earnings calls

Nexstar CEO Perry Sook tells analysts: “Our position on the auction hasn’t changed. We believe the best use of our spectrum would be on a recurring revenue/leasing model rather than selling.” In fact, he added, don’t be surprised if Nexstar racks up more station buys before year end.

CBS CEO Les Moonves tells analysts it will top $1 billion in retrans by 2017 and pass $2 billion by 2020. And if he remains bullish on broadcast, his enthusiasm bubbles over when it comes to digital.  “Broadband offerings will continue to drive growth.”

The TV station group says that a $2 billion evaluation doesn’t necessarily mean it intends to sell any. It’s also in discussions over channel sharing.

CEO David Smith: “By July, maybe August, we should know essentially what the future platform will look like, what business platforms we can roll off that will look like. It’s the first time in 20 years I’ve seen the industry line up to control its own destiny.”

The company’s execs tell analysts that it intends to strike the right balance between buying and borrowing. It’s also a strong supporter of the next-generation broadcast standard dubbed ATSC 3.0 and considers it an attractive revenue producing opportunity.

“We wouldn’t do a transaction just for scale’s sake,” CEO Perry Sook told analysts this morning.”But if the transaction was beneficial to Nexstar shareholders and a side-effect was more scale, we would be very interested in that.” Some small deals are already in the pipeline, he said. In addition, digital deals are an increasing focus as growth in digital revenue far outstrips that of broadcasting.

With 12 days of LIN and barely a full year of Young numbers included in 4Q and year-end results, Media General’s been tweaking historical numbers in an effort to give analysts an apples-to-apples comparison and enable them to build forecast models. For some analysts, including Wells Fargo’s Marci Ryvicker, the numbers aren’t adding up.

The disconnect between the group’s thriving digital business and its stock price peeves CEO David Smith. “If we were just to take out our Web business and compare that to websites that have $2 billion valuation, we’re fundamentally no different than Buzzfeed or Gawker or anything else. We produce news every day on the Internet and we’re not getting credit for it,” he told analysts today. Also on the call, CFO Chris Ripley opened the door to participating in the FCC’s spectrum auction.

Acknowledging that key details of the FCC’s upcoming spectrum auction still remain to “get fleshed out,” 21st Century Fox President Chase Carey says that, “we’ve got a lot of stations and a lot of spectrum. We’re certainly fully engaged.”

CEO Gracia Martore says that “with 43 stations covering 30% of the country … there’s quite a bit on the drawing board.” Dave Lougee, president of Gannett Broadcasting, adds that the company is looking at not only home-grown programming but also pursuing cooperative ventures with other broadcasters.

In today’s earnings call with analysts, CEO Peter Liguori says over the next three-to-five years, it intends to turn WGN America into a “robust” cable network that includes 52 weeks of original programming encompassing four one-hour episode series such as the current Salem and Manhattan. He adds that “in general, we see over the top as a tremendous opportunity.  We look forward to discussions with new entrants willing to pay fair market value for our content.”

“We could say fairly definitively, sometime in ’15, there will be some service from Showtime,” Moonves, president-CEO of CBS, said during the company’s earnings call with analysts.

21st Century Fox is considering new Web-based initiatives to attract younger viewers and consumers who don’t subscribe to traditional pay TV services. Emerging digital platforms are “the most exciting and important opportunity for future growth,” COO Chase Carey said yesterday on an earnings conference call with analysts.

Steve Burke, CEO, said today that he was taken aback by the announcements last week that HBO and CBS are offering online-only services that don’t require a cable subscription, he said in an investor call this morning. “I was surprised,” Burke said. “CBS I was surprised because they’ve been such a defender of retransmission consent and the traditional ecosystem and been so successful in the broadcast business. And HBO, because I think it’s going to be such a challenge for them to not cannibalize what is already a really, really good business.”

Fox Chief Operating Officer Chase Carey said on a conference call with analysts that “we have no plans to pursue any other third-party content company as an alternative to Time Warner.” Upon being questioned whether all small acquisitions were out of the question, CEO Rupert Murdoch, responded: “If there was something very unique but small, I don’t know, I wouldn’t say never. But we have no plans to go out on the acquisition trail.”

Now that its Allbritton purchase is done, Sinclair CEO David Smith says he’s eager to start taking on Fox News Channel and MSNBC with NewsChannel 8. And on another initiative near and dear to Sinclair — ATSC 3.0 — Smith said Sinclair is working on a plan to transition to the new standard that costs virtually nothing and is transparent to the public.

During quarterly earnings conference calls this morning, CEOs of both companies acknowledged it’s tough deciding which stations to divest to clear the way for their proposed merger. But decisions will have to come soon. “This will be a third-quarter kind of event for us,” said George Mahoney, president-CEO of Media General.

The group’s CEO, Steven Smith, says Journal’s appetite for acquisitions “has not dissipated at all” and it’s actively looking at stations other groups may have to sell to stay within the FCC’s new regulations.

Media General CEO George Mahoney told analysts today that “we’re pleased with the way the Aereo argument went. It’s terrific that the Justice Department came in on the side of broadcasters. We came away from the argument feeling better than we had and we went in feeling pretty good.”

The group owner, coming off its purchase of Young Broadcasting last year, expects more of the same this year, according to CEO George Mahoney. After a solid fourth quarter, the new Media General is projecting a strong start for 2014 and a strong year overall even though it faces increased costs in part as a result of the merger.

