then for the second quarter, call it, a month in visibility a bit limited. But as of now, we're seeing strength in retail, pharma travel, CPG and QSR. And then as you may expect, a little bit of weakness in financials and insurance and then also in the telecom space. One thing on the new fronts, you would ask also. I would say look, it's obviously still early. I'd say encouraging from when I talk to our ad sales team and so we've added a lot of initial dialogue and incoming from agencies, but nothing to report yet. I'm sure we'll have more on the second quarter call.