Edward K. Christian - Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and President Samuel D. Bush - Chief Financial Officer, Senior Vice President and Treasurer

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Third Quarter 2013 Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, Mr. Ed Christian. Mr. Christian, you may begin.

Thank you very much, and thanks to all of you joining us on our third quarter conference call. As is historic with us, here is Sam with the obligatory announcement and some commentary.

Thank you, Ed. This call will contain forward-looking statements about our future performance and results of operations that involve risks and uncertainties that are described in the Risk Factors section of our most recent Form 10-K. Actual results may differ materially from those expressed in this conference call. This call will also contain a discussion of certain non-GAAP financial measures within the meaning of Item 10 of Reg S-K. Reconciliation for all the non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measure is attached in the selected financial data table. During the quarter, we had $206,000 in gross political revenue compared to $1.5 million last year. Excluding political revenue, our gross revenues increased 5.2% for the third quarter. Net revenues increased 1.6% this quarter. We experienced nice growth in both national and local this quarter. We increased our gross local revenue 4.6% or almost $1.2 million over third quarter last year. National increased 11.9% or $539,000 over the same period last year. National accounted for approximately 14% of gross revenue for the quarter compared to 12.8% for the same period last year. We will have a challenge with revenue in the fourth quarter as will every other broadcaster. Fourth quarter of 2012 was a great revenue quarter for Saga, with net revenue increasing 10.3% over 2011, principally due to the $4 million in political revenue we received. Without the political revenue this year, we are expecting to be down mid- to high-single digits. We are working on a number of initiatives to stimulate revenue in the quarter, but even with these efforts, we don't expect to be able to make up the $4 million in political. In the fourth quarter of 2012, political revenue accounted for over 10% of our gross revenue. Our current expectations are for us to…

Thank you. Sam and I have talked about what Q4 is going to be like, and I think it is a safe assumption that he said, obviously, we're going to try and do a little bit better in that. But it's a tough path with political as much as it was last year. But look, in Q3, we were plus 5, if you factor political out and even with that it was 1.6%. And in the industry that seems to be growing at 2%, I think we're doing okay. Okay is not good, right? But actually, my -- I think 1.6% is a little bit shy. My personal projection was for 2% for the quarter. And we should have done a little bit better. A couple of things factoring into that. We have probably a couple of assets that we have targeted in on and then we have talked about them before. And they're still in a workout mode kind of, that's tough word to say. Our networks, we've been hit there with some soft revenues occurring because of a downward spot pressure on the entire sector. Candidly, our industry is awash, in part a response during the years of '09, '10, '11 and '12 and they've been carrying forward. A lot of companies in our industry elected to go with barter in lieu of cash with some goods and services, which created this giant cauldron of spots which becomes available every day and then disappears unused at night. And when you have that kind of inventory and you dump it on, well, I'll use the arcane term, unwired, part of the business or wired in the case of our networks, it does -- it does hurt. I think that's going to change next year. In fact, I know it's…

No, you're passionate about the industry and that's one of the things that people like about Saga.

Well, Saga will continue to be passionate about the industry, not just me, but the company will reflect those values.

Everybody, yes.

I think we answered all the questions. Was there one that we didn't touch on or we're pretty good there?

No, we took care of everything in either your or my comments.

Okay, as usual, Sam and I are around. If anybody has any further comments or something we didn't answer, we, as you know, love to talk about our business and love to talk about Saga. So please feel free to contact us and we will see you in 90 days.

Ladies and gentlemen, that does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for your participation and using the AT&T Executive Teleconference. You may now disconnect.