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Nexstar Media Group, Inc. (NXST)

Q4 2015 Earnings Call· Thu, Feb 25, 2016

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day, everyone, and welcome to Nexstar Broadcasting Group's 2015 Fourth Quarter Conference Call. Today's call is being recorded. All statements and comments made by management during this conference call other than statements of historical fact may be deemed forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are based on our current expectations and projections about future events. Forward-looking statements include information proceeded by, followed by or that includes the words guidance, beliefs, expects, anticipates, could or similar expressions. For these statements, Nexstar claims the protection of the Safe Harbor for forward-looking statements contained in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. The forward-looking statements contained in this communication concerning among other things, the ultimate outcome and benefits of any possible transaction between Nexstar and Media General and timing thereof and future financial performance including changes in net revenue, cash flow and operating expenses involve risk and uncertainties and are subject to change based on various important factors, including the timing to consummate the proposed transaction, the risks that are conditioned to closing of the proposed transaction may not be satisfied, and the transaction may not close. The risk that are regulatory approval that may be required for the proposed transaction if delayed, is not obtained or is obtained subject to conditions that are not anticipated, the impact of changes in national and regional economies, the ability to service and refinance our outstanding debt, successful integration of Media General, including achievement of synergies and cost reductions, pricing fluctuations in local and national advertising, future regulatory actions and conditions in television stations operating areas, competition from others in the broadcast television market, volatility and programming cost, the effect of governmental regulation of broadcasting, industry consolidation, technological developments and major world news events. Unless required by law, Nexstar undertakes no obligation to update or…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. We'll go first to James Dix with Wedbush Securities.

James G. Dix - Wedbush Securities, Inc.

Analyst

Hey. Good morning, gentlemen. Just a couple of questions. First, any outlook for the first quarter in terms of core ad pacings, any signs of slowdown, or regional softness or strength that you'd like to call out? And then one more on advertising, do you happen to have a pro forma political number for the merged company that we could look back to in the prior presidential cycles of 2012-2013, something comparable to what you would be looking at and I guess in your 2016-2017 guidance? And then I have one follow up on the free cash flow outlook. Tom Carter - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: On the political number, I'll take that. I think we guided people on the Nexstar-only side to something north of $100 million with the recently announced acquisition. I think you could probably expect – I'll let Media General speak for themselves, but obviously, they have significantly more presence in Ohio and Florida in particular that's going to allow them a significantly greater amount of political advertising. I'll have to get with them and come up with any kind of a pro forma number from that perspective. And then, I would say, with regard to core advertising in the first quarter, I think we expect it to be up somewhere between 0% and 1% as we're moving into some political season as well. But I think that's consistent with where we've been over the course of the last several quarters.

James G. Dix - Wedbush Securities, Inc.

Analyst

Okay. Great. And just speaking for your own political, do you have any sense as to how the crowd out worked back in 2012, at least for your legacy stations? How we should be thinking about that? I know it gets a little noisy. Perry Sook - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: James, most of the political that we've seen in first quarter came into our Iowa stations and our Las Vegas stations. So we didn't own them back then, so we don't have a good history. I can tell you that the general managers of each of those stations, and I was with them yesterday in Washington D.C., did a tremendous job of following our policies and practices, and we feel in both Las Vegas and in Iowa, they maximized the opportunity. So I would say that the crowd-out is, these are primaries and caucuses, and it's not as severe as it will be in the fourth quarter. And I think we were wall-to-wall, but for a very short period of time, which usually you can work with advertisers to make everybody happy.

James G. Dix - Wedbush Securities, Inc.

