E.W. Scripps

E.W. Scripps President and CEO Adam Symson says the company will be very flexible about work from home hybridity after the pandemic abates, seeing multiple advantages to the new way of working on both the station and corporate levels. Read part one here.

E.W. Scripps President and CEO Adam Symson weighs in on the company’s streaming and diginet strategies, ad tech’s performance, Newsy’s overhaul and the ever-present threat of ransomware attacks against broadcasters in part one of a two-part exclusive interview.

The veteran Cox executive will oversee the Local Media division’s digital thought leadership, vision, strategy, development and execution of non-linear opportunities for Scripps’ 61 television stations in 41 markets.

“In addition to a strong ad market, our core revenue was being bolstered by our success capturing new-to-TV advertisers,” Local Media President Brian Lawlor told analysts this morning. “In this quarter we again had over 1,000 new-to-TV businesses advertising, who have been developed by our local sellers over the pandemic. Across our footprint, we are focused on maintaining a strong and consistent effort to bring new business to local television.”

The drop to $331 is pegged to lower political ad revenue, that more than offset an 18% increase in core advertising to $167 million.

Scripps tries to redefine a traditional newsroom role by getting its stations’ anchors back in the field — not just for sweeps specials or big events, but for enterprise beat reporting.

TVNewsCheck‘s Michael Depp talks with Eric Ludgood, head of E.W. Scripps-owned Newsy, which saw a major overhaul and expansion of its programming this week as it now reaches 90% of U.S. television homes with a significant OTA expansion.

The Scripps news network beefs up with 35 hires spread across Atlanta; Chicago; Dallas; Denver; Los Angeles; Missoula, Montana; Nashville, Tennessee; New York, Phoenix, Seattle, Tampa, Florida; Tulsa, Oklahoma; and Washington, D.C.

The Scripps-owned news network’s programming expands to 17 hours of daily news with 14 bureaus covering the country.

Representatives from NBCUniversal Local, E.W. Scripps and Pearl TV claim that NextGen TV’s ability to deliver targeted ads to connected TVs is the most promising and immediate among the technology’s potential revenue streams, and a proliferation of NextGen-ready sets is bringing monetization closer.

While already available on nearly every major over-the-top and connected TV platform, Newsy also will launch over the air in roughly 90% of U.S. television homes — and in all major markets — on Oct. 1. It will be carried primarily over Scripps-owned broadcast stations’ spectrum as well as that of partner broadcasters.

Ethan Nelson has been appointed head of program development, and Christina Hartman has been appointed head of news standards, effective immediately.

Executives from Tegna, E.W. Scripps, Hearst and Gray told a TVNewsCheck webinar last week that the cloud’s impact on master control operations is still years off, with those who have adopted hubbing still depending on traditional equipment.

Scripps moves him from its KXXV-KEHD duopoly in Waco, Texas, to oversee its CBS affiliate in Virginia.

The increase to $325 million outperformed expectations. It was driven by higher core advertising and retrans revenue.

The longtime CNN executive will be responsible for the overall leadership, editorial identity and programming for the nascent national news organization.

The emerging tools require much data harnessing, training and software improvements, among other issues, but the upside is enormous, industry leaders said at a TVNewsCheck webinar last week.

Jonathan Katz, who launched Bounce TV, rebooted Court TV and sold his digital over-the-air startup to E.W. Scripps for $302 million in 2017, has resigned from Scripps to start a new company.

The two newest Scripps Networks unveil their schedules with Defy targeting men 25-54 and TrueReal focusing on women 25-54. Both will be available to 92% of the United States.

Executives from the E.W. Scripps Co., Dentsu, WABC New York and WideOrbit will look at how leading media buying agencies are targeting beyond traditional demographics in a TVNewsCheck Working Lunch Webinar on July 28. Register here.

Executives from E.W. Scripps, Cox Media Group, CBC and Disney told attendees of a TVNewsCheck virtual conference that advertisers are warming to the fact that neither a linear- nor digital-only approach can be as effective as a multiplatform buy. Above, Maggie Drake, Scripps senior director, OTT revenue, said she is starting to see advertisers gravitate toward digital and away from linear ads.

