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Warner Bros. Discovery, Inc. (WBD)

Q2 2015 Earnings Call· Wed, Aug 5, 2015

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day, ladies and gentlemen. And welcome to the Q2 2015 Discovery Communications Inc. Earnings Conference Call. My name is Jane, and I will be your operator for today. At this time all participants are in listen-only mode. We will conduct a question-and-answer session towards the end of this conference. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this call is being recorded for replay purposes. I would like to turn the call over to Ms. Jackie Burka, Vice President, Investor Relations. Please proceed, ma’am.

Jackie Burka

Analyst

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us for Discovery Communications 2015 second quarter earnings call. Joining me today are David Zaslav, our President and Chief Executive Officer; and Andy Warren, our Chief Financial Officer. You should have received our earnings release, but if not, feel free to access it on our website at www.discoverycommunications.com. On today's call we will begin with some opening comments from David and Andy, and then we will open up the call for your questions. Please keep to one question so we can accommodate as many people as possible. Before we start, I would like to remind you that comments today regarding the company's future business plans, prospects and financial performance are forward-looking statements that we make pursuant to the Safe Harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements are made based on management's current knowledge and assumptions about future events and they involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from our expectations. In providing projections and other forward-looking statements, the company disclaims any intent or obligation to update them. For additional information on important factors that could affect these expectations, please see our annual report for the year ended December 31, 2014, and our subsequent filings made with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. And with that, I will turn the call over to David.

David Zaslav

Analyst

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. Discovery’s strong start to the year continued in the second quarter, with steady growth across our global portfolio of brands and businesses. Propelled from a strong second quarter into what was a momentous start to the third quarter, I join you extremely confident in Discovery’s future growth prospects. I believe we will look back on July 2015 as a pivotal month in our company's history as we announced three transformative agreements. The multiplatform rights to the Olympic Games in Europe for the next decade, the deal to acquire 100% control of Eurosport and lastly, a favorable long-term renewal with Comcast for our U.S. Networks portfolio and distribution on the Xfinity Comcast platform. These deals together stabilized and enhance our U.S. growth profile, continue our diversification internationally and give us more blue chip IP content and more distribution, so we continue to drive audience share across all consumer platforms. Earlier this month, we announced an exclusive deal in Europe, with the IOC all of the TV and multiplatform media rights to the four Olympic Games from 2018 to 2024. Never before has one media company been granted all rights on all platforms across Europe. We believe the Olympic Games will be a foundation programming piece for Eurosport and Discovery across the continent. Eurosport already dedicates over 40% of its programming schedule to Olympic Sports and bolstering our rights and offerings with the world's greatest sporting event is a perfect editorial and strategic fit for the linear channel and for eurosport.com, the leading online sports platform in Europe. Combined with full access to the Olympic programming archive, our use of the Olympic rings immediately following Rio and our existing Sports Federation Agreements, this deal was substantially strengthen the Eurosport platform and bring the…

Andy Warren

Analyst

Thanks, David and thank you, everyone for joining us today. Discovery’s ability to execute on key strategic global growth initiatives, while focusing on trailing controlling costs led to another quarter of solid results. On a reported basis, total company second quarter revenues increased 3% and adjusted OIBDA was down 2%. As expected, given our increasingly international business mix, the stronger dollar remained a headwind and changes in currency rates reduced both our reported revenues and adjusted OIBDA growth rates by 8%. Therefore, excluding currency, revenues and adjusted OIBDA were up an impressive 11% and 6% respectively. On an organic basis, so excluding the impact of foreign currency as well as the inclusion of Eurosport and Discovery Family, total company revenues grew 4% and adjusted OIBDA grew 3%. Our organic margins were flat year-over-year at 44%. Our strong cost and content spend allocation, discipline and management continues. But note that we do expect to see a significant uptick in costs domestically and internationally in the third quarter, given the timing of certain content marketing investments. This 3Q cost uptick is embedded in our full year guidance. Note also that because of the difficulties in separating Eurosport France from the rest of Eurosport results, we will continue to breakout the impact of both transactions to the end of this year. It’s important to remind people, however, that when we breakout and report the combined Eurosport results for another few quarters, the benefits of our owning Eurosport extend far beyond the standalone Eurosport results to the rest of the Discovery portfolio in Europe and Asia to the combined distribution and ad sales leverage in these country. Net income available to Discovery Communications of $286 million was down versus last year second quarter net income of $379 million, primarily due to unusually large amounts…

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from the line of Anthony DiClemente from Nomura. Please proceed.