Analyst

Okay. Great. And then just my follow-up, are there any main puts and takes to your free cash flow per share outlook? Obviously, you're going to have the financing impact on your costs, which I know you kind of have to sidestep given what you talked about. But any other important ones that you'd be thinking about kind of as you look at 2016-2017 in terms of your new outlook on free cash flow per share? Thanks. Tom Carter - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Well, I would say, probably the biggest one that has historically been a variable, and I think we're doing a good job of wrestling that to the ground is our cash tax expense and NOL availabilities. We've done a lot of work on that over the last four or five weeks and feel very good about that. At the federal level, we're still working on the state level, but quite honestly, the state level is probably, I don't know, 10% or 15% of total cash taxes. So we've got the 85% to 90% solution baked, and the 10% to 15% is still kind of TBD. Our free cash flow does not assume retaining any state NOLs. So any state NOLs that are retained at Media General would be a upside to that. I think you hit on one point. We don't have a final financing structure in place. We continue to use the indicative rates that (28:58) and the commitment papers that were filed at closing, which basically indicates a weighted average cost of debt of approximately 6% rather than the 5% we have right now. Keep in mind that we expect to keep both of the Nexstar bonds in place, and you can kind of do regression analysis off of that. On $4.5 billion of debt, every 100-basis-point move in the weighted average cost of debt is $45 million of interest expense. On an after-tax basis, that's about $30 million. So that's probably between $0.50 and $0.60 a share. So that's kind of – we haven't updated our – better put, the free cash flow guidance for 2016-2017 on a combined basis continues to use the indicative rates in the term sheets, and any variation that you want to do, you're happy to do on your own based on that kind of regression analysis.

James G. Dix - Wedbush Securities, Inc.

Analyst

Great. That's very helpful. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

We'll go next to Aaron Watts with Deutsche Bank.

Aaron L. Watts - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst

Hey, guys. Thanks for taking the question. One follow-up on core advertising. Are you guys – how do you think about core advertising having hovered kind of in the low single-digits and around flat? It sounds like, for the next quarter as well. Is there anything that you think is within your capabilities to drive that higher, is that an industry issue? What are you seeing from advertisers in terms of your ability to get another dollar out of them and into your pockets? Perry Sook - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: I think that we have said that, in our view, advertising kind of tracks GDP growth or contraction, and I think this is a pretty good proxy for that. I do – will tell you, because I listened to advertisers a week ago, and there are plenty of people distracted by the whole presidential nomination. They're not wanting to make any big bets until they have kind of some sense as to which way the wind's blowing, not just in advertising, but in investments in their business and things like that. So that is a bit of a distraction perhaps. But again, we kind of advertise that we believe that the core television ad spend will be a low single-digit grower, and it is a cyclical business. So depending, we'll either be at the high end of the range, low end of the range, depending on the quarter, the month and the year. But the double-digit growth will come from distribution, come from political, every even year over every (31:35) year, and obviously from distribution, and that's the model we built. So the results are in line with our expectations, and I think that our focus is on developing additional new business opportunities for advertisers, both digitally and locally that we can capture a larger share of wallet rather than a larger share of a budget, and then everybody wins in that. So I don't – it's not alarming to me at all. I mean, I think, it's within the bandwidth that we forecast all the time. And so we're often pleased but never satisfied. We're not satisfied with 1% growth, but I will tell you, that's in and around the area that we budgeted for 2016.

Aaron L. Watts - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst

Okay. No, that's helpful. And maybe that's a good segue to a question I've been asking some of your peers. I guess, as you think about the environment right now, financial markets have been choppy, some concerns around the economy. How do you think about those various revenue streams you just mentioned, and how they contribute to your revenue mix today versus the last recession, how Nexstar was positioned? And then maybe an angle for Tom, too, I think you said you're coming out – you'll come out of the transaction close at around 5.5 times leverage. How do you feel about that and your comfort level at that leverage level if the economy was to take a turn for the worse? Tom Carter - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Well, first of all, with regard to the first question, I think we've been pretty clear, in 2007, which is arguably the last year before the previous – the recession of 2008 and 2009. Retrans revenue approximated 5% of our total revenues. This year, it'll approximate somewhere in the mid-30%, and those are contractual revenues. As I mentioned just a moment ago, on a same-station basis in the fourth quarter, those grew at a 40% rate over 2015 over 2014. We expect the same kind of growth on a dollar basis in 2016; obviously, you're growing off of a higher base, so the percentage levels aren't going to be as great. But that contractual revenue significantly changes the business profile of Nexstar and all broadcasters for that matter, into the fact that we have a multi-revenue platform now, whereas in 2007, retrans was a small portion, digital was in the early stages of its development and not a meaningful contributor to revenue. And yes, we do have expenses…

Aaron L. Watts - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst

Helpful, Tom. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

We'll go next to Marci Ryvicker with Wells Fargo.