Kate O’Brian, E.W. Scripps’ newly-installed head of news for its national television networks, is overseeing Newsy’s HQ move to Atlanta and the addition of more than 55 new positions and nine new bureaus on the network’s trajectory to OTA distribution and a 24/7 news schedule. Note: This story is available to TVNewsCheck Premium members only. If you would like to upgrade your free TVNewsCheck membership to Premium now, you can visit your Member Home Page, available when you log in at the very top right corner of the site or in the Stay Connected Box that appears in the right column of virtually every page on the site. If you don’t see Member Home, you will need to click Log In or Subscribe.

E.W. Scripps is moving from new-school distribution to old-school to expand the audience for its Newsy channel: On Oct. 1, the news offering that’s available today via OTT apps will go on the air in Scripps’ 41 broadcast markets, reaching some 80% of U.S. TV households. in a Zoom video interview, Scripps President-CEO Adam Symson explained what the Cincinnati company hopes to get out of OTA — and offered a few suggestions about how the industry could upgrade one of its oldest mediums.

The new arrangement adds 10 Scripps stations to Allen Media Group’s free streaming platform.

Kerry Oslund, VP of strategy and business development for E.W. Scripps, has been spearheading testing of automotive applications of ATSC 3.0 at the Motown 3.0 Test Track in the Motor City. He’s learning a lot about data transfer to vehicles, receivability and where single and multifrequency networks will be playing a role. Note: This story is available to TVNewsCheck Premium members only. If you would like to upgrade your free TVNewsCheck membership to Premium now, you can visit your Member Home Page, available when you log in at the very top right corner of the site or in the Stay Connected Box that appears in the right column of virtually every page on the site. If you don’t see Member Home, you will need to click Log In or Subscribe.

Scripps’ Octane OTT sales team and Amazon Advertising will work together to sell Amazon OTT inventory across IMDb TV, livestreaming service Twitch, top-tier network and broadcaster apps and Amazon’s News apps to local businesses.

It predicts station revenue for the second quarter “be up in the high-teens percent range. That includes core ad revenue up in the mid-40% range,” CFO Jason Combs told analysts. And for the company’s networks division — the former Ion operation, Katz Networks and Newsy — revenues are expected to be up about 20%.

The drop to $313 million reflected the sale of WPIX New York and lower core revenue due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

A panel at TVNewsCheck’s June 9 virtual conference, Streaming News 2021, will detail the most effective ways of monetizing streaming news content with executives from Disney Advertising Sales, The E.W. Scripps Co., Cox Media Group and CBC. Register here.

The technology behind the distribution of television has evolved with time, from the antenna to cable to satellite, and most recently to streaming. Now, according to E.W. Scripps Chief Executive Officer Adam Symson, the time has arrived for the next frontier of TV viewing: The antenna.

A TVNewsCheck virtual conference on June 9 will explore strategies for building audiences and monetizing on streaming services featuring executives from CBS News Digital, Fox Owned Stations, Gray Television, E.W. Scripps, CBC, Cox Media Group, Disney/ABC and KSL Salt Lake City. Register here.

Sports wagering has invigorated station groups’ core revenue, climbing to the second-biggest ad sales category for many of them and angling to knock automotive from its top spot in the next few years. Note: This story is available to TVNewsCheck Premium members only. If you would like to upgrade your free TVNewsCheck membership to Premium now, you can visit your Member Home Page, available when you log in at the very top right corner of the site or in the Stay Connected Box that appears in the right column of virtually every page on the site. If you don’t see Member Home, you will need to click Log In or Subscribe.

Beginning Oct. 1, Newsy will be available over the air in at least 80% of U.S. television homes — and in all major markets — carried primarily by Scripps-owned Ion stations and select Scripps stations plus those of other station groups.

E.W. Scripps draws more than 70% of its national spot revenue from per-performance transactions, one of a handful of station groups that have moved to that model. In a TVNewsCheck webinar last week, executives from Scripps, MagnaGlobal, ProVantageX and Horizon agreed that per-performance campaigns are beneficial for all parties involved.

Symson is an investigative journalist turned digital content strategist who took over as CEO in 2017. Since then, he’s aggressively expanded Scripps’ TV station holdings, growing from just nine four years ago to 61 outlets in 41 markets. Buying more broadcast TV stations — as Scripps did in January with its $2.65 billion acquisition of Ion Media — would seem counter to a modernization push. But Symson said the view of local broadcast stations being outmoded by internet-delivered signals is unsophisticated.