More than 700 million moviegoers annually attend theatres that are currently under contract to ... Read more Any sense, early read into that -- into the ad buying environment you're getting from your customers?
Given the current market uncertainty, our Board felt that it was prudent to create a larger dividend payment cushion than we have historically held to ensure that we can continue to pay a dividend for the foreseeable future. In a recent survey, movie fans told us that while streaming is helping them get their movie fix at home from the moment, nothing can replace the communal out-of-home experience that the cinema provides.Before I turn it over to Ted, I wanted to give you an update on our search for a new CFO at this time. What benefits does National Cinemedia offer? Overall, this substantial and very difficult series of decisions has reduced our monthly core expense run rate, excluding our variable operating expenses, by nearly 50%.As I mentioned, we're off to a strong start in 2020 until mid-March of Q1 when the COVID-19 pandemic began to negatively impact theater attendance and then resulted in a complete shutdown of theaters. National CineMedia Inc ... we would expect our national CPMs to benefit from the lack of new sports and other fresh TV programming. Show more. Then we will open up the call to your questions. On April 30th, we amended the NCM LLC senior secured credit agreement dated June 20th, 2018, to allow for the waiver of the financial leverage covenants for the quarter ending June 25th, 2020, through the quarter ending July 1st, 2021, provided that NCM LLC maintains a minimum cash liquidity balance. Our team has really done a fantastic job of saving a lot of money.I'd like to close by once again thanking all my NCM teammates, our cinema partners, lenders and the other business partners for their hard work and support through this period of [Phonetic] time. As with almost all businesses, the COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted our industry in ways that were not even imaginable two short months ago. One person answered. Do you want to add anything to that, Cliff?Conditions for the covenant waiver for NCM LLC include maintaining a minimum liquidity of $55 million. Also, we continue to evaluate our remaining costs and will further adjust our decisions as conditions warrant. And we've had a very good success rate of maintaining those dollars. In many cases, they've been able to save the existing commitment and even bring in new revenue by moving local ad campaigns from on-screen to our digital platforms. I would like to remind our listeners that this conference call contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 as amended and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 as amended. We are confident that all the steps we've taken will allow us to deliver free cash flow growth and stock price appreciation once the crisis is passed.We have a question from Jim Goss at Barrington Research.
Anyone we've talked to, nobody dislikes better inventory. And then as always, we'll open up the line for your questions.Our consolidated cash and investment balances as of Q1 2020 were $215 million with $83 million of this balance at NCMI. Beginning in mid-March, we tightened the process for the payment of all major expenses which, among other things require CEO approval for all outgoing payments. And maybe competitively, you've talked about trying to take some share from broadcasting, which you've already -- always attempted to do. Please go ahead, sir.We are also actively exploring the potential impact on our Company of a variety of relief and stimulus measures under the US government CARES Act. I think a lot of brands and a lot of clients are trying to figure out where they're going to flow. Having said that, the NCM, Inc. Board will as always, continue to review our dividend policy each quarter to ensure that we deliver on our plans to distribute substantially all of NCM, Inc.'s free cash flow to public shareholders.Yeah. We are focusing on maintaining a strong liquidity position while actively pursuing an increased share of the video advertising market and preserving the valuable relationships we have with our exhibition and advertising partners, the lending financial institutions that support NCM and our stockholders.During this period of uncertainty, we will instead continue to provide important liquidity measures such as AR collections, cash and net debt balances and monthly operating and debt service cash usage rates that we are using to manage our business over the near-term during the crisis.Conditions following the waiver include NCM LLC being in compliance with both its net consolidated senior secured and total leverage covenants, NCM LLC's consolidated net senior secured leverage ratio must be below 5 times for the distribution of available cash to its owners.