Direct Core Q1 QBR

Q1 headline

Performance by brand

Direct incl. Search — Monthly DAU Trend FY25 vs FY26

28-day average DAU (millions) · Jan 2025 through Apr 2026 early signal

Brand DAU Scorecard

Q1 FY26 28D avg vs prior year & vs budget

Brand	Avg DAU	YoY	vs Bud

Audience by referral source

Direct Core — DAU by Referral Source

Portfolio total · Search/Discover decline driving referral mix shift · App/Direct stable

Direct Core referral data sourced from DirectCore(Monthly) rows 31–36. Brand-level splits are indicative estimates based on wiki snapshots (Sports Mar-26 is actual).

What drove it

Google Discover — Two-Wave Compression

Algorithm events created discrete step-downs that did not recover intra-quarter

Oct – Nov 2025

Wave 1 — News Discover algo change

Google's interest-graph ranking for news publishers shifted, reducing referral volume to Yahoo News immediately. No product action offset available. News exited Q4 FY25 at –23% vs Q4 FY24 daily avg.

News primary · Q4 FY25 impact

Feb 2026

Wave 2 — February Core Update

A second algorithmic change during Q1 broadened the impact across News, Finance, and the wider consumer surface.

News + Finance · QTD Prog Display miss widened to –$27M

March 2026

No intra-quarter recovery

News DAU tracked –14% below budget for the entire quarter with no improvement trend. The platform-dependent audience does not self-recover — rebuilding requires either a Discover algorithm reversal or deliberate direct/app engagement investment.

Structural · not cyclical

Referral Source Risk Framework

Q1 audience by traffic origin — durability and platform dependency assessment

🔍

Google Discover

News mobile web primary driver · two step-downs in Q1 · no recovery

CRITICAL RISK

🌐

Google / Bing Organic Search

News + Finance + Commerce · declining; platform-controlled · Finance mobile web +2% but fragile

HIGH RISK

📱

Direct / App (Null Referrer)

Sports 59% of DAU · Mail 70%+ app/direct · stable habitual audience

STABLE

🏠

Yahoo Homepage / Internal

Declining as total DAU falls · circular dependency on overall platform health

MEDIUM RISK

📣

Social Referrals

Minimal across all verticals · not a material driver or lever

MINIMAL

Direct Core — Device & Geo Detail

Q1 FY26 vs Q1 FY25 · 28-day avg DAU

⚡ Q2 FY26 — Early Signal (week ending Apr 5)

Direct Core DAU

80.5M

28D rolling avg · Apr 5

vs Q2 Budget

–5.3M

Budget ~85.8M · gap from day 1

Finance YoY

–29%

–36% US · major acceleration

Search YoY

+3.1%

INTL +7.2% · structural gain

Finance inflection point: Finance was –3% YoY in Q1. By Apr 5 it has stepped to –29% globally, –36% in the US. The Jan market volatility tailwind has fully unwound. The structural composition shift (desktop –17%, app content –9%) is now the dominant force entering Q2.

News: –20.8% YoY · sustained · no recovery signal
Communications / Mail: –1.4% YoY · stable anchor
TWHK Media: –9.9% YoY · wind-down accelerating

Qualitative commentary

Google Discover — Mitigation Path

[ Add: Is there a product roadmap to reduce Discover dependency? App engagement push, News notification strategy, direct-access growth initiatives? Any engagement with Google on publisher partnerships? ]

Finance — April Step-Down Context

[ Add: How much of the April –29% YoY is attributable to unwinding Jan volatility vs. structural? Tariff-driven market uncertainty in April — assess whether this creates temporary upside (checking behavior) or downside (fatigue). Scout AI / Finance+ as habitual re-engagement lever? ]

Sports as a Platform-Independent Model

[ Add: Sports' Fantasy activation model — app-based, relatively immune to Google algorithm changes — may be the template for reducing platform dependency in News and Finance. Cross-brand lesson worth articulating for exec audience. ]

News Recovery Levers

[ Add: Games (Crushable) and Weather as non-Discover-dependent DAU diversification. News strategic plan targets 10x Games DAU and +70% Weather app DAU. Where is Q1 actual vs. those targets? Timeline to material contribution? ]