Anthony DiClemente

Analyst

Thank you very much. I have one for David and a couple quick ones for Andy. David, congratulations on the Comcast renewal. You mentioned that in your prepared remarks. You also mentioned the importance of data. So I thought I would ask about that. My understanding is that your content as you said will be deployed as part of the XFINITY TV Everywhere app. Do you guys have access to that viewership data? Some your peers have had network apps that are specific to the network. Just wondering as part of your deal, do you have the rights to launch your own authenticated network app as part of the deal? And if not, why not do that or do you plan to do that? And I'll come back for my questions for Andy. Thanks.

David Zaslav

Analyst

Thanks, Anthony. The Comcast was one of the final pieces of this overall strategy over the last four years where we grew our viewership from 5% share of viewership on cable to 13% and to try and get more value and bigger increases. And so Comcast together with all of our deals to be in a position where we now can look forward and see high-single-digit affiliate growth in US, with all of our channels being carried with very limited exposure to this issue of skinny bundles, because almost all of our deals require that all of our channels be carried to a very high percentage of subscribers. It puts us in, I think, a very good position and makes the US for us, as we look forward, a growth market. And when we say high-single, we’re putting in there an expectation that the US, we recognize that it's mature, it's been declining at about 1%, and we think we can get high-single, even if that accelerates a little bit. And so the big piece here is that we really -- we have a very good affiliate revenue stream now. And as I mentioned, we still only represent about 5% or a little bit more than 5% of the economics, even though we’re 13% of viewership, before we’re at 3% or 3.5%. So we are quite a good bargain when someone is looking for content, whether it’d be new over-the-top platforms and so on. On the data piece, there is a data relationship with Comcast that we established. And I think that's critical because the data inside the box is very important. Comcast platform is probably the -- if not the best, it's certainly up there and the X1 platform is terrific. It's a leader in TV Everywhere, but it also is one of the real leaders in data capture, which could help us I think on the monetization side. So we were all in on TV Everywhere with Comcast and with Neil. We’re glad to have that deal behind us. The other piece is that we own all of our own content, which is quite unusual. And I think it's going to be a very important element as you look at the future of a mature market, because we own all of our content. We don’t have long-term commitments to sports. We don’t have long-term commitment to off-network and when we put our content on platforms, we get all the money. And so it gives us the chance to move our content on to platforms, but it also to the extent that the marketplace moves in a particular direction, we have real ability to maneuver from a cost perspective. We don't have any long-tail expensive programming cost.

Anthony DiClemente

Analyst

Got you. Thanks. Thanks, David. And then, for Andy, just on the comment you made about cost -- the cost uptick in 3Q, why don’t if you just clarify, how is that breakdown U.S. versus international and specifically, which cost, I think ,you talked about programming being part of that -- timing of programming? And then the $0.23 to $0.28 of FX impact, could you give us, how that compares to what your prior expectation was as of last quarter? And then, sorry about this, but just had a last one, which was, sound like 3Q is going really well on the ad side, just wondering is it more so a function of ad demand and help of the scatter market or is it more so better audience delivery, given the strength that you guys have seen in terms of ratings in the month of July? Thanks.

Andy Warren

Analyst

Okay, Anthony. Look, on the first question, I am very happy with our cost trends right now. I really feel like that the point from David’s comments, the fact that we, do we have more content cost flexibility. We definitely demonstrating a lot of coming to control around other non-content cost, particularly in SG&A and we are seeing that benefit over the last several quarters. To your point though in 3Q, we do expect double-digit increases for both domestic and international, predominantly on the content side, and little bit on the marketing side, as we are going to put some more support and tailwind behind some of our new program launches. So there definitely be a cost uptick in 3Q, but definitely I want to highlight the fact that that, as I think about our cost structures and I think about going forward, I feel really good about our sustained level of productivity and driving SG&A in particular to be kind of in that low single to mid single-digit range. The second question about the foreign exchange impact, yeah, it’s the $0.23 to $0.28 is the latest view, that's a few cents higher than we would have thought back on our May conference call. It's really highlighting more the fact that while euro has been relatively stable, given our global reach and global expansion of our platforms, clearly some other currencies in particular Venezuela and Brazil have continue to be some additional headwind. So we definitely do want to going forward continue to highlight for everyone kind of what the impact is on our adjusted EPS.

Anthony DiClemente

Analyst

Okay. Thanks.

