earnings calls

EVP-CFO Lucy Rutishauser: “Compared to fourth quarter pro forma 2019, media revenues [are trending to be] up 7% to 9%. Excluding the impact of political ad revenue, fourth quarter core advertising is expected to be up a low double-digit percent versus Q4 of last year and up by a low single-digit percent versus Q4 of 2019.”

“In Q3 and in Q4, 14 of the top 25 categories are up,” said Nexstar President-COO Tom Carter. “Core television advertising, reflecting accelerated rebound demand for our premium local and national marketing solutions, led to a 13.3% year-over-year increase in revenue for this segment.”

Media revenues for NBCU were up 47.5% to $6.8 billion. Comcast CFO Mike Cavanagh noted that included approximately $1.8 billion attributed to the Tokyo Olympics. But excluding the Olympics, revenues were still up 9.2%, driven by higher distribution and advertising revenue.

Disney CFO Christine McCarthy: “Lower results from the ABC Television Network were only partially offset by growth at our owned television stations.” She also noted that advertising demand is shifting to nonlinear platforms. “We came out of a very strong upfront, but we had about 40% of the total upfront dollars into streaming and digital.”

Not surprisingly, due to the pending TV station group sale to Gray, questions from Wall Street analysts focused almost exclusively on the other business segments, but what little broadcasting news there was, was good. “We delivered 50% growth in non-political spot advertising revenues, driven by the professional services, automotive and gaming categories. We also benefited from continued growth in retransmission revenues,” Meredith President-CEO Tom Harty said.

“Not surprisingly, all categories were up over last year, including auto; services; retail; health care; home improvement; entertainment & gambling; insurance, banking & finance; packaged goods; and education,” EVP-CFO Victoria Harker said in the quarterly conference call. “Even categories that continued to face some pressure this quarter — including entertainment, travel & tourism — were up substantially compared to the second quarter of last year.”

E.W. Scripps said Friday that it topped its guidance with same-station advertising up 48% and services seeing a 35% year-to-year spending jump, leading all other categories.

Gray President-Co-CEO Pat LaPlatney: “The fact that other categories — especially legal, home improvement, financial, health and gambling — effectively backfilled a big hole left by the challenged auto advertisers, illustrates the underlying strength of our local television stations and the revenue diversification that has taken place over the last few years.”

Elaborating on second quarter advertising growth, CFO Naveen Chopra said ViacomCBS benefitted from “both the return of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament well as timing shifts for this year’s professional golf tournaments.”

Executive Chairman-CEO Lachlan Murdoch hailed an “absolutely historic” upfront for the Fox Network and its cable and digital siblings, and then focused on the ad rebound already underway. “All of our categories are up very strongly, with the exception of two, which are auto and telecom,” he noted, referring to the company’s local station business.

CFO Lucy Rutishauser: “Solid growth in our largest category, services, as well as strength in the sports betting and pharmaceutical categories offset much” of the auto decrease.

“Looking ahead, we’re encouraged by the overall acceleration in economic activity and the improved trajectory of ad spending across our footprint as market conditions continue to improve,” Chairman-CEO Perry Sook told analysts this morning.

NBCUniversal CEO Jeff Shell: “So, net-net, with all this bad luck, we’re going to be profitable on the Olympics, which we’re very happy with. We’re very happy with the product. If you watch every night, you’ll see that we use this as a firehose to promote everything else that we’re doing at the company.”

EVP-CFO Victoria Harker said: “We continue to see recovery in non-political advertising in many categories,” including auto services, health care, home improvement, entertainment, gambling, insurance, banking and finance, packaged goods and education.

Looking at the current quarter, CFO Naveen Chopra told analysts to expect streaming subscription revenue and streaming advertising revenue to accelerate from the first quarter.

“The Sunday NFC package has been the most watched NFL package for the past 16 years. Our NFC coverage is an important foundation for the Fox Network and strategically aligns with our local stations, where we own and operate the Fox affiliate in 14 of the 16 NFC markets,” Fox CEO Lachlan Murdoch told analysts.

EVP-CFO Lucy Rutishauser: “If you adjust for the impact of the Super Bowl moving this year to CBS from Fox last year, core advertising results for the first quarter would have been up low-single-digits compared to a year ago,” she told analysts. President-CEO Chris Ripley added: “We’ve been very, very happy with what we’ve seen on [2Q] core advertising. It’s been a great bounce back for the economy overall.”

“Looking ahead, we’re encouraged by the overall acceleration in economic activity and the improved trajectory of ad spending across our footprint as market conditions continue to improve,” CEO Perry Sook told analysts this morning.

CEO Tom Harty: “Assuming no changes in trajectory from COVID or other macro factors,” in the current quarter, he expects “non-political spot advertising revenues to be up in the 40% range.”

Comcast CFO Mike Cavanagh is bullish on 2Q prospects: “We expect healthy growth in distribution revenue to continue. We will have significantly more sporting events compared to last year, which should result in higher advertising revenue, but also a significant increase in sports-related programming and production costs.”