Marci L. Ryvicker - Wells Fargo Securities LLC

Analyst

Hi. Apologies if I missed this. Can you dig in a little deeper on, like, auto and the markets where you may be more exposed to oil and talk about how those two things are trending? Perry Sook - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Sure. Auto in the fourth quarter was basically flat with the fourth quarter 2014. Fast foods, second largest category, basically flat. Retail was, again, basically flat. Furniture and medical healthcare were both up double-digits for us. Up single-digits were attorneys and paying (36:57) and down double-digits were insurance, cable, other media and trade schools of our top 10 categories. Tom Carter - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: I would say, just to focus on cable and telecom for a second, when we get into any kind of disputes with any MVPDs, one of their tactics obviously is to pull their advertising. Perry Sook - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: And as it relates to markets and this was asked earlier and I didn't address it, but we recently closed on the North Dakota stations, and one part of that DMA and this market is right in the middle of the Shell gas operation there. And it is one of the best performing stations in terms of growth over the prior year. The pullback has caused drilling and exploration to slowdown, but any well that was drilled is still pumping. So there's still aren't enough schools, and restaurants, and hotel rooms to handle what's there now, they're basically trying to catch up with what they need to serve the markets over there. And the same with Midland-Odessa, our stations there are performing just great. So we've not seen any downdraft, and we've looked around the company regionally, and we don't see any material…

Marci L. Ryvicker - Wells Fargo Securities LLC

Analyst

Related to the deal you mentioned closing in late Q3 or late Q4, so I assume you're not going to submit a waiver to ask to close during the auction. I don't know if that's your intention. Perry Sook - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: I don't know that I would assume that. Vince and I and our camp (40:35) followers of attorneys and advisors visited all the FCC commissioners last week, as well as the media bureau, and the FCC is not in a position to grant a waiver to close while the auction is pending now, but the body language was, let's talk about that when that becomes little closer to reality. So they didn't absolutely close the door, but I don't want to represent anything, but they didn't say they would either. I've got a draft of the S-4 running around here. And so we, now, with fresh numbers, will develop our proxy and all of that. We have to go through the shareholder vote. All of our regulatory filings have been made at this point. We are about to begin marketing the divestiture markets, and that will be a very robust process just based on the inbound calls and emails that I've had, and continued to get as late as yesterday. So there's a lot – and then those stations have to go through their FCC approval process. So I don't want to predict the future, but I think that everything else is done, and we're just waiting for the auction to close. I think we'll have a conversation with the FCC as to what is in (41:45)?

Marci L. Ryvicker - Wells Fargo Securities LLC

Analyst

Okay. And then, my last question, the NBC affiliation with WHAG, any comment you have there. Perry Sook - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Only in that it's – this has been something that was done as part of our NBC renewal back in 2014. It's NBC's desire to have one affiliation per market. They have O&O in Washington. So we've been – the only reason we came out now is because we're marketing our charter advertising packages to advertisers under the new format. We'll be expanding our local news to 50 hours a week, and we'll be doing geo-specific newscast for West Virginia, the I-270 Corridor in Northern Virginia. And marketing goes with advertiser specifics for those content verticals. So we're moving into that. We're making little bit more noise about it, now, as we are closer to launch on July 1. What I will tell you is that, if you look at the amount of money that we make from NBC programming, just as a case in point, we made more money with our early morning newscast and our cut-ins in The Today Show than we did in primetime, obviously because there is another (43:03) provider in the marketplace. So this station's legacy has always been local news, and we will be adding local news and geographic-specific local news there. And again, all of this is baked into the guidance and what we expect to happen not only in the back half of this year but in 2017 and beyond. Tom Carter - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: And I think the key is, it's not as though we lost the affiliation to another station, this affiliation was just – it's a different duck and that it had two affiliates, NBC affiliates and one DMA, and obviously we knew 18 months ago that this was going to happen and have been preparing for it accordingly. Perry Sook - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: And on the – even though it's a station in the Washington D.C. (43:42) DMA, it punches way below that market rank weight in terms of its revenue and cash flow contribution. So the change in the aggregate is not material, but we've been quiet without NBC. We'll do just fine since the station's calling card – revenue generating capacity has always been around these local (44:00) news, so we're going to put more money into that.

Marci L. Ryvicker - Wells Fargo Securities LLC

Analyst

Got it. Thank you both so much.

Operator

Operator

We'll go next to Kyle Evans with Stephens.

Kyle Evans - Stephens, Inc.