Andy Warren

Analyst

And the third question ad sales trends? Yeah, look, it’s really the combination of both our performance and the market, we are, look, our deliveries are strong, particularly with Discovery, our sell-out has been strong, some of the overall ad sales trends around cancellations are kind of add normal levels, we are seeing some nice pricing on the scatter market and the fact that a lot of other networks have been more sold out, given some 80 new constraints and given our relative ratings performance, we add more capacity and so we have more impressions to monetize.

David Zaslav

Analyst

For the first time I would say and we -- it’s too early to make any projections for where fourth quarter will be, but the marketplaces has absolutely picked up and the fact that we have rating points is allowing us to take advantage of that, scatter pricing has been fine for a long time, but the volume wasn't there, fourth quarter was quite weak, we pointed that out and it was a surprise. Second quarter was, okay, but third quarter really seems to be accelerating. It's too early to tell whether that will continue, but it's -- but it feels good right now.

Andy Warren

Analyst

Yeah. And just to clear off that, six months ago, we all said around, I think, everyone in the industry and said, where is the money going, there is clearly less volume in the broadcast of 20 year ago and what we see today is that a meaningful shift out of broadcast both in the calendar and scatter, and we are seeing the benefit of that scatter today, not only from the standpoint of volume, our highest record ever of scatter volume in the second quarter, but also because we are still seen some good sustained pricing in the scatter market, that's helping us get an uptick in the third quarter, so some overall nice dynamics.

Anthony DiClemente

Analyst

Thank you very much for taking my questions.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Kannan from Barclays. Please go ahead.

Kannan Venkateshwar

Analyst

Thank you. So just a question the Olympics, now that the deal is done and as you look forward into your affiliates, the levers, and the whole cycle when it comes to Eurosport going forward? What the end of operating leverage you see from this process, especially when it comes to Eurosport margins? I mean, you guys are still at the single-digits kind of margin profile and once this process is completed, are we looking at a substantial bump over where Eurosport was when you guys acquired this asset? Thanks.

David Zaslav

Analyst

Well, I think, exactly how the Olympics will play out long-term and the impact, some of it, one of the reasons why we were really keen about getting the Olympics for the next decade and we get the rings and library and access right after Rio, is that we have on all platforms. And so, the one element here is positioning ourselves for the future, where between Eurosport where we own all the sports IP and we have Olympic sports, many of which are top sports in particular countries plus the Olympics. It positions us where for the long-term -- for the next 10 years we have must have IP and we've seen the response in the market in a meaningful way by a number of different players on all platforms, interested in talking to us about the Olympics. But also the sports content that leads up to the Olympics, so we can take you from Michael Phelps every event right up to the Gold Medal and so there's real value in that, we will try to figure that out. On the -- when we look at how the Olympics is done in Europe and I was involved with the Olympics for 15 years in the U.S., NBC was quite effective in evolving Olympics from being just the free to air product to free and air -- to free to air and cable, including getting incremental fees and incremental -- and lifting up the whole bundle of the NBC channels and then moving it on to other platforms. If you look at Europe, U.S. is about 300 million -- 330 million people. All rights in Europe are over 700 million people, but in almost every one of those markets it sort of where the U.S. was in 1992, basically almost…

Andy Warren

Analyst

And just to elaborate the question about margin, from a purely financial perspective, while Olympics will dilute margins for Eurosport and DNI. It is absolutely going to be both cash flow OIBDA and FTV positive. So when we look at the financials of Olympics standalone, couldn't be more enthused about the deal we did, the rights we have and the impacts it’s going to have on over our portfolio.

Kannan Venkateshwar

Analyst

So just one follow-up question, I mean, you guys do have affiliate deals coming up much prior to the Olympics. So when should we start seeing some of these fee bumps as a result of the Olympics. I mean, is the 2016 kind of an event or is it further up?

David Zaslav

Analyst

The cycle for our affiliate deals outside the U.S. are shorter. They tend to be about three years versus in the U.S. where they are five to seven years. And you’ll see it in two forms. You'll see it in an overall bundling. I oversaw the sale of the Olympics when I was at NBC and we were able to get several hundred million dollars for each Olympics. We’re not saying that that's exactly what we’re going to be able to do in Europe but we do think that we’ll be able to get some -- get meaningful fees for, whether it's by in the way that we carve it up charging for over the air us carrying it on cable, putting it on other platforms. And so some of it will be in the form of affiliate revenue and some of it will be in the form of the rights fees where we'll be giving away some of those rights to carry the Olympics and the Olympic programming that leads up to it.