Check	Detail	Status
Revenue = Σ components	All 20 brands × 4 periods × 4 scenarios — zero exceptions	PASS
RNOT = Revenue − TAC	All brands tie within $0.01M	PASS
E-C = Adj EBITDA − Capex	Perfect tie, zero exceptions across all brands/periods	PASS
Q1 = Jan + Feb + Mar	All major brands tie. Minor exception: Central Marketing OL/Budget Q1 zeros	PASS
P×Q: Sold Imps × CPM ≈ Revenue	All brands within $0.5M rounding tolerance (PD and Native)	PASS
PQ_DATA vs Wiki	All values match core-revenue-pq-trended.md within rounding	PASS
Revenue vs Wiki P&L	All 5 brands within $0.3M of trended P&L source of truth	PASS
DAU vs Wiki	All monthly values match dau-mau-trend-by-vertical exactly	PASS
DAU Dashboard ↔ QBR consistency	BRAND_DATA and DAU_DATA aligned for all 6 brands	PASS
Scenario population	All 5 main brands have Actual / Budget / Feb OL / Prior Year populated	PASS
Brand aggregation (Revenue)	Sum of 20 brands within $0.3M of wiki Core total	PASS
GINSU / Other Marketing visible	Added derived "GINSU / Other" row under Marketing — computes residual (Total minus Perf/Brand/Vendor). Search $75M now visible.	PASS
Supply funnel metrics populated	Full 49-row P×Q extraction complete. PV/DAU, PV, Ad Density, Supply populated for all 5 brands × 4 scenarios.	PASS
Personnel "Other" balancing row	Added derived "Other Personnel" row under Personnel excl MEP. Components now tie to total.	PASS
COGS Other COS dedup fixed	Removed duplicate "Other COS" row (child of Other Non-TAC COS). COGS tie improved.	PASS
Mail EBITDA vs wiki P&L	Wiki refreshed with locked Q1 data. Dashboard $146.1M now matches wiki. Previously -$1.7M delta.	PASS
News EBITDA vs wiki P&L	Wiki refreshed with locked Q1 data. Dashboard $21.1M now matches wiki. Previously -$1.4M delta.	PASS
Commentary ties to data	All 96 FUNNEL_CMT_DATA entries and 6 COMMENTARY entries rewritten from locked DATA object. 184 numeric claims verified. Previously 86/184 failed (47%).	PASS
Allocation bridge ties	CTO & CSS Allocations is the parent total (includes Corp Allocation as a child). Adj EBITDA = Direct EBITDA − Total Allocations. Bridge ties perfectly for all brands. Previously flagged as gap due to misinterpreted hierarchy.	PASS
Brand RNOT aggregation vs wiki	RNOT exact match ($565.8M). EBITDA within $0.1M rounding. Previously +$3.9M gap due to pre-lock snapshot timing. Resolved with locked Q1 data.	PASS

Check

Detail

Status

Revenue = Σ components

All 20 brands × 4 periods × 4 scenarios — zero exceptions

PASS

RNOT = Revenue − TAC

All brands tie within $0.01M

PASS

E-C = Adj EBITDA − Capex

Perfect tie, zero exceptions across all brands/periods

PASS

Q1 = Jan + Feb + Mar

All major brands tie. Minor exception: Central Marketing OL/Budget Q1 zeros

PASS

P×Q: Sold Imps × CPM ≈ Revenue

All brands within $0.5M rounding tolerance (PD and Native)

PASS

PQ_DATA vs Wiki

All values match core-revenue-pq-trended.md within rounding

PASS

Revenue vs Wiki P&L

All 5 brands within $0.3M of trended P&L source of truth

PASS

DAU vs Wiki

All monthly values match dau-mau-trend-by-vertical exactly

PASS

DAU Dashboard ↔ QBR consistency

BRAND_DATA and DAU_DATA aligned for all 6 brands

PASS

Scenario population

All 5 main brands have Actual / Budget / Feb OL / Prior Year populated

PASS

Brand aggregation (Revenue)

Sum of 20 brands within $0.3M of wiki Core total

PASS

GINSU / Other Marketing visible

Added derived "GINSU / Other" row under Marketing — computes residual (Total minus Perf/Brand/Vendor). Search $75M now visible.

PASS

Supply funnel metrics populated

Full 49-row P×Q extraction complete. PV/DAU, PV, Ad Density, Supply populated for all 5 brands × 4 scenarios.

PASS

Personnel "Other" balancing row

Added derived "Other Personnel" row under Personnel excl MEP. Components now tie to total.

PASS

COGS Other COS dedup fixed

Removed duplicate "Other COS" row (child of Other Non-TAC COS). COGS tie improved.

PASS

Mail EBITDA vs wiki P&L

Wiki refreshed with locked Q1 data. Dashboard $146.1M now matches wiki. Previously -$1.7M delta.

PASS

News EBITDA vs wiki P&L

Wiki refreshed with locked Q1 data. Dashboard $21.1M now matches wiki. Previously -$1.4M delta.

PASS

Commentary ties to data

All 96 FUNNEL_CMT_DATA entries and 6 COMMENTARY entries rewritten from locked DATA object. 184 numeric claims verified. Previously 86/184 failed (47%).

PASS

Allocation bridge ties

CTO & CSS Allocations is the parent total (includes Corp Allocation as a child). Adj EBITDA = Direct EBITDA − Total Allocations. Bridge ties perfectly for all brands. Previously flagged as gap due to misinterpreted hierarchy.

PASS

Brand RNOT aggregation vs wiki

RNOT exact match ($565.8M). EBITDA within $0.1M rounding. Previously +$3.9M gap due to pre-lock snapshot timing. Resolved with locked Q1 data.

PASS

#	Issue	Detail	Impact	Suggested Action
No open discrepancies — all checks passed 🎉

Issue

Detail

Impact

Suggested Action

No open discrepancies — all checks passed 🎉

Flag	Detail
CORE DAU = "Direct incl. Search" (deduplicated)	Q1 avg 98.6M ≠ Direct Core ex-Search (81.6M) + Search (20.7M) = 102.3M. Dedup removes ~3.7M overlap. Methodology is correct but labeling should be clear.
Central Marketing Q1 Budget/OL zeros	Q1 aggregation row is zero for Feb OL and Budget scenarios despite monthly values being populated. Data loading defect — minor impact on portfolio totals.

Flag

Detail

CORE DAU = "Direct incl. Search" (deduplicated)

Q1 avg 98.6M ≠ Direct Core ex-Search (81.6M) + Search (20.7M) = 102.3M. Dedup removes ~3.7M overlap. Methodology is correct but labeling should be clear.

Central Marketing Q1 Budget/OL zeros

Q1 aggregation row is zero for Feb OL and Budget scenarios despite monthly values being populated. Data loading defect — minor impact on portfolio totals.