Analyst

Thanks. Tom, you clarified the MEG NOLs in an earlier question. Can you give us a look into the Nexstar cash tax assumptions as it relates to the free cash flow guidance? Tom Carter - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Sure. Not exactly sure how you want me to answer that, but we have sufficient NOLs of a magnitude, in that our 2016 cash taxes are – we are cash tax payer in 2016. I would tell you that most of that is alternative minimum tax and state taxes. I want to say our effective tax rate in 2016 is in the mid-teens. It goes up on a Nexstar standalone basis not insubstantially in 2017 to something in below 30%s (45:08).

Kyle Evans - Stephens, Inc.

Analyst

Got you. Tom Carter - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: And then most of the Nexstar entity NOLs, that some do exist after 2017, but it's not a meaningful amount.

Kyle Evans - Stephens, Inc.

Analyst

Okay. One quick follow up, on digital in the third quarter, you reported some weakness in the programmatic piece of that business. Has that cleared up? How did Yashi perform in fourth quarter, and could you give us, please, kind of an outlook for digital 2016-2017? Thanks. Perry Sook - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Sure. The programmatic business continues to be kind of choppy. We had a record month in the month of December for us, and in a fourth quarter that was the mother of all quarters. So it performed very well for us. But it is – I mean, they book revenue by the day there. This is a very primitive hand-to-hand combat kind of a business. But their revenue in the fourth quarter was as advertised. And as I said, the all-time record month was December for the company. I think we've said on legacy Nexstar, the $89 million of revenue we did this year approximates a $100 million run rate. And I would tell that LAKANA and Yashi taking together about a third of that – LAKANA and Yashi are each a third of that, and then, our local ad site revenue is the other third, and that's kind of how it breaks down. But we see the double-digit growth in all three of those channels continuing uninterrupted through 2016. Tom Carter - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: I would also just point one thing out. Yashi does have some seasonality to their business and that the fourth quarter is the heavy advertising around the holidays. So their revenue pattern is more closely tied to that which we see in broadcasting and the Q1 is a right quarter for them of the four quarters. So we're anticipating good results out of Yashi. LAKANA is very strong, and the station websites continue to be strong going forward. And we continue to reiterate our overall low teens kind of guidance for digital revenue growth.

Kyle Evans - Stephens, Inc.

Analyst

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

We'll go next to John Janedis with Jefferies.

John Janedis - Jefferies LLC

Analyst

Hi. Thanks. Can you talk about the potential non-retrans related revenue synergy, related to the deal? I know there's been a focus on the corporate, the retrans and cost, but I was wondering to what extent either digital or scale in the footprint could be revenue contributors. Tom Carter - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Well, definitely, I would say, there are those potentials. It's very difficult to quantify what we have. The way we define synergies, quite honestly, is contractual revenue and identifiable cost takeouts and expense reductions. Are there potential revenue synergies? Yes, both regionally as well as nationally. From a digital perspective, we do have companies that do essentially the same thing. So, there will be some potential there. But in terms of overall revenue synergies, all of the overlapped markets and any revenue synergies from duopoly creations, there won't be any because we're trying to make it as easy for a regulatory approval as possible. So are there revenue synergies? Yes. Is it too early to quantify? Yes.

John Janedis - Jefferies LLC

Analyst

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

We'll go next to Jim Goss with Barrington Research.

James Charles Goss - Barrington Research Associates, Inc.

Analyst

Thanks. I have a couple here. One is, if Trump wins the nomination, will it negatively impact your political revenues? You've shown a propensity to not spend much money now, but maybe that changes in a general election. Perry Sook - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Hard to predict. At this point, we're exceeding our political revenue budget for the first quarter. And that's because of candidate and advocacy advertising. So I think money will be spent. He hasn't spent as much. He has spent some money, but I think everyone else is spending to compete, and there's this whole democratic race that's going on that is we're generating a fair amount of revenue from as well. So I don't think that there will be a negative effect because once it becomes a nationwide campaign post convention, money will need to be spent to win. So we don't see that as any kind of a negative potential as in sub-political number. We're still very confident with our (50:04).

James Charles Goss - Barrington Research Associates, Inc.

Analyst

Okay. Another one, a separate issue, iHeart, on its call, just quoted some stats indicating that it's TV reach was now about 85% and 73% among millennials. I'm wondering your reaction to that. And do you see any more effective pushback by MVPDs on retrans demands given this sort of trend, as well as consolidation within the MVPD area, specifically Charter, Time Warner Cable coming together? Perry Sook - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Sure. I would say in terms of broadcast television, we've always used kind of an 85% penetration estimate. So that number is not new to use. In fact that millennials are less, I don't think that's new to anybody either. They either can't afford cable or are out and about rather than watching TV. And I think those things change generationally as people get older and they use media for different things. So I don't think you can draw any inferences from that. I look at the alternative. So I'm not sure that there's anything there to see. And I forget the second part of your question, Jim.