Andy Warren

Analyst

I think you'll see a similar kind of cadence that you saw from us in the U.S. As David said earlier, we committed four years ago as we're going into our renewal cycle and as we catch up unsure of wallet, catching up to share a viewership. Even you see an accretion on our U.S. distribution rates and you saw it went from 4% in ‘13 to 5% in ‘14 and 6% in ‘15 and you can see our growth accelerating in ‘16. As we said, it’s going to be a high single digit. I think the same kind of cadence will exist now for DNI. The combination of Eurosport, the combination of Olympics and that leverage we will have will allow us to continue to accrete on the affiliate line for the next several years at international.

David Zaslav

Analyst

The other element, that's helpful here is we moved into Eastern and Western Europe, and viewed it four or five years ago was the new emerging market. So we’ve gone local in those markets. We launched free-to-air channels at a very low cost where we use our content to reach some markets that have low pay-TV. And we've done some more local content in markets. And with the largest pay-TV play around the world but internationally -- but in Europe, we are now by far the largest pay-TV media company. And the scale that we've been able to get by the growth of our pay-TV together with free-to-air puts us in a much better position as we sit down with distributors. And what’s happened, there is a lot of other companies that are local because of the fact that most countries are either in recession or flat and it's been a long haul. A lot of the local companies have spent less on content, which has helped us gain share and a lot of the players from outside have taken cost out and done the opposite rather than go local and spend more on content reduced. And so our market share is up. So we think that Eurosport in the Olympics together with our market share being up and people spending more time with our channels gives us over the next several years some upside as we pushed for higher pricing and we intend to do that and we've started to.

Kannan Venkateshwar

Analyst

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Doug Mitchelson, UBS. Please proceed.

Doug Mitchelson

Analyst

Thanks so much. So David, with the total revenue now in good shape in the U.S., they are playing the model, of course, it’s on the advertising side, you're well aware of concerns that investors have for medias. I’m just curious how you feel non-fiction programming position looking forward versus the secular concerns of humans moving on Mars to general entertainment, OTT platforms like Netflix and then you also mentioned Discovery can close the gap further? And I'm thinking you're suggesting that OTT platforms is a place where you can get better pricing than you have in traditional deals and perhaps that suggest that you’ve got a good chart ingredient to Apple TV Phase1. But am I thinking about that comment right that Discovery can continue to close the gap on affiliate revenue in United States. Thanks.

David Zaslav

Analyst

Well, first, we pivoted about a year and half ago back, hard back to core brand. I think that's one of the reasons why a lot of our channels are much stronger. In July, they have Discovery be the number one cable channel in America for men. There have been several months in the last eight months where Discovery has been with the core structure that's very different from entertainment and sports channels to be the number one cable channel. And remember 80% of that content, we get to reuse around the world. We don't rent it for just the U.S. So it's a very effective model. We also have seen that the amount of time that our content is DVR, it’s gone up significantly, which is why much people want our content. And we’re excited about going full into TV Everywhere. We think we'll learn more about that, our deal with Verizon. In Europe, we’re talking to a lot of different players. So I think we’ve the value gap right now, we were able to reach it with Verizon. We think our content is more valuable. We could be on every SVOD platform, if you want it to. But since we own all of our content, we can also go directly to consumer, which is very possible. And we’re doing it throughout -- we're doing it in Europe now with sports across all of Europe. We’re doing it in with entertainment content and sports content in a number of countries in northern Europe and Italy and so we have all that flexibility. My only point on the upside is that in a declining market where people are choosing channels, the fact that we are 13% or 14 channels or 13% of viewership on cable and we’re only 5% of…

Doug Mitchelson

Analyst

I mean, that’s pretty interesting comment, David. If I could just follow-up on a comments around direct to consumer. Based on what you’ve seen in United States, I think you’ve talked about 1%, 1.5%, the core subscriber declines, obviously broadband, only homes are growing. Like what point do you think is optimal to consider launch share direct to consumer offering in United States. Is it now, is it three or is it five plus years?