The group owner’s CEO tells analysts and investors that “if the No. 1 and No. 2 cable entities can merge … why can’t we own and sell inventory of two television stations in Abilene, Texas?” He also says his company has more M&A in the works.

In an upbeat call with analysts after announcing record revenues and profits, the CBS CEO talks about new content agreements, Aereo, the big NFL deal and launching The Big Bang Theory on another night this fall.

CEO Stephen Lacy tells analysts that it intends to “continue to grow its television footprint” and would not be put off by a negative Supreme Court decision in the Aereo case.

Rich Boehne, chairman-CEO-president: “The industry is far less consolidated than the headlines would suggest. There’ll be opportunities in the future. We have to be patient and focused. There’s not necessarily a benefit to winning an auction. We’ll pick our spots.” Scripps would like to add stations in its existing markets but is open to broadening its market reach with the right deal, he added.

Meredith CEO Stephen Lacy: “It’s a frothy [M&A] market,” Lacy said during this morning’s conference call with investors. “We would like to add to stations but we want to make sure it adds to shareholder value.”

During today’s earnings call, CEO Gracia Martore says the company “will pursue additional opportunities as they arise,” with the goal of being the “leading local media company in the U.S.”

In the first quarter, auto advertising was off 2% due to a 15% shortall in local dealer spending and that dragged total core revenue down 2.4%.”Our markets 50-100 were impacted the most by the decline in auto,” said TV EVP Scott Blumenthal. “It is no coincidence that many of those markets are facing ongoing economic challenges.”

The Nexstar CEO tells securities analysts to expect more buying and selling of TV stations over the next 18 months as the industry continues to consolidate. Allbritton and Local LLC have declared they are on the block with $3 billion in assets, but many more stations are quietly being shopped, he says. He envisions that six mega-groups will ultimately emerge, with Nexstar being one of them.

It isn’t the kind of thing a network exec wants to admit the week before broadcasters open the upfront ad sales season. But the News Corp COO, in a quarterly call with analysts, couldn’t avoid the fact that this season’s ratings declines show “it’s not been a great year for the broadcast business overall from a creative perspective.” Carey says it’s time for networks to “discard a few habits and rules and take some shots. Hopefully next week will be the beginning of that process.”

It has a cable and satellite deal up for renewal next year and hopes to to negotiate better terms. Gray President Bob Prather added that with affiliation contracts also up for renewal, he hopes the performance of the company’s TV stations would give it leverage to cut reverse comp deals with the networks that will allow its net retransmission consent revenues to grow over time. He also said the company is focused on paying down debt rather than adding to its station portfolio.

CEO Dunia Shive says that it has deals with six video providers coming up for renewal between July and the end of next February. She also says the company will expand its station holdings “as they make sense.”

News Corp. Chief Operating Officer Chase Carey insists he has no regrets about losing out on bidding for the Dodgers’ television rights. Rival Time Warner plunked down a reported $8 billion to broadcast the Los Angeles-based team’s games for 25 years starting in 2014, but Carey told analysts and investors on Wednesday that the deal was “too rich for our blood.”

David Amy, the group’s CFO, tells analysts that “our philosophy has been to look toward Big 4 stations and adding on where we have an existing property. We see quite a bit of benefit or opportunity there. We’ll continue to be aggressive if and when they [opportunities] come up.”

ABC has sold all of its commercial time for this month’s Academy Awards telecast. Walt Disney Co. CFO Jay Rasulo announced the milestone Tuesday during a conference call with Wall Street analysts. ABC’s ad sales team established the quickest pace for the Oscars ad sales in more than a decade.

The expected decrease compared to 2012 is due to lower political ad money, but CEO George Mahoney told analysts on Thursday that retrans money will be up 50% and Super Bowl advertising on its CBS affiliates will be a boost. In addition, Mahoney predicted that company’s digital business “will grow at a better than industry rate.”

For all of 4Q, Scripps is projecting that TV revenues will be up about 80% from a year ago. Excluding the four stations it acquired from McGraw-Hill not quite a year ago, that gain is put at 35%-40%. SVP-television Brian Lawlor told analysts “it’s still really early,” adding that a lot of advertisers had been sitting on the sidelines until Election Day passed. December will be the first pure month without a political influence. We will be up year-to-year in our spot business in December.”

SVP-CFO Jay Rasulo told analysts Thursday that “at the ABC Network, quarter-to-date scatter pricing is pacing in mid-teens above upfront levels. ESPN ad sales are pacing down modestly and ABC Family ad sales are pacing up high single digits. TV station ad sales are pacing up in single digits as well.”

“All of our categories — financial, restaurants, services, medical and media — are all up for December, which is encouraging since they had such displacement in October,” EVP-Television Scott Blumenthal told analysts today. “They have re-spent their dollars toward the end of the year, which gives us encouragement for the future.”

“Pretty incredible,” says CBS CEO Leslie Moonves of the million-dollar local spot in a third-quarter earnings call with analysts. And spots in the network broadcast of the big game have sold for more than $4 million, he says. CBS scatter is “very strong…accelerating as we speak,” he says, and retrans fees and reverse comp from affiliates are expected to continue to drive revenue growth in coming years.