James Charles Goss - Barrington Research Associates, Inc.

Analyst

I was just thinking if there's any further consolidation in the cable space, specifically Time Warner Cable and Charter coming together, maybe that's a non-event. Time Warner Cable has been striking deals right along the way, moving up to a closing, but do you think that has any impact on how high retrans can go at some stage? Perry Sook - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: One of our business tenets is that continued consolidation of the MVPD universe will drive continued consolidation both of local station groups and of national cable networks because the negotiations do become all about scale. And that is one of the things that's driving this merger with Media General is that this brings us to the top of the scale from a local ownership perspective. And I still think, as I've said, that the broadcast channels are the most watched in the bundle, and we generate 35% of the viewing in aggregate in an MVPD home. We get about 12.5% of the consideration in aggregate from the bundle. So we've still got a long way to go until we're close to parity, and I think everybody realizes that. But these are all tough negotiations. But you know what? They've been tough negotiations since 2003, and we had a recent interruption of service with one MVPD. That was the first time that that had happened for us in 10 years since 2005 while renewing approximately 1,200 MVPD agreements along the way. So there'll be sharp elbows negotiations, I'm sure, along the way. Scale will matter on the margin. And so that's why we believe our company needs to be at scale to continue to lead the way in terms of the revenue side of the equation.

James Charles Goss - Barrington Research Associates, Inc.

Analyst

Okay. And Perry, one last thing. Are there any particular digital efforts within Media General that are not in Nexstar that you think can be generalized within the broader platform once the deal is done? Perry Sook - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Sure. There are some pieces that each company provides that the other company doesn't have. For example, HYFN, which is a social media company inside of Media General. We don't really have a social element to our product offering. Conversely, the Media General folks can benefit from what we have with Kixer (53:52), which is kind of our mobile video platform, as well as Yashi. We can apply all of those products across a larger portfolio, and that should provide the revenue synergies that John was asking about earlier. It's just we're not going to quantify it until we make it happen. But yeah, as Tom said, there are things that are duplicate and you won't need to maintain, and there are pieces that – for each puzzle that one side or the other doesn't have, and as we've said all along, we want the best text app, the best product offering, and the best available athletes in this combined entity, in this combined company, and that's the way we're going about constructing the digital piece of the equation.

James Charles Goss - Barrington Research Associates, Inc.

Analyst

All right. Great. Thanks very much. Perry Sook - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Thank you.

Operator

Operator

We'll go next to Barry Lucas with Gabelli & Company. Barry L. Lucas - Gabelli & Company: Thank you, and good morning. Just a couple more on retrains. You were good enough to provide renewals over the last two years. Maybe you could just extend that to what proportion of the legacy business would renew in 2016 and 2017. Tom Carter - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Sure. The 2016 renewals will be somewhere around 42% and the low 40%. There is one mid-year of substance, a top seven or so renewal. And then in 2017, the renewals are slightly less. I don't have the exact number there right now. I'll try and get it for you. Barry L. Lucas - Gabelli & Company: Okay, Tom. Thanks. And if you kind of wrap this up, and just sticking with the legacy Nexstar level of confidence to maintain double-digit growth in net retrans looking out. Tom Carter - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Very high. Two-word answer. Barry L. Lucas - Gabelli & Company: Okay, Tom. You want to quantify it? Tom Carter - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: I thought you quantified the double-digit growth. Barry L. Lucas - Gabelli & Company: Okay. I did. Tom Carter - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Yes. Barry L. Lucas - Gabelli & Company: Thank you.

Operator

Operator

We'll go next to Tracy Young with Evercore ISI.

Tracy Young - Evercore ISI

Analyst

Yes. Just following up on the subs, were there any major deals that came up at the end of the year for 2015, just so we know? Tom Carter - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: You mean other than Cox?

Tracy Young - Evercore ISI

Analyst

That came up at year-end? Tom Carter - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: That came up at year-end, got extended through – you're talking 2015, right?

Tracy Young - Evercore ISI

Analyst

Correct. I just want to make sure we don't have any surprises, or we have a sense of how things will grow in terms of retrans revenue this year. Tom Carter - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Well, Cox was a large one, and that obviously wasn't done until late January, but it was made retroactive through January 1st.