David Zaslav

Analyst

We are looking at everything. I think that the marketplace is actually quite stable. I think there's a lot of noise in the marketplace but I was at NBC when viewership on the networks were declining, they are still declining. The fact that that subscribers are going down 1%, 1 maybe close to 1.5, that's not a good thing. The fact that we have higher fees locked in, we could be in a position where we could say now that even if the advertising market is weakened, it ends up being flat. We still have a mid-single growth U.S. business which is only half of our company. And most of -- a lot of our growth is coming from outside the U.S. where there is still double-digit or better growth and the kind of general growth dynamics that we saw in the U.S. historically. The idea of going directly to consumer something we have every opportunity to do. We own all of our content. We have super fan groups. So I think we are very well-positioned. We are looking at everything but I think the marketplace at least for the next three years is going to stay relatively stable and we will probably have more people buying our content. And we will be in a position if we want to, at any moment to start picking off some of those super fan groups. That’s what we do in Europe. Viewership on Eurosport is up, but the people that absolutely love tennis, or love cycling, or love Olympic sports or winter sports, they are signing up for Eurosport and what we are finding is in most cases, they are there watching more Eurosport. But when they're out of their home, they want to be able to watch the sports they like. So for the near-term at least, we are double dipping. And the idea of having more than 300,000 people, we have their credit cards, we have a direct relationship, we could talk to them about what they like about our app, what they don't. We are learning an awful lot. So that if we want to move into any other region, we can.

Doug Mitchelson

Analyst

Thank so much for all the help, David.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Ben Swinburne, Morgan Stanley. Please proceed.

Ben Swinburne

Analyst

Thank you. Good morning. I have a question for David and then follow-up for Andy. David, on the Olympics, can you just educate us a little bit on the sublicensing and any kind of regulations around keeping Olympic content on broadcast free-to-air? I know you’ve got a lot of markets where you free-to-air and a lot that you don't. And does the sort retrans kick in to this conversation, if you look at the duration of your Olympic deal with your free-to-air networks you started thinking about fighting for retrans fees in some of these markets? Any help would be great.

David Zaslav

Analyst

Sure. Thanks, Ben. It is complex and I think it's one of our advantages. When you are looking at Europe, you are looking at 55 countries in 20 languages and different regulations in each country. The good news for us is that’s what we do for a living. We are already in all 55 of those countries. We have teams on the ground. We have an infrastructure that converts into every language. And so for us, it is what we do for a living. On the Olympic side, there are specific restrictions that the IOC has on how much has to be free-to-air for summer and for winter. And in some countries, the requirements that are in addition to the IOC requirements on free-to-air. We own all the rights and so for instance in the U.K., if the BBC has the rights then we would sit down with them historically and we can talk about how much we want to give them. We would look in most cases to preserve all the rights other than free-to-air. So, we could sub distribute the free-to-air rights. In many markets, we have free-to-air channels that meet the requirements in Italy, in Germany, in Spain, in the U.K., in Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Finland. So there are a lot of markets where we have the free-to-air rights and in that case, we will have to decide are we better off selling it to someone in that market, the free-to-air only? Maybe we sell 60% of the rights, hold back 40% for cable and then hold back all the rights for phone and other devices to go directly. We have plenty of time to think about it. The good news is it's been just free-to-air. And so when you look back at the early 90s, whenever Saul came up with this idea of you can be your producer. You could watch this on broadcast, swimming, but you could see diving and you could see cycling and you could see judo on cable. We could bring that to Europe and I think it could be quite effective. And we have the ability to make those decisions and we have the ability in many cases in many of the big markets to go all-in ourselves if we want to. And so, I think that gives us very good optionality.

Ben Swinburne

Analyst

Great. And then Andy, just to clarify on the affiliate revenue growth in the U.S, so make sure I heard you right. So you are saying high single-digit in ’16. Is there any licensing revenue trends contemplated and are you excluding that? And then it sounded like that was the step-up, so it's sort of -- does it decelerate from there? I just want to make we heard you right because you gave a lot of good information.

Andy Warren

Analyst

Yeah. That's right, Ben. We are looking at high single-digit next year that does not contemplate any licensing revenues. It's really all about step up. It's all about price escalators and even better than that, we've assumed a slight acceleration of the decline in the sub base.

Ben Swinburne

Analyst

Okay. And then just on the rating agency comment, you said that they've changed the view of how they're looking at media company, so for us, equity investors. Can you just help us with -- what is your leverage today if you look at it as a rating agency and sort of where does it need to be, just so we can help triangulate all of the moving pieces here?

Andy Warren

Analyst

The agencies have definitely taken a little more conservative view on the sector in total. When they think about the ad trans and they think about what’s happening with subscriber trends, they’ve taken a little more conservative view. Today, we are at about 3.3 times leverage. They like us to be, kind of in the low three times. So there is definitely little bit of debt paydown here that we want to pursue in the next, kind of six months to get more aligned with where they need to be. The 3.3 by the way is, to your question, the agency define leverage.

Ben Swinburne

Analyst

Okay. Got it.