Brian Lawlor, president of local media, said: “Core advertising began to turn around almost immediately after Election Day. “In addition, sports betting has emerged as a material contributor to our travel and leisure category.”

Gray President-Co-CEO Pat LaPlatney told analysts today: “Our pacings, which are not necessarily a great predictor of future revenue, are still very encouraging because the gambling category is now pointing to a more than 250% increase over 2020.”

While Wednesday’s big presentation for investors was focused on Paramount+, Chairman Shari Redstone made it clear that ViacomCBS isn’t discounting its broadcast and cable businesses. “We’re about both linear and streaming,” she declared.

“Core broadcast and other advertising revenues were above our expectations for the quarter, as November improved to down low-single-digits percentages and December was relatively flat,” Sinclair President-CEO Chris Ripley told Wall Street analysts in the company’s quarterly conference call. He said that core improvement was likely due to pent-up demand after the record-breaking political season.

Fox Corp. Executive Chairman-CEO Lachlan Murdoch sees strong gains coming for sports betting — both as a business and as an ad category — and from the Tubi streaming business.

For the Local Media Group (TV and related) fiscal 2Q revenues were up 53% to $328.4 million. Political spot and digital revenues shot up 96% from the previous election cycle two years ago. Political spot hit $117.7 million, while non-political TV spot advertising was down 16% to $75.3 million.

Even without the expected boost from carrying Olympics coverage, Peacock remains well ahead of internal projections and hit 33 million signups this week. Fourth quarter broadcast revenues were down 12% to $2.78 billion, partially offset by double-digit increases in retransmission consent fees.

While the pandemic delivered a big hit to the company’s theme park and movie business in the just-reported quarter, TV broadcasting was a bright spot, with political advertising for the ABC O&Os and increased affiliate revenues (retrans and reverse comp) countering a drop in other advertising. CEO Bob Chapek was also bullish on his company’s streaming efforts.

Tegna has two stations in Atlanta and one in Macon, but until now Georgia hadn’t even been its hottest state for political spending. That has changed, with control of the Senate at stake. “We’re trying to size it now. We don’t have, frankly, a good answer, other than we know it will be very, very large,” Tegna CEO Dave Lougee said.

Local Media President Brian Lawlor: “The pool of political dollars nationwide is growing tremendously, and local broadcast is taking an even larger share.” The Scripps TV group benefitted from $96.4 million in political spending.

The rate of decline for total advertising dropped to only 6% in the third quarter from a 27% drop in the second quarter. This year’s upfront was unlike any other, but CEO Bob Bakish said he is satisfied with the outcome. “We were up low-single-digits on price, and we were very careful with volume, holding back inventory so that we had inventory to sell in scatter. And … the scatter market today is very robust.”

“We began the year predicting our political revenues would top our all-time record from 2018 of $234 million on a same-station basis,” CEO Hilton Howell said today. “Now, as we all sit and digest the ongoing election process, and the results of Tuesday’s election, it appears that our political revenues will significantly exceed $380 million.”

On the heels of reporting record results for the third quarter, fueled by even better-than-expected political ad sales, Nexstar Media Group Chairman-CEO Perry Sook told Wall Street analysts this morning […]

The company is awaiting still more political advertising revenue from at least one Senate runoff election in Georgia. It also predicts digital ad revenues will exceed print revenues for its National Media Group for the first time ever.

Sinclair isn’t giving formal guidance for 2021 due to uncertainty about when COVID will cease to be a factor, but did provide some information on what to expect in the current quarter, as record-breaking political ad revenues move to the rear-view mirror. “Every month has picked up, which is encouraging,” said Robert Weisbord, president of local news and marketing services.

Television (Fox Network, O&Os and Tubi streaming) reported revenues down $6 million to $1.35 billion in the quarter ending in September. Affiliate revenues (retrans and payments from affiliate stations) rose 23% to $560 million, while advertising declined 15% to $670 million. However, that began to change toward the end of the quarter and CFO Steve Tomsic said “the strong advertising momentum at [Fox] News, our local television stations and Tubi have all carried forward into the first month of this current quarter.”

Broadcast television revenue increased 8.3%, driven by 66% growth in content licensing sales and continued growth in retransmission consent fees, partially offset by a decline in advertising. In addition, new streamer Peacock has been running well ahead of its targets, surpassing 22 million users during the third quarter.

In the company’s quarterly Q&A session with Wall Street analysts, Local Media Group President Patrick McCreery noted sequential month-over-month improvement throughout the pandemic. April TV ad revenues fell 49%, May was down 43% and June improved to a decline of 28%. Moving into the current quarter, July was down 25%.

In its second quarter earnings call with analysts, CEO Dave Lougee said that looking forward, the company will “benefit from a large number of unusual events that we would not normally see in the back half of the year that are rescheduled from the second quarter.”

Each month of the second quarter was sequentially better, so Local Media President Brian Lawler is optimistic: “We do believe, based on everything we’re seeing now, that August will be better than July, and September will be better than August in terms of year-to-year improvement, in terms of dollar growth,” he said.