Tracy Young - Evercore ISI

Analyst

Okay. Thanks. And then, in terms of digital, obviously, you're getting close to that $100 million run rate for revenues. Can you give us some sense of margins, or do you think you might be able to break that out going forward for digital? Thanks. Tom Carter - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Well, on a third-party revenue basis, which is basically LAKANA and Yashi, that's somewhere in the probably high-teens to 20% kind of margin business. And then, the stations which is a third is higher than that from a contribution perspective. That's a little bit of just an accounting issue because obviously we don't allocate news expense within the station to the station websites for content creation, they kind of get the benefit of that. But that would be on a contribution margin, probably without full allocations, probably somewhere in the 30% to 40%, and then, depending on allocations less than that.

Tracy Young - Evercore ISI

Analyst

Okay. Great. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

We'll go to Davis Hebert with Wells Fargo.

Davis Hebert - Wells Fargo Securities LLC

Analyst

Hi. Thanks for squeezing me in. I just want to go back to leverage for a moment. You talked generally about it, maybe I could drill down a little bit. You mentioned 4.5 times by year-end which is an LTM number. The 5.5 times you've talked about is a 2015-2016 average. So I'm just asking, is that the year-end number for 2016 or should we expect that 5.5 times to migrate lower as the year progress? And then, I don't want to reach too much here, but if you could talk about 2016-2017, how you see that glide path looking on a two-year average basis. Tom Carter - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Well, Davis, it sounds like you want me to fill out your spreadsheet for you. But the 2015-2016 5.5 times is at close. That will go down on a 2015-2016 average basis by year-end 2016 because we anticipate substantial free cash flow generation in the fourth quarter of 2016 to be applied against the quantum of debt. Having said that, I'm sure I could probably come up with the 2016-2017 leverage number. I just haven't done the math.

Davis Hebert - Wells Fargo Securities LLC

Analyst

Okay. That's helpful. Just on the difference between deal close and year end. And then second question and last question, Media General announced a deal with Nielsen, a long-term deal. So I just wanted to ask collectively between you and Media General how you're approaching audience measurement. Perry Sook - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Well, the deal, I mean, we knew about the deal in December. It was not publicized until January, and it's a three-year deal. I'm not sure I can say that long term. And so it was within their purview to do that to do that, and we're fine with that. We have placed a pretty good-sized bet on Rentrak/comScore. But again, and I just gave this speech when I was speaking with a bunch of students in Washington, the vast majority of our local clients don't care about ratings, they care about, is there more money in my cash register after I ran the advertising than there was before. So it's not really a necessary tool to conduct the business on a day-to-day basis in medium-sized and smaller markets. So I'm not sure that we have a difference in philosophy. The three years of Nielsen exposure will give us an opportunity to evaluate whether that's a value add for the stations, or whether it's just increasing our cost of doing business with no real benefit. And so we'll address that as time goes on. I just wanted also to mention on the leverage calculation. The reason we haven't been specific on 2017 is because we don't know what's going to happen in the spectrum auction. So basically any numbers that we're walking around with here, whether it's guidance or leverage or whatever, assume that there is no proceeds from the spectrum auction. But our…

Davis Hebert - Wells Fargo Securities LLC

Analyst

Okay. Excellent. Really helpful. Thanks again for the commentary. Appreciate it.

Operator

Operator

We'll go next to John Kornreich with JK Media.

John Kornreich - JK Media LP

Analyst

Tom, direct numbers question. Given that you're annualizing 325 (01:02:21) in the fourth quarter for retrans, I guess it did not – that number did not include North Dakota and West Virginia. And you've got some deals that you did in the second half of 2016. I would think 375 (01:02:33) for 2016 legacy is a safe forecast. Tom Carter - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Is there a question in there, John?

John Kornreich - JK Media LP

Analyst

Yes. Do you confirm that? Tom Carter - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: We don't give full-year guidance, but clearly I understand the building blocks that you're coming up with. It includes a partial quarter of West Virginia. It doesn't include anything for North Dakota. But keep in mind, North Dakota is 0.4%, I think, of the U.S. household population, so it's not a big subscriber base. And you're right, there is a mid-year adjustment to a pretty meaningful MVPD. So yes, there should be growth above fourth quarter annualized. I'm not here to say exactly what that is, but yes, there will be building blocks that mean that retrans revenue will be higher than the fourth quarter annualized.