David Zaslav

Analyst

On the subscriber fees, we are not guiding for beyond next year but the high single doesn't reflect a one-time only in terms of where we are. That's not like we're getting a big step-up here in and then there is something coming after that. We are guiding. We are saying that we got -- we are able to get a step-up over the last four years in each deal with significant increases and you'll see that coming through in the years ahead. And we are telling you that next year will be high single.

Andy Warren

Analyst

Just to elaborate on that, all the deals that we’ve done including the Comcast deal certainly have year-over-year price escalators. So while there is nice step-up in year one beginning in January with Comcast, clearly all of the deals including Comcast have continued escalators beyond ’16.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Thank you. And the next question comes from the line of Rich Greenfield, BTIG.

Rich Greenfield

Analyst

Hi. Quick couple of questions. David, I think you mentioned that you didn't have kind of long tail commitments, but as I look at what you're doing now in Europe with the Olympics, it seems like you are actually getting into some of the sports kind of very long-term big number commitment despite the rapidly changing landscape. And then just when you look at your commentary about kind of the ability to hit subscription numbers. Clearly, we've gone from a video subscription base that’s been growing to a video subscription base that’s now declining, what gives you confidence that a one percentage decline or even a little bit larger than that is reasonable? Why can it be 4%, 5%? And the same thing with advertising because it seems like both advertising and subscription have gone from growth to kind of flat to negative? What gives you confidence that you can keep them in a moderation on the decline side or even towards flat? Thanks.

David Zaslav

Analyst

Okay. Why don’t I hit you some quick. First of all, on the advertising side, we saw flat to slightly negative in fourth and first. We are now seeing a rise in advertising. So, I can't opine on where the advertising market is going to go, but I can say that the pricing in scatter has been good and that the market has picked up. I don't know if it will continue to. On the affiliate side, we’ve been able to get a step-up. So over the last four years, when a new deal comes in, we get a step-up and then we get increases. And even assuming that there's some decline, we see some very good affiliate growth over the next several years and that were okay. And so the way that we look at it is I say, okay, if we got high single affiliate growth, even if there is some decline and if the advertising market is even week, then we still have a mid-single growth business here in the U.S. And having that with the cost basis that's very manageable and probably lower than most where we get to reuse our content around the world, we then use that mid single growth business to fuel 65% or 70% of the content we need around the world where we are seeing much higher growth. And most of those countries outside the U.S. are not experiencing what you're talking. They are getting advertising growth. They are getting affiliate growth, our market share is growing. And so I think, we’ve really stabilized the U.S. business. I feel good about it. If you put in a lot of the parade, we still have a nice mid-single growth business. We’re not assuming that there is a dramatic tilt and tip but…

Rich Greenfield

Analyst

Very helpful. Thank you for taking the time to answer that in full.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Michael Nathanson, MoffettNathanson. Please proceed.

Michael Nathanson

Analyst

Thanks. I’ll ask Andy quick one and David, another one. Andy, in terms of the rating agencies, I think some of us assume in the out years, your company, other companies borrow money to buy back stock. Do you know if that is a practice that you think more conservatively the agencies will fed upon in general, just basic to get leverage to buyback equity?

Andy Warren

Analyst

No. Michael, I think it will. It comes down to an overall growth level of leverage. I think how that capital is deployed is still a very much up to the management teams. And look, for us, when I think about why there is a more nominal constraint for us in ‘15, I see enormous amount of capital growth and accretion in ‘16, based on much higher cash flows and our ability than to put leverage on that growth. And so to me, I don't see a constraint medium or long term and I see us having full flexibility in how we allocate that capital. This is really more of a short-term nuance just based on where our leverage is today, relative to where we wanted to be at year end.

Michael Nathanson

Analyst

Okay. And David, something that you’ve not talked about regards to Comcast, is it just for advertising either in VOT or maybe two, otherwise you talk a bit about your view on when do you start monetizing some of those eyeballs that are awful in your feed? And when is that becoming a source of growth for you and for other people?

David Zaslav

Analyst

Look, I think that what Neil and Brian have built with their platform and X1 is quite compelling and the type of viewership they’re getting and the acceptance of the platform. So, I think the first step for us was to get on it. I think the addressability of advertising, we do have that with some others to the extent that we were able to get that and work with Comcast on that, that will be an upside for us.

Michael Nathanson

Analyst

Okay. Thanks.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, that was our last question. Thank you for participating in the Q2 2015 Discovery Communications, Inc. earnings conference call. This concludes the presentation. You may now disconnect. Have a good day.