John Kornreich - JK Media LP

Analyst

And besides Cox, what did you do in the second half of any note, in the second half? Perry Sook - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Of 2015?

John Kornreich - JK Media LP

Analyst

Yeah. Perry Sook - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: There were 36 agreements that were up for renewal in Nexstar. Then when we got to West Virginia Media stations, we had another half-a-dozen or so. There were only nine of those that were greater than 25,000 subscribers. So there were some mid-tier companies in there. Cable ONE and (01:04:03) and things like that, that you may have heard of, may not have heard of. But again, it totaled approximately 45% of our subscribers for year-end 2015 once everything was said and done. Tom Carter - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: And the other thing I would just mention, John is, keep in mind that we do have annual escalators in all of our retrans contracts.

John Kornreich - JK Media LP

Analyst

Yeah. Tom Carter - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: And the majority of those contracts do come up at year-end. So you'll get the escalators kicking in in Q1 of 2016. So yes, there are some building blocks for growth above Q4 annualized.

John Kornreich - JK Media LP

Analyst

Would you reiterate what you – I missed this, what you said about local core and national spot core in the fourth quarter. I got the first quarter, but what about the fourth quarter, is it 2%, was it? Tom Carter - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: I'm sorry. For fourth quarter of 2015?

John Kornreich - JK Media LP

Analyst

Yeah. Tom Carter - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Flat.

John Kornreich - JK Media LP

Analyst

Yes. Tom Carter - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Flat for Q4 2015.

John Kornreich - JK Media LP

Analyst

Yes. Tom Carter - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Same station basis.

John Kornreich - JK Media LP

Analyst

Was what, 2%? Tom Carter - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Flat.

John Kornreich - JK Media LP

Analyst

Oh, flat. I'm sorry. Tom Carter - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Zero.

John Kornreich - JK Media LP

Analyst

Yeah. Tom Carter - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Nothing. Flat.

John Kornreich - JK Media LP

Analyst

And last question is, exactly what do you calculate your national penetration to be pro forma for Media General, and any divestitures and other adjustments? Perry Sook - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Assuming that we sell to investor markets as planned and using the current household penetration estimates, we would be at 38.9% of U.S. television household.

John Kornreich - JK Media LP

Analyst

Again. Okay. Thank you. I appreciate it. I'll see you guys in The Breakers. Perry Sook - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Thank you.

Operator

Operator

We'll go next to Michael Kupinski with Noble Financial

Michael A. Kupinski - Noble Financial Capital Markets

Analyst

Thank you. Just a quick question, some of your other broadcast peers appear to be stepping on the accelerator for content development. And I was just wondering now that you'll have a much broader platform. If you can just talk a little bit about your plans for content development, and if there are any specific benchmarks that you can give us in terms of dayparts, primetime versus – and how many hours of programming that you'd like to have at certain benchmarks and timeframes and so forth? Perry Sook - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Sure. Well, I mean, we stepped on the accelerator in 2015 as well, we added about 50 hours a week of local news. Again, we believe that what we do well was local, so we're not going to spend a tremendous amount of time on national – content development for national, given that we produce so much news, our need for syndication programming is much less than CW, MyNetwork and FOX-oriented groups. So I don't think that you're going to see us go into that realm. I don't think you'll see us, you're going to have much interest in national cable networks. We think that that's a tough spot in the media ecosystem to be in. I do think that Media General has something interesting going on with their BiteSizeTV, and we've made no value judgments on that. They've been successful with it in a pure organic sense. It's not making any money yet, but it's – it may well get there. And so I wouldn't rule out – continuing things are being done, but we're going to invest money, we're going to invest money to better serve our local markets in heightened localism. And I don't think that there is an unmet need for additional content beyond the local content we produce every day.

Michael A. Kupinski - Noble Financial Capital Markets

Analyst

Great. Thanks for the color. I appreciate it. Perry Sook - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: You bet.

Operator

Operator

And at this time, I'd like to turn the conference back over to management for any additional or closing comments. Perry Sook - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: All right. Well, thank you very much for staying with us this morning. Thanks for your interest. We look forward to coming back to you in three months time to report on our first quarter results, as well as give you an update on the progress of the Media General transaction as we move through the regulatory and shareholder approval processes. Thanks very much, everyone. Have a great day.

Operator

Operator

And that does conclude today's conference. Thank you all, for your participation.